To FGW Customer Relations Adviser:
Thank you for the speed with which you responded to my claim for a refund after I was obliged to pay for the same journey twice when the Prepaid Fast Ticket Machine at Temple Meads failed to disgorge my travel ticket to Paddington recently (though it helpfully provided me with the ticket for the seat reservation). It was reassuring to know that your enquiry to the Station Manager did confirm that the new machine was not working efficiently that day.
However, there were one or two points to which I would like to draw your attention. Although I was obliged to pay, in cash, twice and subsequently produce travel details, both receipts and the new ticket which I had to buy and which I was advised to retain at the end of my journey, the refund consisted, not of cash, but travel vouchers to the amount of my second payment. These vouchers were:
Not exchangeable for cash
Did not allow change to be given
Were non-transferable
Were not available for online purchases.
They therefore had to be used, by me and within 12 months, for a further train journey to the same or greater value; and in order to benefit from an Advance Booking reduction I would be obliged to make a special journey from my home to Temple Meads station to make the advance booking instead of completing the transaction from home, as I usually do, online.
Fortunately, the total sum involved was a mere £20.80. Had it been much more I should have greatly preferred a cash refund rather than more travel vouchers. As it is, I foresee that my vouchers will remain in the drawer until the expiration of their validity and will then be thrown away. Someone will in that case have been a small financial beneficiary and I will be a small cash loser who has been put to some inconvenience by the malfunctioning of the station equipment and the efforts necessary to pursue the claim.
Yrs
That's got it off my chest and I think I'll cut and paste this as a letter
Thank you for the speed with which you responded to my claim for a refund after I was obliged to pay for the same journey twice when the Prepaid Fast Ticket Machine at Temple Meads failed to disgorge my travel ticket to Paddington recently (though it helpfully provided me with the ticket for the seat reservation). It was reassuring to know that your enquiry to the Station Manager did confirm that the new machine was not working efficiently that day.
However, there were one or two points to which I would like to draw your attention. Although I was obliged to pay, in cash, twice and subsequently produce travel details, both receipts and the new ticket which I had to buy and which I was advised to retain at the end of my journey, the refund consisted, not of cash, but travel vouchers to the amount of my second payment. These vouchers were:
Not exchangeable for cash
Did not allow change to be given
Were non-transferable
Were not available for online purchases.
They therefore had to be used, by me and within 12 months, for a further train journey to the same or greater value; and in order to benefit from an Advance Booking reduction I would be obliged to make a special journey from my home to Temple Meads station to make the advance booking instead of completing the transaction from home, as I usually do, online.
Fortunately, the total sum involved was a mere £20.80. Had it been much more I should have greatly preferred a cash refund rather than more travel vouchers. As it is, I foresee that my vouchers will remain in the drawer until the expiration of their validity and will then be thrown away. Someone will in that case have been a small financial beneficiary and I will be a small cash loser who has been put to some inconvenience by the malfunctioning of the station equipment and the efforts necessary to pursue the claim.
Yrs
That's got it off my chest and I think I'll cut and paste this as a letter
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