Ticket on Departure Collection Issues

[Tevion539]

Hope this is the right forum...

My mother in law has recently bought tickets from SWANSEA-READING-SOUTHAMPTON CENTRAL (returns) through trainline - when collecting the tickets, she had issues with printing them. At the first two attempts her card decline (never heard of a card declining when collecting, but I've only been with the railway 10 months!) When successful, only the Inbound portion printed. When trying again, she had an error to say part collected. If she goes to the ticket office, can they print off the outbound or should she contact Trainline for assistance? Dont really see refunding the ticket and re-purchasing being viable though...

Thanks for any assistance

 

[transportphoto]

If she goes to the ticket office, can they print off the outbound

In theory, yes.

 

[Hadders]

There is an internal procedure for tickets offices to deal with this sort of thing. That said I wouldn't be confident of getting staff to follow it, I'd bet my pockets money on staff referring you to Trainline who in turn will say it's up to the ticket office...

 

[OscarH]

never heard of a card declining when collecting, but I've only been with the railway 10 months!

I think most likely the read failed, rather than a decline in the usual card send. The machines seem really unreliable at times I have this way, and the error messaging isn't great. I've been confused by that happing and getting a poor error before

There is an internal procedure for tickets offices to deal with this sort of thing. That said I wouldn't be confident of getting staff to follow it, I'd bet my pockets money on staff referring you to Trainline who in turn will say it's up to the ticket office...

Indeed, and depending exactly what went wrong how it got recorded (which neither OP or any of us can know) will strongly affect the likely outcome I suspect

 

[Haywain]

Indeed, and depending exactly what went wrong how it got recorded (which neither OP or any of us can know) will strongly affect the likely outcome I suspect

If the TVM showed it as part printed that is how other ticket issuing systems with ToD capability will show it.

 

[OscarH]

If the TVM showed it as part printed that is how other ticket issuing systems with ToD capability will show it.

Oh bloody hell, I missed that bit. Yeah, if it says part collected it should be be relatively easy to get them printed

 

[yorkie]

In theory a ticket office should reprint them, but I am aware of many instances where ticket offices have declined (either unable or unwilling) to help. Good luck! Let us know how you get on.

If the ticket office won't help I would be approaching staff on the train (ideally I would approach them before departure)

 

[Tevion539]

If the ticket office won't help I would be approaching staff on the train (ideally I would approach them before departure)

See, I work as operational train crew and if I was faced with this situation I'd be more than happy to give the customer the benefit of the doubt! I've never experienced anything like this before!

Turns out the ticket office cannot find the tickets either. Trainline have said that the tickets had already been collected and they cannot issue a refund. Apparently another journey was booked to Lymington Town and had collected the tickets at 4am whilst she was in Bristol, so this is looking like a much more serious situation. Possibly had her card duped, so we will are now approaching his from a fraud aspect....

Trainline have said they will since make an exception to their "post the tickets back, or no refund will be given" rule as a result as long as she buys new tickets. They will refund the cost of the new tickets so shes not out of pocket.

We'll have to wait 48-72 hours for a response regarding the Lymington journey and the bank will be informed too of course.

Thanks everyone for input and advice so far - we just didn't want to have wasted trips to and from the station to sort it out if we hear anything more, I will update this thread.

 

[extendedpaul]

I sometimes get an immediate message "Please Remove Card" when I insert my bank card to collect a ticket, instead of the "Card Being Checked" one. However when this happens the machine still moves on to the next screen suggesting nothing is wrong.

While I know to cancel the transaction and start again I have twice stood behind people who don't know this. They got to the end of the collection process and only then was an error message displayed along the lines that the card cannot be used to collect the ticket. Cue slight panic. On both occasions I spoke to the person and they - successfully - tried again. It must happen quite frequently.

A more helpful wording would perhaps be "Sorry, your card could not be read, please remove it and try again"

 

[Class800]

I sometimes get an immediate message "Please Remove Card" when I insert my bank card to collect a ticket, instead of the "Card Being Checked" one. However when this happens the machine still moves on to the next screen suggesting nothing is wrong.

While I know to cancel the transaction and start again I have twice stood behind people who don't know this. They got to the end of the collection process and only then was an error message displayed along the lines that the card cannot be used to collect the ticket. Cue slight panic. On both occasions I spoke to the person and they - successfully - tried again. It must happen quite frequently.

A more helpful wording would perhaps be "Sorry, your card could not be read, please remove it and try again"

Please remove card for me is resolved by putting card in backwards. Some machines seem to take the card the other way round

 

[CyrusWuff]

Please remove card for me is resolved by putting card in backwards. Some machines seem to take the card the other way round

As an aside, Flowbird TVMs (used by Chiltern, LNER and Northern) let you use the contactless reader for ToD as an alternative to the magstripe/chip reader.