Greater Anglia taxi refund question

[andylikestrain]

Hi all
During August there was a fire near the GE mainline somewhere near Ipswich, so the train my cousin was travelling on from London to Norwich was terminated at Manningtree. After some time, the passengers were informed that they could either return to London and go via Cambridge, or to return to Colchester where taxis would be provided to get to Ipswich, where they could get to Norwich via Lowestoft.

My cousin checked that the taxi would be provided with the on train staff on the journey to Colchester. When they arrived at Colchester, the staff there claimed to know nothing about it. As a consequence, they took a shared taxi to Ipswich.

Greater Anglia are now refusing to pay the taxi fare as part of the delay repay claim. Does anyone know if they are correct to do this? Or is it part of their responsibilities after telling passengers it was part of an alternative route?

Many thanks

 

[Tazi Hupefi]

Probably wasn't the best idea to claim delay repay using the automated web form etc.

Anything other than the ordinary claim needs to be in a proper email or letter, setting out clearly what has happened, and what you want to be done about it, with any evidence or supporting documentation.

You have to imagine that the person reading it knows only the very basics about the railway and they're likely in an outsourced call centre some distance away from your "local network".

If you don't get a satisfactory response to that, you gradually escalate until you reach a deadlock point. But you're some way of that yet - so just start again as above.

You can't claim taxi fares other incidental costs back as part of the Delay Repay scheme either - you'd need to make it clear you're claiming seperately.

 

[island]

Greater Anglia are now refusing to pay the taxi fare as part of the delay repay claim.

Taxi fares are not part of a DelayRepay claim and need to be claimed for separately.

 

[andylikestrain]

Thanks, both.

 

[Tram203]

Obviously only your cousin knows the full and intricate detail of events on the day, but in addition to echoing the comments of others I would add that this sounds like one where your cousin should be prepared to fight if needs be.

Train companies have a disgraceful habit of trying to get passengers with genuine out of pocket expense claims to go away and try to find ways to not pay them back, e.g by saying "what taxis? You took a taxi, that's your problem".