Being consistently overcharged at Station

cubegame

Good morning.

I wonder if there's anything I can do about this situation. We infrequently travel to London from Burgess Hill and have noticed a trend. Namely, that we have looked at National Rail Enquiries and priced tickets which are consistently 3 to 4 pounds cheaper than those available at the station.

For example, yesterday, National Rail enquiries was quoting a Super Off Peak Return with Zone 1 to 6 TFL Travelcard as being UKP 13.50, whereas we were charged UKP 17.00 despite asking for the ticket by name. I mentioned this to the ticket officer and he said that fare was not available. It's normally too busy to argue so I let it slip.

However, it now occurs to me that this bloke (same one everytime) is up to something and is entering higher values than we should be charged into the machines.

Any thoughts? Can I try and reclaim this money? I probably have 8 tickets which have been overcharged in this manner.

Bowling_4_Gold

Could you not just use the self-service machine to see if you are being charged the correct fare? Then youwill be able to know if you are being charged £17 because of the man's error, or whether he is charging you the correct fare for the station.

dzug1

Write to customer services of the rail company concerned with the tickets asking for a refund.

He doesn't enter fare values into the machine - it tells him what they are. So:

the machine is programmed wrongly
or
he doesn't know how to ask it for the fare you want
or
the online site is wrong.

Either way customer services should - eventually - sort it out

Aileen_Una

Could it not just be an online discount / web fare?

TimothyEBaldwin

Aileen_Una wrote: »

Could it not just be an online discount / web fare?

National Rail Enquires does not list such fares.

KeithP

A Super Off Peak Return from Burgess Hill to London All Zones Travelcard is as you say £13.50. An Off Peak Return is £17.00. Both these are via First Capital Connect only.

Now, First Capital Connect's terms restrict their Super Off Peak Returns to weekends... see here. There appears to be no availability on weekdays.

What day of the week were you travelling?

cubegame

KeithP wrote: »

A Super Off Peak Return from Burgess Hill to London All Zones Travelcard is as you say £13.50. An Off Peak Return is £17.00. Both these are via First Capital Connect only.

Now, First Capital Connect's terms restrict their Super Off Peak Returns to weekends... see here. There appears to be no availability on weekdays.

What day of the week were you travelling?

Always on a saturday. And always put the right train times in on National Rail Enquires....

Hintza

Are you just travelling one way?

KeithP

Ahhh....
Haven't FCC had difficulty running any trains to Brighton recently?

If there were no FCC trains, despite what the timetable or NRE said, the ticket seller was probably right not to sell an 'FCC only' ticket.

catflea

KeithP wrote: »

Ahhh....
Haven't FCC had difficulty running any trains to Brighton recently?

Yep, but all seem to be running again now....

Cardelia

KeithP wrote: »

Ahhh....
Haven't FCC had difficulty running any trains to Brighton recently?

If there were no FCC trains, despite what the timetable or NRE said, the ticket seller was probably right not to sell an 'FCC only' ticket.

There were only one or two days recently where FCC decided to cancel the entire Brighton service and I'm pretty sure those were weekdays. For most of the past 3 months the weekday service has been severely reduced, although the weekend service was mostly unaffected because fewer trains are timetabled for weekends anyway. And in any case, the trains which were cancelled were mostly the fast trains which tend to miss out Burgess Hill - the stopping services were mostly run as per 'normal' (so about 20 minutes late...)

I can't think of any reason why FCC-only tickets couldn't have been sold except for the fact that Burgess Hill station is run by Southern, so the ticket vendor may not be aware the FCC-only fares exist. It's definitely worth writing to Southern Customer Services and asking for a refund. One word of caution though - if Southern decide to be stubborn, they may ask you to prove that you only travelled on FCC trains on the days in question, which will be next to impossible.