Forced to buy second ticket because eticket not printed

benjus

pendulum wrote: »

I knew this one would come up. If he can create it in Photoshop to show the driver, then he's perfectly capable of printing a paper copy...


If someone's used a doctored ticket there's not much they can do afterwards... whether the ticket was in paper or electronic form. I'm not convinced that's a good reason. The only thing I can think of is they have a system whereby they scan a barcode on the ticket into a computer and that checks against a database that the ticket is valid. Even then, you would think they'd have a backup method of validating the ticket for when customers forget their tickets, the scanning machine breaks down, or where tickets are hard to read by the machine (e.g. affected by rain and creases).

Maybe... maybe not... they require you to present photo ID when travelling, so unless you had some fake ID you would have to put your real name on the fake ticket meaning that they could potentially find you. Obviously it would not be easy for them to do this in practice, but the psychological impact of giving them a hard copy of a fraudulent document with your real name on it would probably put most people off.

And while I know exactly what "Print to File" means, I would not say that it meets the general (i.e. non-IT-specific) meaning of "Print" that is being used here.

Flyboy152

big-saver wrote: »

I bought an e-ticket online for a coach from Heathrow - Gatwick return from this website: http://www.oxfordbus.co.uk/main.php?page_id=68

The booking process required me to print a ticket after purchase.

After purchase I printed a PDF of my e-ticket. I showed this PDF to the driver on my laptop and iPhone. The ticket had my name and address and unique reference number. I also showed him my passport. The driver would not accept it saying it must be printed on paper. I was forced to buy another ticket for £27.

1. Are they legally allowed to decline an e-ticket that is presented on screen instead of on paper?

2. Is it discriminatory against people who do not have access to a printer?

3. Are there other legal approaches I can use to force this company to change their policy on insisting on paper-printed tickets? (I have never come across such a policy before - no airline requires e-tickets to be printed on paper).

Thanks for your help!

Why didn't you bring it with you?

King_Nothing

Flyboy152 wrote: »

Why didn't you bring it with you?

I suspect when he is saying "printed a PDF" he actually means saved to file, i.e. saved a copy of teh PDF from teh website onto his laptop's HDD, and saved a copy of the PDF onto his iPhone.

dzug1

big-saver wrote: »

I bought an e-ticket online for a coach from Heathrow - Gatwick return from this website: http://www.oxfordbus.co.uk/main.php?page_id=68

The booking process required me to print a ticket after purchase.

After purchase I printed a PDF of my e-ticket. I showed this PDF to the driver on my laptop and iPhone. The ticket had my name and address and unique reference number. I also showed him my passport. The driver would not accept it saying it must be printed on paper. I was forced to buy another ticket for £27.

1. Are they legally allowed to decline an e-ticket that is presented on screen instead of on paper?

2. Is it discriminatory against people who do not have access to a printer?

3. Are there other legal approaches I can use to force this company to change their policy on insisting on paper-printed tickets? (I have never come across such a policy before - no airline requires e-tickets to be printed on paper).

Thanks for your help!

1 yes
2 yes - there's no law against that form of discrimination though.
3 no

It beats me why you bought it in advance anyway - you didn't save anything. Quite the contrary as it turned out

Tilt

pendulum wrote: »

Technically he did print it, but to another file instead of on paper. I know printing is generally accepted to mean printing something to paper, but not always. If they wanted a ticket on paper they should have said so. If he could show the ticket on-screen, it would look the same on-screen as it would on paper, so why didn't they accept it? They could have jotted down any important details for the purposes of keeping a record if they wanted.

Clearly you havn't read the thread from the beginning.

pendulum

King_Nothing wrote: »

Saving a file directly onto your hard drive or transferring it onto your iPhone is not called printing.

King_Nothing wrote: »

I suspect when he is saying "printed a PDF" he actually means saved to file, i.e. saved a copy of teh PDF from teh website onto his laptop's HDD, and saved a copy of the PDF onto his iPhone.

Perhaps when he says he printed a PDF, he means what he said, ie he went File -> Print, and chose a PDF Printer application to print to PDF. You know what a PDF printer application is, right?

Tilt wrote: »

Clearly you havn't (???) read the thread from the beginning.

I have, so clearly you're wrong.

pendulum

Where the terms and conditions aren't clear, I think the consumer should be given the benefit of the doubt especially when dealing with big companies.

pendulum

Flyboy152 wrote: »

Why didn't you bring it with you?

He did bring the PDF printout with him. In digital form. He was in possession of it the whole time as required by the T&C's.

King_Nothing

pendulum wrote: »

Perhaps when he says he printed a PDF, he means what he said, ie he went File -> Print, and chose a PDF Printer application to print to PDF. You know what a PDF printer application is, right?

Yes, it's the thing that the bus company will have already used to generate a PDF file for him, containing all the deatils he had entered on their website, ready for him to print out.

pendulum

No, that is not what a PDF printer application is.
Go learn the difference between a PDF writer, a PDF reader and a PDF printer then come back.

If my take on his post is correct then the website was HTML, not PDF, and he's used a PDF printer application to print to PDF, then he took that PDF with him. That's what is enabling him to say he printed it. If he just copied the PDF they displayed on their website to his iPhone, that's not printing, it's copying, but I think he knows that.