Lost Property Charges on Railways

rking999

Hi,
I recently left my briefcase on a First Capital Connect train into London. A couple of weeks after logging my property as lost with customer services I received a phone call to tell me that they had recovered my briefcase and I should goto to City Thameslink station to collecy my property.

Upon arrival at City Thameslink I was informed that I had to pay a £10 fee to cover the costs of the "courier" service. I asked for proof of the expense incurred, but was obviously not given any as I am sure that they just ferry the lost property from the stations at the end of the line once a every few weeks.

The briefcase has a retail value of £40 so I was charged 25% of the retail value for a service that I would expect to be provided free as part of the original ticket purchase.

I later researched lost property charges & found out that First Great Western (sister company to FCC) advertise their lost property charges & only charge £3 for the return of a briefcase. First Capital Connects website stated that a small fee would be charged (25% is not a small fee) with no breakdown of the costs.

Incensed at the injustice I emailed & phoned customer services. Their response was that the charge was an admin charge, which had changed from the courier charge that was first described to me. They also could not explain the difference of £7 between their sister company. I asked for the details of the government body that regulates them & they did not know.

I called National Rail as they appeared to own the Conditions of Carriage that all rail operators must obide to. To start off woth they knew nothing about it, then they found it on their website. The section on lost property simply states that a rail operator can charge a fee based on the type of item up to £30, but fails to classify what the charges are per item. Nobody from National Rail could provide any further insight into regulatory bodies or where I can go to complain further.

Rail passengers are treated as cach cows and will continue to be treated this way all the time the operators can find loopholes in the regulations to legally milk them. To generate good customer service you need competition, this is not competition, it is meeting target whilst milking passengers in every legal way possible and im getting fed up with it....

Anyway, has anyone else made any progress claiming back unfair lost property charges or pursuing via other means?

thanks,
Richard

custardy

or they could simply dispose of items carelessly left on their property?

wealdroam

Regulatory bodies?
How about The Office of Rail Regulation?

Failing that, you could write to your MP.

Was your briefcase empty?
Surely the whole package, inc contents, was worth more than £40 if the briefcase itself was worth £40?

Can we assume the contents were worth another £40, so 12.5% handling charge?

Or, shock horrors, the contents were missing when the case was returned?

fivetide

At least if they got it off the train at the right station to hand back to you they are one up in that department.

It is a bit of a bind, I do get that but given the mess about it is hardly earth shattering news and you've probably spent more in time and frustration when really you need to chalk it up to experience and be double careful next time.

5t.

Stigy

I know the TOC I work for uses its trains to ferry the lost property to it's main terminus. They are obviously allowed to charge a reasonable fee to deal with customers' lost property, but as has been said they could just dispose of it. Or you could look after items of property more carefully, there's an abundance of announcements warning passengers to take care of their property.

Bear in mind that they only charge you for having it back when it's reached their main lost property department (in other words it wasn't found by staff and the customer handed it back a few hours later), that being the case (excuse the pun!) it could have been in the TOC's custody for upwards of a week, and that's quite a responsibility if the items are valuable.

thenudeone

custardy wrote: »

or they could simply dispose of items carelessly left on their property?

That would clearly be Theft as defined by the Theft Act 1968

Hammyman

rking999 wrote: »

First Capital Connects website stated that a small fee would be charged (25% is not a small fee) with no breakdown of the costs.

How do you work out the fee is 25%? You are charged a flat rate you blithering idiot. You would be charged £10 whether the item was worth a quid or £100,000.

robt_2

thenudeone wrote: »

That would clearly be Theft as defined by the Theft Act 1968

I think the point being made was that the OP should be glad they got their property back and not be so careless in future.

Stigy

thenudeone wrote: »

That would clearly be Theft as defined by the Theft Act 1968

Not sure it would be classed as theft....:D

brokenant

£10 seems like a bargain to me, especially if you carry more than an empty lunch box and a copy of The Sun in it. well done to them for getting it back safely to you.

wealdroam

rking999 wrote: »

I later researched lost property charges & found out that First Great Western (sister company to FCC) advertise their lost property charges & only charge £3 for the return of a briefcase. First Capital Connects website stated that a small fee would be charged (25% is not a small fee) with no breakdown of the costs.

Both Southern Railway and National Express East Anglia reckon that £5 is the 'going rate' (prescribed by ATOC) for a briefcase.