None of you seem to be interested in this from the normals view. Yes booked train only, yes on the wrong train. So excess the ticket as would happen if you were booked plane or ferry only. The T&C clause which states that the ticket has zero value if used in error is frankly ludicrous....
If you turned up at an airport in time for the flight before yours, would the airline let you walk on to that flight? Would the hostess be willing to excess your ticket in mid-air? Or are you more likely to be looking at the inside of a cell for a while afterwards, having not even left the ground? Is that disproportionate to the offence? After all you were only getting the earlier flight, starting and ending the journey in the same place, what's wrong with that?
Infact what you are suggesting people do at the airport is like arriving at the station early, going to the ticket office, excessing the ticket and getting on the earlier train.
Guess what, you can do that with advance fares!
....Is the job of the railway to pursue anyone who has got something wrong with self-righteous zeal to collect an enormous unjustified fine? Or is it to compete against car plane and bus for business? I say it again - to normals advance ticketing offers an enormous fine if you get it wrong with money already paid discounted, something that no airline does. And the way such people are treated is as if they are criminals....
It's not a fine, it's a fare, an ordinary fare available to anyone who wants to board the train. given that the vast majority of passengers can navigate the world of advance fares without problems even those that haven't even passed a GCSE exam, yet Professors and 'Company Directors' seem to be unable to grasp the basic premise! (what is it that 'Company Directors' deal with everyday? Oh yes, contracts!:roll
....I couldn't give a monkeys about the T&Cs and I almost don't care about this individual case. It just highlights the utter madness of a railway industry that has dissappeared up its own backside with a ticketing system full of bear traps.
It's not just the railways is it though, airlines do it, ferry companies do it, evil b*****ds that they are!
A ticket that you paid money for which suddenly becomes worthless if used on the wrong train regardless of circumstance? An utterly illogical pricing structure which makes vacating your seat early (thus depriving the operator of nothing) a crime worth of a very large fine. Or one where booking from A-C via B direct is significantly more expensive than booking the identical ticket with identical restrictions split at B....
Isn't this where you airline analogy would fall to pieces? If you turned up for another flight, what is the ticket worth on that flight? (without changing it)
To say the company does or does not lose money can be argued eihter way with no real evidence to produce an answer. Oh, and it isn't a fine, it's a fare.
....Again, step back from the Terms and Conditions and think rationally about how normals think about what is logical, sensible and just. Then ask who is in the right. Sanity? Or the terms and conditions? Clearly punters have a choice whether or not to buy a ticket and accept the T&Cs. Which is where Rail loses passengers to other more sensibly-priced modes.....
Logical, sensible and just? Hmmm...
You paid a lot less than most others so you can't travel on another service, only the one you have booked, and being told so on atleast one occasion....I think that is logical.
Walking past the ticket office on to a train which you are not booked on and expecting leniency....not exactly sensible.
Seeing the passengers across the aisle being let off with £270 worth of fares purely because they got to the station early....yes, very just indeed
....Whether or not this family acted accidentally or deliberately is not for me the issue. its whether or not a specific train only ticket has retained value if that specific train gets modified?....
I'm sorry, I didn't noticed where they said they attempted to change it....Oh wait, they didn't did they, silly me.
....Or whether the automatic assumption that the 14 year old boy is a heinous criminal who needs to be threatened with jail is a sensible reaction to him travelling 20 minutes too early
If threatening him with jail - so that he will never travel by train again - is sensible because his parents should have digested the T&Cs then I will shut up. Is it?
Do we know he was threatened? Or was the letter saying he
COULD face jail as a result of not paying the fine. Infact, we don't even know if the letter was actually addressed to him (given that a 14 year old is unlikely to have signed a document saying he would pay the fare at a later date)
And we have to bear in mind that this story was in the Daily Hurrah for the Blackshirts, so isn't obviously clear and factual. But the notion of "ticket fraudster" being treated like a criminal for being on the wrong train isn't exactly a leap of the imagination....
But ofcourse we can assume the railway is a nasty, evil, corporation only out to catch innocent, honest, hard working passengers doing things wrong and punish them for it?
....One aspect of banking that I've been following is the battle with the banks over unfair charges. These were in the Terms and Conditions, but were eventually declared unlawful due to the ludicrously disproportionate nature of so many of them. I'd argue that fining passengers an enormous amount of money for being on the wrong train in any circumstance is disproportionate. At the very least excess the AP ticket up to the valid fare rather than this silly notion that no ticket is held. The fact that its in the T&Cs doesn't make "your ticket is now invalid and therefore worthless" sensible. Having missed a plane due to traffic my AP ticket was traded for one valid on the next flight - I paid the difference, I didn't lose the cash spent on the AP ticket....
They are not fining passengers, there are charging a fare, a fare which they could have avoided if they changed the ticket before travelling. They don't hold a ticket for that train so they hold no ticket, it's not a case of your ticket now being invalid because it never was valid on that train!
Where did you pay the difference for the plane fare? On the plane? No, didn't think so.
Surely it would be sensible to allow people on the plane they want to get on (rather than the one they have paid to travel on) and then charge them extra onboard? Then you wouldn't be "wasting time" "needlessly queueing" at the airport.
....We need a simplified ticketing structure where it doesn't have insanities like Thornaby - Croydon AR being significantly more expensive than Thornaby to York AR plus York - Croydon AR. Fewer petty "its in the T&C" restrictions set out to catch people who make an error, fewer "I'm sorry your GC train has broken down, you must buy another ticket for onward travel with NXEC and write to GC's MD for a refund later" scenarios. Where privatisation utterly failed was the notion that punters think that each TOC is different and therefore OK not to cooperate. Its a train. As opposed to another form of transport....
Prices are set by supply and demand, and are based on most people not searching for the cheapest option. Why do you think we have comparison websites? (there are comparison websites for internet Bingo for goodness sake!) It's because people can't be bothered to search for the best option, they want someone else to do it for them!
The RAC and AA can provide the same car insurance cover for the same driver driving the same car, but at different prices, if the costs are the same, why is the price different? to use your logic...Completely bonkers!
....As I've said a few times to many deaf ears, exactly the right kind of jobsworth attitude that puts normals off.
People doing their job correctly is a bad thing?
And people breaking the conditions of a ticket, that they have been warned of atleast once, is a good thing?
Next time you get wronged by the railway, don't complain to us!
This thread is going round in circles.
I actually think RochdalePioneers has some very good points; he is not complaining at the fact that there is a charge for using an AP ticket on the wrong train. He is complaining that the charge is disproportionate. I agree. Watchdog agrees. The general public, I believe, largely agree....
Does he have a good point because you agree with him? because I can't actually see what good points he makes....
