Falsely accused of altering 16-25 railcard by conductor

[island]

It certainly is.

A minor one, and probably not a reportable one, but a breach nonetheless, as that data may be reasonably assumed to be read by someone else.

ALL PII (Personally Identifiable Information) disposed of by a business on paper MUST be shredded or otherwise securely disposed. That an identifiable person (name and address) has purchased a Railcard is definitely PII.

That’s certainly good practice. But you won’t find any of what you posted in the GDPR.

 

[najaB]

Or that, alternatively, they might say it shows you know you didn't have a valid Railcard. Risky in my opinion.

Well the OP doesn't have a valid railcard. Northern have it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That’s certainly good practice. But you won’t find any of what you posted in the GDPR.

Nor will you find a lot of stuff, it doesn't stop it being a data breach in the meaning of the GDPR (which is what I meant; not a direct contravention of the law itself, though failure to handle it correctly *could* be).

 

[furlong]

If you can, take the receipt to the ticket office where you bought the original, say you need it reissuing because a conductor confiscated it and took your details claiming it was invalid because it was no longer readable, and ask if they can reissue it. (If you do this in office hours, they might be willing to phone up internally and try to found out what happened.) If they try to charge you a fee for a lost railcard, you might make a pragmatic decision to pay that and then attempt to claim it back later. (If they ask you to sign anything, be sure to note down the correct circumstances. So don't sign anything saying it was 'lost' - cross that out and write instead that the conductor on the X train from A to B on date Y confiscated it claiming the date was unreadable which you dispute.)

 

[WelshBluebird]

That’s certainly good practice. But you won’t find any of what you posted in the GDPR.

Put it like this, GDPR requires that you must ensure the "confidentiality, integrity and availability" of data.

If you are throwing away documents that have PII on them, without making provisions for that PII to be handled responsibly (aka shredded at the very least), then not only will you be in breach of GDPR (because you havn't ensured any kind of confidentiality) and other data protection laws for that itself, you will also very likely have poor handling of PII in general and probably be in breach of various laws for other reasons too.

 

[njamescouk]

Have seen this sort of bullying by a northern guard before. all part of TOCs attempt to criminalise their customers...

 

[maumay]

Thanks everyone, I went to the Leeds ticket office after work and spoke to someone who was kind and believed me but said there wasn't a whole lot he could do there and then but gave me a number to call which I will do tomorrow and explain what happened.

 

[30907]

I would be worried that they might refuse a refund of this, or only award a partial refund. Or that, alternatively, they might say it shows you know you didn't have a valid Railcard. Risky in my opinion.

Buying a new railcard only shows that the OP doesn't have a valid Railcard on them - I did that once when I'd forgotten mine, in the days before the one-off refund policy.

 

[cuccir]

Have seen this sort of bullying by a northern guard before. all part of TOCs attempt to criminalise their customers...

If the guard sincerely believed that the Railcard had been alterred, he did the right thing.

 

[Hadders]

If you can, take the receipt to the ticket office where you bought the original, say you need it reissuing because a conductor confiscated it and took your details claiming it was invalid because it was no longer readable, and ask if they can reissue it. (If you do this in office hours, they might be willing to phone up internally and try to found out what happened.) If they try to charge you a fee for a lost railcard, you might make a pragmatic decision to pay that and then attempt to claim it back later. (If they ask you to sign anything, be sure to note down the correct circumstances. So don't sign anything saying it was 'lost' - cross that out and write instead that the conductor on the X train from A to B on date Y confiscated it claiming the date was unreadable which you dispute.)

is

I'd be wary of doing this simply because the clerk might decide to keep the receipt, or write or stamp something on it which could inadvertently harm the OP's defence.

The fact that the OP has the original receipt makes the defence pretty water tight. I wouldn't send the original receipt anywhere unless I got a certified copy from a solicitor for my own records.

 

[323235]

I had that as well - guard said it needed re-printing (which I thought was fair) but ticket office man said it was fine.

Agreed this is strange. Incidentally I once had northallerton ticket office refuse to replace a railcard on the grounds you could still make out the expiry date, even though it was badly faded. The railway doesn't help itself sometimes. Would the OP be able to be compensated for any inconvenience as a result of a perfectly valid railcard being confiscated, such as full price travel? This is one of the cases here where I'm very much siding with the OP in every way.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Completed railcard forms *should* be sent off to a central address somewhere, and would then probably be recorded on some sort of database. However, I have seen some clerks put the completed forms straight in the bin, and there is no guarantee that in any event the forms would always arrive at the central address given they are usually sent by second class post. If they are then recorded, the question will arise over who has legitimate access to the information given the requirements of GDPR.

The office is in North Shields, was easier for us to get someone to drop them off on the way home than post them but they didn't like that.

 

[kristiang85]

I remember on a Gold Card I no problem ever, then once day I was refused a ticket discount from a staffed ticket office because she couldn't read it (not that she wanted to look that closely). Fair enough, but I didn't have any other problems in any inspections after that (FYI I just went to an automatic machine and bought a ticket there - not a great advert for keeping ticket offices open).

All in all its frustrating that in this day and age these things don't have a barcode or an electronic record that can be looked up on inspection for avoidance of doubt, instead of relying on a bit of text written on it.

 

[najaB]

All in all its frustrating that in this day and age these things don't have a barcode or an electronic record that can be looked up on inspection for avoidance of doubt, instead of relying on a bit of text written on it.

Barcodes would fade as well. However, the magnetic stripe would (well, should) still be readable.

 

[Gareth Marston]

I remember on a Gold Card I no problem ever, then once day I was refused a ticket discount from a staffed ticket office because she couldn't read it (not that she wanted to look that closely). Fair enough, but I didn't have any other problems in any inspections after that (FYI I just went to an automatic machine and bought a ticket there - not a great advert for keeping ticket offices open).

All in all its frustrating that in this day and age these things don't have a barcode or an electronic record that can be looked up on inspection for avoidance of doubt, instead of relying on a bit of text written on it.

The fragmentation of the industry and the franchsie system has been an active barrier to progression on issues like this.

The overwhelming advantage of the current system is the ability to buy railcards on the spot in a booking office. We had a 2 adults 2 children roll in and ask for returns to London Euston on the day recently - £211.20 Sold them a Family Railcard its was £30.00 + £119.70.

Agree that some sort of identification tag/barcode/ stripe that people can scan would be a advantage as long as they can be issued on the spot.

 

[kristiang85]

Barcodes would fade as well. However, the magnetic stripe would (well, should) still be readable.

Generally more of a barcode will remain to be readable than a single small digit of a number which seems to be the case here. But indeed I was surprised she didn't swipe it, considering the magnetic stripe must be there for a purpose (rthough I know those fail too).

 

[CharlieSpotted]

Generally more of a barcode will remain to be readable than a single small digit of a number which seems to be the case here. But indeed I was surprised she didn't swipe it, considering the magnetic stripe must be there for a purpose (rthough I know those fail too).

That and you can create a barcode (or more accurately a QR code) with incredible error tolerance - I think it was something like 80%. So a bit of damage won't render it useless.

 

[yorkie]

@maumay let us know when you have an update, and we will reopen this thread at that time.

In the meantime there isn't anything to be gained by discussing this further as there are currently too many unknowns...

I have removed a general complaint about the rail industry not complying with consumer law as it was a distraction to the actual dispute. I can understand people's frustrations however we need to keep this thread relevant to the original poster.

Any content which followed on from that deleted post has therefore also been removed.