Rail websites caught selling tickets for cancelled trains

[whole diary]

[stuving]

The thread title was the headline of a Times article today. What's behind it is ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road, formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) pursuing TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) and independent ticket sellers for not showing up-to-date information about trains not running, being altered, involving bustitution, etc. This arose partly from routine monitoring of their performance, partly from looking at the T-x issue which has meant more ticket sales are involved.

There is quite a lot of material on the ORR site about this:

The annual (or so it says) report on consumer service performance.

There is not much to see yet about the May 2018 inquiry, but there is for the timetabling inquiry (including T-12) which started earlier.

Within this, the latest letter (10th July) is presumably the one the Times takes to be threatening legal action - I'm not sure it quite does that, though it does remind TOCs of their licence conditions.

You may find the collation of industry responses to an earlier ORR letter interesting, as much for what it says about the TOCs booking engines as anything else.

There seems to be an implied judgement or assumption (or it may be explained somewhere I've not looked) that the NRE^▸ (National Rail Enquiries) Journey Planner is kept up to date.

[CJB666]

Nothing would surprise me about these despicable fraudulent online companies. The fastest thing in the world is the taken of money from a user's bank / card account for an online purchase.

Ticket selling sites for concerts add on extra fees at the end of a transaction. Even hobby events under the EventsBrite banner (or whatever) sites have extra 'service charges' added on at the end.

eBay and Amazon in cohorts with Paypal have the quickest payment systems known to man, yet when things go wrong it is impossible to contact customer services.

Airlines are also known for fraudulent charges such as correcting the name on a ticket, or for choosing seats, or for luggage.

So train ticket selling websites selling tickets for non-existent trains is but the next fraud.

[Timmer]

I think using the word "fraudulent" is a little strong CJB666.

[JayMac]

eBay and Amazon in cohorts with Paypal have the quickest payment systems known to man, yet when things go wrong it is impossible to contact customer services.

Impossible? Then how come, over the years I've had contact with all three of those? With speedy resolutions often above and beyond the legal minimum they must provide.

Put as much effort into contacting these companies as you do in coming here to needlessly rant and you may just find you'll get the resolution you want.

[CJB666]

eBay and Amazon in cohorts with Paypal have the quickest payment systems known to man, yet when things go wrong it is impossible to contact customer services.

Impossible? Then how come, over the years I've had contact with all three of those? With speedy resolutions often above and beyond the legal minimum they must provide.

Lucky you.