Southern Rail ticket sales

Keldin

I tried to order a monthly rail ticket from Southern Rail's website yesterday. After going through the whole process I get to the last page and enter my card details. The amount for the ticket is diplayed plus the total to be charged to my card (which is the same amount). Theres also a listing for postage and card fee, both of which show 0.00
After clicking to buy I get taken to a confirmation page to print out and to my surprise the amount shown charged to my card now includes a 'card fee'

Now the amount is only a pound but the backhanded method of getting this really gets my goat. If I knew they charged for credit cards I would have used my switch card or spent 5 minutes queuing at the station. I also cannot get this charge reversed or the transaction cancelled. Several calls to Southern Rail started with agreeing/admitting that the charge was made with no warning and there should have been one with a 'we'll call you back in 2 hours. Now with no returned call the subsequent calls from me are met with 'we deal with these complaints by post only and anyway it's got nothing to do with us as we don't run the website'

So now I'm reporting it to my bank as a fraudulent charge and letting them deal with it.

There's plenty of warnings on this board about checking the fine print and watching out for card chatges added on to the price. Now it seems you have to watch out for them adding the amount on after the purchase has gone through.

K