Virgin Trains are bunch of con artists IMHO. Be warned!

omelette451

Silent_Mule wrote: »

1. To Dazbyd: I don't see why a ticket cannot be reissued? There is no physical - or to my knowledge - legal reason as to why not.

Erm, perhaps because then there would be two tickets that could both be accepted on the train? Each ticket has a unique identifying number on it, but unless the train staff were to be asked to check the numbers manually (or using a barcode or something) it would effectively be a two-for-one deal.

omelette451

poet123 wrote: »

A great outcome.....they clearly knew they were in the wrong(as in not "reasonable" and don't want the publicity,I believe they would have done the same if you had gone down the SCC route(which incidentally is inexpensive,and requires no legal representation or advice).

I would agree that they did it because they don't want the publicity, but I'm going to reserve my judgement on whether it was because they accepted they were in the wrong. I want to stress that I'm not talking about the OP here, but often people write in to the weekend papers with problems that many people would consider to be of their own making and the companies capitulate and pay up, imo simply because it's a relatively cheap way of avoiding adverse publicity and making them seem generous.

poet123

I would agree that a lot of companies would capitulate when the press become involved. However,in this particular case common sense dictates that in "extremis" there should be another way to prove identity (if the CC is stolen or lost). By their own admission their staff have discretion to do so,so the question would have been what other ID could the OP have presented......I can't think of any,nor I assume, could they when they had someone actually look closely at the detail of the case.

dazbyd

Quote:
Originally Posted by Silent Mule

1. To Dazbyd: I don't see why a ticket cannot be reissued? There is no physical - or to my knowledge - legal reason as to why not.

... e-tickets are processed on a different system to Fast Tickets ... and the station staff have no facilities to reissue etickets ...

Silent_Mule

Yes

omelette451 wrote: »

[/list]Erm, perhaps because then there would be two tickets that could both be accepted on the train? Each ticket has a unique identifying number on it, but unless the train staff were to be asked to check the numbers manually (or using a barcode or something) it would effectively be a two-for-one deal.

The e-ticket (the original print of which I have) has a QR code. These are a type of bar code - billed as being 3D - that can hold far more information than traditional bar codes. In Japan they are used exensively to publish information about train and bus timetables - you can get a whole timetable encoded in to one code. We have used them ourselves, where we've sent sensitive documents to clients or partners as it gives us a potential way of knowing who has leaked classified infromation, if it ever gets back to us (you put the name of the individual, their company, and the date the document was sent in to the QR Code). These can be read by simple software that you can download to your mobile phone. I don't actually have the software at the moment but I may try and download it and see what information the VT one contains.

omelette451

Silent_Mule wrote: »

The e-ticket (the original print of which I have) has a QR code. These are a type of bar code - billed as being 3D - that can hold far more information than traditional bar codes.

I don't doubt that this is true, but the vast majority of people using ToD have 'FastTicket' reference codes rather than an 'e-ticket' with a barcode, so for most people the difficulties I mentioned about re-issuing tickets still stand. For your particular case we'd have to find out whether VT keeps records of which 'e-tickets' have been cashed in using the barcode and which have not, but I accept it is potentially possible.

SparciaM

I see that you or someone with an identical story contact The Guardian "Capital Letters" and they managed to get Virgin to give a full refund of all tickets purchased!!!

So it shows, that persistence does pay off.

poet123

I believe it also shows that whilst it is difficult to define what is a "reasonable" term in a contract,most of us know what that is when we see it,and equally most of us know what it isn't when we see it.

Large organisation have unreasonable terms in their contracts all the time,they rely on the little guy thinking it must be allowable, because it is in a contract,and will have been tested.

The reality is that they put these terms in and hope they will get away with it. The moral of this, and lots of other contract issues is, if it still seems unreasonable,after you have thought about it honestly and removed the anger and annoyance from the situation,then it is probable others, including a SCC, will think the same way. So collate the facts and challenge it.

That is the only way change will occur.

samtux

Going to London tomorrow (hopefully) booked via Virgin Trains on an e-ticket, I have printed off the ticket but in the Terms and Conditions you have to produce the credit card that you booked it by. The problem is the original credit card expired in February 2011 so I have cut up as per the instruction from the bank as it is no longer valid and Nationwide sent me a new Debit Card to replace it. They have however sent a new card with a NEW number on it. I am now very upset that the conductor might reject this (it is my birthday tomorrow and I am major stressing over this!) I have a copy of my bank statement with the charge on it. There is not much more I can do! Although it is not my case, what would happen if you got your card stolen or the strip doesn't work so it had to be replaced, THROUGH NO FAULT OF YOUR OWN, would you still be asked to repay when you have already paid). Please, please can someone give me some advice.....

wealdroam

samtux wrote: »

Going to London tomorrow (hopefully) booked via Virgin Trains on an e-ticket, I have printed off the ticket but in the Terms and Conditions you have to produce the credit card that you booked it by. The problem is the original credit card expired in February 2011 so I have cut up as per the instruction from the bank as it is no longer valid and Nationwide sent me a new Debit Card to replace it. They have however sent a new card with a NEW number on it. I am now very upset that the conductor might reject this (it is my birthday tomorrow and I am major stressing over this!) I have a copy of my bank statement with the charge on it. There is not much more I can do! Although it is not my case, what would happen if you got your card stolen or the strip doesn't work so it had to be replaced, THROUGH NO FAULT OF YOUR OWN, would you still be asked to repay when you have already paid). Please, please can someone give me some advice.....

You have answers on your other thread. :beer: