Translink's annual commuter card

definitivefreak

Last July, I got Translink's annual commuter card to cover train travel from Ballymoney to Belfast. It was paid by my employer, and I was to pay £116 a month out of my salary for a year to cover it. The details I was given at the time stated that if I were to find that I didn't need the card any more, I could claim a refund from Translink for up to 10 months worth of the initial lump sum payment.

Fair enough. I took that to mean that if I left my job after a month of having the card, I could get a 10 month refund and forfeit the 11th month. There was nothing anywhere, online or offline, that suggested otherwise.

I left my job at the end of March this year. Logic states that I had used 9 calendar months of the card, and had 3 remaining. Therefore, as 3 months is less than 10 months, I should have been entitled to a refund of 3 x £116. Yes? Um... no, apparently.

I was given a grand total of £87.

Want to know how it was worked out?

So. The total that was paid for the card was £1392. With me so far? That is a reduction of 20% from 12 x monthly ticket rate of £145. Yes?

They took the £145 figure, timed it by 9, giving £1305. Then they took the amount paid, and took away the £1305 from it. Leaving £87.

What sense does that make!!!???

So I paid £1392, used £1044 of it, got a refund of £87, and effectively paid a cancellation fee of £261. How is that fair?

By the way, I paid the remaining 3 months to my employer out of my final salary.

What I want to know is, how to get that precious £261 back. Can any of you lovely people help me?

D.A.

I would suggest contacting the Consumer Council on this one.

Might also be worth a try emailing Catherine Mason, the boss of Translink. I won't post her email address, but let's just say if you try firstname.lastname@translink.co.uk you might be on the right track. ;-)

Whatever you do, don't use their complaints service - you'll just get some P.R. droid emailing you back with a load of waffle.

definitivefreak

D.A. wrote: »

I would suggest contacting the Consumer Council on this one.

Might also be worth a try emailing Catherine Mason, the boss of Translink. I won't post her email address, but let's just say if you try you might be on the right track. ;-)k

Whatever you do, don't use their complaints service - you'll just get some P.R. droid emailing you back with a load of waffle.

I just wanted to update you on what happened when I emailed the boss of Translink. I got an email from one person with a letter attached from the boss. Here's what it said....

I can advise the Adult Monthly fare from Ballymoney to Belfast (prior to this year’s fares revision) was £145. The Annual Commuter Card price from Ballymoney to Belfast is £1,392 calculated as follows:- £145 (Monthly price) x 12 months minus 20% discount = £1,392

The 20% discount given to customers is (a) to reward the customer’s loyalty for committing to an entire year’s travel and (b) to cover any holiday periods which the customer would have over the course of the year.

The reference to claiming a refund for up to 10 months is that a customer can claim a refund on their ticket for the first 10 of the 12 months of annual travel but cannot claim a refund for the 11th and 12th month (as the discount allowed has been ‘used up’ by the end of the 10th month).

If a customer decides not to complete the full year’s travel it is our policy only to refund the difference between the cost of monthly tickets for the months of travel undertaken and the annual price paid (the theory being that to avail of the 20% discount the customer needs to travel for the entire year). If you had of purchased paper monthly tickets you would have paid £145 x 9 = £1,305 (hence the refund of only £87). The policy described is detailed in Section 6 of our refund policy which contains refund information on all of our ticket types and can be downloaded by clicking the following link on our Translink website.

We offer the refund facility as we cannot ‘force’ a customer to travel for 12 months without any opportunity to opt-out, by the same token if we did not have the refund policy outlined above, a customer could travel for, say, 3 months and obtain the 20% discount (offered only to annual customers) rather than paying the full price of 3 monthly tickets. So effectively the total payment of £1392 was being deducted from your salary by your employer at a rate of 1/12th (£116) per month as your employer was assuming that you would travel for the full 12 months – if your employer had instead deducted the £1392 at a rate of 1/9th (£154.67) per month then you would have still received an £87 refund and would have fully paid for your annual travel pass.

In summary, you have paid us for 9 x monthly tickets at £145 and are not entitled to the 20% discount as this is only offered to customers who travel with us (and pay) for 12 months of the year.

I am sorry that this is not the response that you would have wished for but trust the foregoing clarifies our position in this matter.

They said up there that the customer can claim for the first 10 months. I got 9 months and a bit. This refund policy they're talking about, I was only able to find it by clicking on that link. Why's that? Because it was only issued in July 2010, therefore it wasn't available at the time of my purchase or at the time I cancelled the card.

Who should I go to about this?

kltoddie

I also travelled from Ballymoney to Belfast on the train but I always bought monthly tickets instead of yearly as I wondered what would happen if I left my job.

I can't fault their logic, and look at it this way - a monthly ticket is now £162, so they counted all the monthly tickets at the original £145 and didn't apply any of the (many) price increases.

And anyhow, things to look forward to:
- Not getting back to Ballymoney and finding your car blocked in.
- Not standing the whole way from Belfast to Ballymena.
- Not having to use a ladder to get off the train when it breaks down at Dunloy.
- No more delays due to lorries hitting bridges and waiting on an engineer to see if it's safe for the train to go over the bridge.
- No more delays due to hitting a cow on the line.
- No more delays due to "a fault on the line".
- No more delays due to the train coming the other way.
- No more delays full stop.

KT

NASA_2

I think Translink are well within their rights here to be honest.

I also have an Annual Commuter Travelcard and I know I read somewhere in the literature that there was a 'penalty' in cancelling the card before it ran its course. I cant remember where I saw that but I did see it before taking out my card.

Their logic is sound IMO.

definitivefreak

No, their logic is twisted. I paid the total of £1,392, used 9 months worth and got less than a month's worth back. Not anywhere could I find that there would be such a huge penalty. When I applied last year, all I found was that I'd get up to 10 months refund with a cancellation fee of £5. Since then I've been unable to find it again. And since I've complained, they've put up their cancellation policy. Coincidence?

I'm going to the consumer council. I didn't sign anything that agreed with their so-called policy. I was not made aware of their policy at the time of them getting a big fat cheque for £1,392. I basically paid a £261 cancellation fee. They were earning interest on that cheque, so effectively they got more than £1,392. They wouldn't have got that much interest if I'd been paying the monthly ticket. They were better off.

And, travelling on the trains was the least of my worries. Ballymoney person, if yer so annoyed with being blocked in at the car park, park somewhere else. I used that car park for a long time and I never got blocked in. I never had to stand between Belfast and Ballymena. Thankfully I wasn't on the train the day of the breakdown, but we did have delays and stoppages because of cows and a LOT of people hitting gates and bridges etc. I was late to work many times. You may think £261 isn't that much money, but when yer unemployed due to having no choice, £261 means I can pay my bills for a bit longer. If yer not happy commuting to Belfast, move or get a new job. Don't just assume I'm being unreasonable.

JenniferF

You bought the annual ticket at a price which is only valid if you are travelling for the whole year.

You've only used it for 9 months - why should you expect to get the same discount as those committing to a year? If you bought it and then cancelled after 1 month - do you think you should be able to pay for that month at the discounted price rather than the normal monthly price?

The policy stops people from buying an annual ticket when they actually want a shorter term ticket and then expecting a refund.

You're no longer entitled to the ANNUAL season ticket discount - and therefore have in effect used 9 monthly season tickets at £145.

The remaining 3 months which you have paid to your previous employer less the £87 refund you got is the cost YOU have to pay to cover the discount which was originally given to you.

definitivefreak

JenniferF wrote: »

You bought the annual ticket at a price which is only valid if you are travelling for the whole year.

You've only used it for 9 months - why should you expect to get the same discount as those committing to a year? If you bought it and then cancelled after 1 month - do you think you should be able to pay for that month at the discounted price rather than the normal monthly price?

The policy stops people from buying an annual ticket when they actually want a shorter term ticket and then expecting a refund.

You're no longer entitled to the ANNUAL season ticket discount - and therefore have in effect used 9 monthly season tickets at £145.

The remaining 3 months which you have paid to your previous employer less the £87 refund you got is the cost YOU have to pay to cover the discount which was originally given to you.

I didn't sign anything that said I'd agreed to those conditions. Plus, I didn't willingly leave my job, therefore it was beyond my control the fact that I had to cancel my ticket.

NASA_2

Does this not cover it to some extent?

The basis of refund is not pro rata but is the difference, if any, between:
- The price paid for the Travelcard, and
- The total cost of the appropriate combination of monthly/40 Journey tickets necessary to
cover one return journey per day up to the date the Travelcard was handed in, less the

administration charge of £5.00.

definitivefreak

The document that quote came from was only posted in July 2010. I bought the ticket in June 2009, and cancelled it in April 2010. Therefore it did not apply to me because it was not available to view at the time of purchase or cancellation.

D.A.

If you look here you'll notice that the filename actually contains 180809, so therefore the policy has existed since *at least* August 09.

http://translink.co.uk/resources2007/pdfs/Commuter_Travelcards_replacement_and_duplicates_ticket_pol_180809.pdf