Should any compensation be in vouchers or a true refund

[whole diary]

[grahame]

National Rail^s conditions of carriage mean that if you run into trouble with your train journey your compensation will be in the form of National Rail vouchers. But is this a cop-out?

From Which?

http://conversation.which.co.uk/transport-travel/compensation-for-train-delays-national-rail-vouchers/?

[Bob_Blakey]

The Which article contains the following quote: 'I recently had two train journeys where I was forced to buy a new ticket due to problems with the train I was meant to be travelling on.'

Maybe I'm being thick, but I don't understand why such action would be necessary if the rail industry was at fault.

There is also absolutely no mention of National Rail Conditions of Carriage paragraphs 26 & 27, wherein it states quite clearly that cash or card refunds are available under certain circumstances.

[Brucey]

Southern previously offered cheque as an option, instead of voucher.  This has been stopped, but now Southern issued Rail Travel Vouchers can be exchanged for cash at any Southern ticket office (if the clerk knows how to do it.....)  I don't believe any other TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) offers any form of cash refund though.

I have to agree with Bob_Blakey too, there shouldn't be any reason to buy another ticket, except for misinformation or misunderstanding.

[grahame]

I have to agree with Bob_Blakey too, there shouldn't be any reason to buy another ticket, except for misinformation or misunderstanding.

Agreed as well, but there are times that you really need to know your rights to avoid being out of pocket ... and you aren't going to be informed otherwise by the system.   For example, I travelled on the 18:00 off Paddington on Saturday and there was an announcement that "ONLY Advance tickets with reservations for the 18:00 train will be accepted on this service.   If you are travelling with an advance ticket for any other train you will have to pay the fare as if you did not have a ticket".  Sound reasonable until you consider Mr and Mrs Brown who are travelling on advance tickets from Beccles to Bath, and go held up by an hour when their train from Beccles got delayed at Saxmundham due to a passenger being taken ill ... as they're not regular travellers, I can quite imagine them following the instructions given by the railway employee - the conductor - and looking to claim back via thetrainline through whom they had booked to get a great deal 

[thetrout]

I think cash refund should certainly be an option.

If you end up in credit with your Gas/Electric/Telecoms/Credit Card provider you can ask for that money to be put back into your bank account as you are effectively a creditor to that service provider.

The railway should do the same such as airlines do when they are at fault for delays in excess of a certain time frame. This requirement was actually ruled under an EU^» (European Union - about) Court and has since been re-challenged by numerous airlines including EasyJet which was rejected and the previous court ruling has remained correct. From reading the case notes very briefly it seems the Court was not happy said airlines were challenging the ruling.

A few months ago I overpaid my credit card bill after I accidentally ran the payment through twice. So had a credit card I was in credit with. I was told I would need to wait 28 days for a refund. I explained this was unreasonable considering what would happen if I owed money to them and didn't pay up when asked. It was also a fairly large sum of money I would need access to within 28 days.

After being told it was company policy I asked if I could withdraw the overpaid amount in cash from an ATM^‡(resolve) without incurring any fees or interest. I was told this would be possible so agreed to the proposed solution under the conditions of no fees or interest. This ironically was agreed in writing.

Needless to say they charged their Cash Advance Percentage Fee being an automated computer process and things started to get a little interesting. It took me to resort to filing a County Court Claim and Defaulting on the account in order for them to resolve the matter. They settled out of court on the day they became aware I had filed a claim against them and I certainly got the impression that A) Someone got into a huge amount of trouble and B) They wanted the matter to go away very quickly. The cheque arrived in the post this morning!!