Following advice of NRE but found ticket not valid for travel.

[LondonJohn]

Posting this here but mods feel free to move if necessary.

I had an advanced Southern ticket from London Victoria to Southampton for travel earlier this week.
I contacted National Rail Enquiries and asked what my options were for travel as I was confused by their website with revised information.

NRE agent advised travel Victoria - Clapham Junction 22 mins after original time of departure, picking up the xx12 SWR service to Southampton. This is what the NRE journey planner said online for a journey from London Victoria to Southampton. He also advised I could pick up the train at Waterloo at xx05 and I could travel on the train before or after my original departure time.

I used my ticket to open the gate at Victoria and changed without seeing a member of staff at Clapham. On the SWR the guard came along and told me my ticket wasn’t valid. I advised him NRE said this was ok to travel and I was advised there was no ticket acceptance in place. I again reiterated the fact I was told this information, the guard eventually said I was very lucky as he would take no further action, none of my details were taken and the ticket opened the exit barriers at Southampton Central nd was retained.

I’ve subsequently found out that Victoria - Southampton trains are leaving London Bridge 3 minutes after the original Victoria time then running as booked to Southampton arriving at the same time.

live spoken to NRE since to make a complaint and the call has been listened to and they confirm the adviser gave incorrect information. I told them best case scenario is I could have been forced to buy a more expensive ticket if I was turned away from Waterloo, got a penalty fare or being prosecuted or delayed by a couple of hours by the time I headed to London Bridge if turned away from Waterloo

They have agreed to send me an amount of travel vouchers as a gesture of goodwill and will provide the necessary feedback.

Had the SWR guard been more officious and issued a penalty fare or even instigated prosecution for travelling without a valid ticket would the fact that I was following the advice of NRE for my ticket type as advised be a valid excuse or would it have been my responsibility to determine the revised arrangements for my journey and travel accordingly.

As an aside I contacted Southen and said if I bought an advance ticket from them and the train was cancelled surely they would email to say you xxxx train is cancelled, you can get a refund or travel on the yyyy train from London Brisge and they advise they don’t have the technological capability for that and the revised journey information was on the website.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

@LondonJohn. So, if I've got this right, you had a London Victoria -> Southampton Central advance ticket, presumably marked "AP Southern Only" but used it in part on a South Western trains service from Clapham Junction to Southampton Central.

When you contacted National Rail Enquiries, are you entirely sure that you definitely made them aware that you were travelling on an advance "AP Southern Only" ticket?

Can understand why whomever you spoke to at NRE might otherwise have advised travelling via Clapham Junction using SWR services to Southampton Central if they weren't aware of you holding an "AP Southern only" ticket and thought you instead had some walk up route "Any Permitted" ticket.

If, however, NRE were so advised of this key fact, then it does seem strange then that they didn't notify you of Southern's London -> Southampton Central service instead starting from London Bridge and that (presumably) you could therefore have travelled by Southern from London Victoria to East Croydon and then from East Croydon to Southampton Central (or possibly from London Bridge directly).

As an aside, I'm not entirely surprised that the ticket barriers did still open at Southampton Central as your ticket was of course for that destination.

Anyone got any similar or other thoughts on this?

 

[LondonJohn]

@LondonJohn. So, if I've got this right, you had a London Victoria -> Southampton Central advance ticket, presumably marked "AP Southern Only" but used it in part on a South Western trains service from Clapham Junction to Southampton Central.

When you contacted National Rail Enquiries, are you entirely sure that you definitely made them aware that you were travelling on an advance "AP Southern Only" ticket?

Can understand why whomever you spoke to at NRE might otherwise have advised travelling via Clapham Junction using SWR services to Southampton Central if they weren't aware of you holding an "AP Southern only" ticket and thought you instead had some walk up route "Any Permitted" ticket.

If, however, NRE were so advised of this key fact, then it does seem strange then that they didn't notify you of Southern's London -> Southampton Central service instead starting from London Bridge and that (presumably) you could therefore have travelled by Southern from London Victoria to East Croydon and then from East Croydon to Southampton Central (or possibly from London Bridge directly).

As an aside, I'm not entirely surprised that the ticket barriers did still open at Southampton Central as your ticket was of course for that destination.

Anyone got any similar or other thoughts on this?

I specifically said I have a Southern advanced ticked booked on the xxxx train from London Victoria on xxxxxx but I understand Southern have a revised timetable this week. Please can you tell me what my replacement journey is as I find the Southern website confusing.

I was told the agent just appeared to look at journey planner from London Victoria to Southampton and hadn’t realised Southern had special arrangements in place (despite me advising I thought special arrangements were in place.

I’m still surprised Southern can’t email me to say yiur xxxx train from Zvictoria now is yyyy from London Bridge if this is no good click here for a refund.

Glad the call to NRE was recorded and located so easily and call back with offer of compensation within 24 hours but just concerned I could have been in a trickier situation in SWR guard wanted to pursue.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Fair enough! Sounds like you asked the right questions. How much compo have you been offered, and how does this compare with the cost of the ticket?

 

[Merseysider]

l’ve spoken to NRE since to make a complaint and the call has been listened to and they confirm the adviser gave incorrect information.

I’ve read on this forum a few times in the past that NRE’s call center advisers are often located in far flung places and have no/limited local knowledge. No idea if this is still the case

 

[30907]

I’ve read on this forum a few times in the past that NRE’s call center advisers are often located in far flung places and have no/limited local knowledge. No idea if this is still the case

It may be, but even when they were directly run something like that could happen - having worked at the SR version (CTEB Waterloo) 40-odd years ago, I can still hear the irate tones of the duty supervisor calling out some error or other (the guilty party could never be traced, none of this recording calls stuff).

Anyway, to set against the aggro, you've ended up with a quicker journey AND some vouchers. Something positive anyway!

 

[LondonJohn]

Fair enough! Sounds like you asked the right questions. How much compo have you been offered, and how does this compare with the cost of the ticket?

It was £20 and the cost of the journey was £5.

I’ve read on this forum a few times in the past that NRE’s call center advisers are often located in far flung places and have no/limited local knowledge. No idea if this is still the case

It was a global call centre, India if I was to guess. That said global operations don’t make them worse or better than UK call centres.

Iniially I called Southern Railways and they told me to speak to NRE as that was their remit. I’d have thought that the TOC with a complex special timetable arrangement would have briefed staff accordingly to assist customers with queries rather than rely on a call centre operative answering questions about the whole of the Uk and expect them to identify a special situation.

I guess my expectations of a Southern customer that booked a southern ticket on the southern website for a southern journey to be provided with information/assistance about southern changes were too much.

 

[AlterEgo]

It was a global call centre, India if I was to guess. That said global operations don’t make them worse or better than UK call centres.

It makes a lot of difference. Indian call centres have absolutely no idea of British geography nor the ticketing system, nor the vagaries of what happens during disruption. Nobody you speak to will ever have taken a train in this country. They are horribly wrong very very often, which I can attest to having dealt with them daily working for a TOC!

 

[WesternLancer]

It was the general uselessness of NRE's outsourced over seas call centre staff that prompted me to start buying the national timetable in the early days of privatization before the web had much info or when I was still reliant on a dial up web connection and modem as the NRE service was so often wrong or lacking in the sort of knowledge I needed to ask them, that it was better to have a UK paper timetable book and look it up myself! I have no faith they are really any much better now for the reasons others have posted.

 

[LondonJohn]

It makes a lot of difference. Indian call centres have absolutely no idea of British geography nor the ticketing system, nor the vagaries of what happens during disruption. Nobody you speak to will ever have taken a train in this country. They are horribly wrong very very often, which I can attest to having dealt with them daily working for a TOC!

I guess it depends on how the training is done. I’ve worked for an institution and we’ve transferred a contact centre and processing site to India. A team from India came to the UK for 2 months and trained amongst UK teams and then this team and a group from the UK office went to India for 2 months to roll out and accredit teams. Daily video calls ironed out problems. I guess the fact that the Indian staff were employed by the company instead of an outsourced company might help.

in contrast the UK based Southern cont#ct centre couldn’t even assist.

I have to say for fares and time information the websites and apps for both NRE and TOC means I’ve not had to call NRE for ages, years even. As a plus point they had located my call within 24 hours, listened to it and called me back with an apology and the goodwill gesture.

im still curious if SWR wanted to pursue would I be “off the hook” as NRE incorrectly advised me or would I have to pursue NRE for financial loss (penalty fare etc) due to their misinformation?

 

[robbeech]

I’m still surprised Southern can’t email me to say yiur xxxx train from Zvictoria now is yyyy from London Bridge if this is no good click here for a refund.

They could, if they wanted. They have your details and could easily send out an email saying it’s all gone wrong and here is a better option. The thing is, any retailer who has your details COULD do this, even if they just sent a generic ‘timetable has changed please check with the operators’ message but you’ve answered your own question really.

“If this is no good click here for a refund”. Why give the passenger that option up front? Some might take them up on the offer and refund. As the situation stands at the moment you’ll have a mix of passengers for a given train that have booked in advance. Some scenarios follow :

* Passenger A needs to make the trip regardless so will change their plans and get the alternative. (No cost to the railway)

* Passenger B doesn’t want the hassle of the changes, was considering going in the car anyway so refunds and takes the car (This costs the railway the ticket cost)

*Passenger C is having to isolate so won’t be making the trip anyway, they knew their ticket was non refundable so had accepted they’d lost the money. They’ve now been presented with an opportunity to get a refund they would otherwise not be entitled to, so take it. (This costs the railway the ticket cost)

* Passenger D was going to visit friends who have now had to isolate, they had accepted they were just going to go to the town / city as a day trip instead because they would have wasted the ticket otherwise. Now they can refund and don’t have to travel. (This costs the railway the ticket price).

It’s much better for the railway to keep quiet and let the passenger down on the day because by saying nothing :

*Passenger A still travels, all be it with added faff which costs the railway nothing.

*Passenger B is already at the station so they will continue by train with added faff and no knowledge that they could get a refund.

*Passenger C won’t turn up at the station so won’t be aware of the changes that would entitle them to a refund.

*Passenger D will turn up, and will likely still travel as they’re unaware they’re entitled to a refund.

There’s absolutely no point telling passengers about specific timetable changes because you’ll end up with less revenue.

Most retailers advertise generic changes and ticket acceptance fairly well but that only works if you go looking for it. But having information ‘pushed’ to you for your specific journey is hit and miss. Some retailers do it, some operators do it, but many don’t.

im still curious if SWR wanted to pursue would I be “off the hook” as NRE incorrectly advised me or would I have to pursue NRE for financial loss (penalty fare etc) due to their misinformation?

I’d say it was unlikely you’d receive a very harsh penalty such as prosecution, but you were lucky not to have been charged an anytime single to your destination. Had you been faced with a heavy penalty / out of court settlement if £100 etc I do wonder if NRE would have decided not to openly offer their apologies.

 

[WesternLancer]

When I do DR with EMR (most recently last week) they have been v simple claims, sometimes sorted v fast, sometimes longer. Each time the auto reply e-mail says along lines of 'our team are looking at this and we will be in touch within 10 working days' or some such, but that has not lead me to firmly conclude that that they are all manually processed. But it's just my hunch that some may be automated.

couple of recent examples from 2 different claims to EMR both from December 2021:

Dear xx

Thank you for your delay repay claim for the following journey. It is now with our team for processing.

From xx to yy on xx/12/2021 at hr:min.

We'll get back to you within 10 working days. In the meantime, please feel free to check the status of your claim anytime on your claim history page. Just click this link.

----and -----(probably a follow up update)

Dear xxx

Thank you for your delay repay claim.

Your claim is currently being processed by one of our team as part of our additional quality checks.

This shouldn't take long, we will aim to get back to you with a decision within 10 working days as originally noted on your confirmation email.

Thank you for your patience.

Regards,

Delay Repay Team
East Midlands Railway

 

[Bletchleyite]

Always better to get any ticket related advice in writing. Twitter is the easiest way to do this.

 

[py_megapixel]

Always better to get any ticket related advice in writing. Twitter is the easiest way to do this.

Some TOCs (anecdotally Northern are the worst for this) seem to have an awkward habit of ignoring tweets from people asking for help in times of disruption. Obviously it's not all staff who will do this but certainly lots of people have talked on this forum about tweeting something like "Stranded at X due to disruption, what are my options?" with the response simply being "Did you manage to continue your journey?" hours later.

Of course while this is going on, the corporate PR sort of tweets continue, though if they use a platform like TweetDeck I think those can be scheduled far in advance, meaning that they are effectively being sent automatically.

 

[robbeech]

Always better to get any ticket related advice in writing. Twitter is the easiest way to do this.

Twitter is certainly the easiest although it’s also the easiest for the operator OR passenger to delete if information comes to light that proves one of them to be incorrect.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Twitter is certainly the easiest although it’s also the easiest for the operator OR passenger to delete if information comes to light that proves one of them to be incorrect.

Though you can of course screenshot it.

 

[robbeech]

Though you can of course screenshot it.

It’s a shame operators / passengers have to do this to ensure they don’t go back on their word but I have found myself screenshotting several things before and have needed to fall back on it when it turns out the operator had made a mistake and had deleted the advice. I suspect it happens frequently the other way around too eg, passenger complains about the 1430 being rammed and the toilet being out of order and then puts a delay repay claim in for the 1630.

 

[SteveM70]

Some TOCs (anecdotally Northern are the worst for this) seem to have an awkward habit of ignoring tweets from people asking for help in times of disruption. Obviously it's not all staff who will do this but certainly lots of people have talked on this forum about tweeting something like "Stranded at X due to disruption, what are my options?" with the response simply being "Did you manage to continue your journey?" hours later.

Of course while this is going on, the corporate PR sort of tweets continue, though if they use a platform like TweetDeck I think those can be scheduled far in advance, meaning that they are effectively being sent automatically.

Northern are indeed a nightmare for it. Although of course, tweets scheduled far in advance can also be unscheduled at the click of a mouse if the proverbial hits the fan. And with Northern, it isn't just promotional stuff at times of service meltdown, its them replying to cranks asking where a certain unit is etc etc.

 

[Flying Snail]

Free call recording apps are available for mobile phones (andriod, no idea about apple), at least you would have proof of following advice given by a rail employee should the worst happen and a prosecution for fare evasion be made.