Southeastern season ticket refund issues

danielhead

Hi all,

I am hoping someone on here may have had a similar experience and be able to help me.

My wife purchased a season ticket with Southeastern railways from Tunbridge Wells to London costing about £4000 a few months ago. We have since changed banks and my wife is giving up work and hence requested a refund of the season ticket.

We went to the station ticket office and they processed the refund and said that by law the refund can only be paid back to the same card that was used to pay for it. We explained that we no longer had the account and were told to contact the bank. We therefore contacted the bank (Santander) and they said there was nothing they could do as card numbers get reused and as we no longer have the account the refund would just get rejected, you need to go back to Southeastern.

How do i get my money back (We are talking about over £1000)? Has anyone had similar experiences? Southeastern are not budging and Santander say there is nothing they can do....

Dan

Livingthedream

I would e-mail the CEO of Southerastern Trains, explain your problem and ask him how he's going to sort it out, hopefully it will get passed to customer services with a bit more priority.

[EMAIL="Charles.Horton@southeasternrailway.co.uk"]Charles.Horton@southeasternrailway.co.uk[/EMAIL]

If that doesn't work then write to Passenger Focus and see what they can do.

And finally if that doesn't work then you could try this.

danielhead

Thanks, I will give thier customer services department one more call next week and if that doesn't work then I will follow your suggestions

Livingthedream

Just remember every day that goes by is less refund for yourself, so don't delay.

danielhead

The refund has already been processed to the old card which is half the problem so we already have a settlement amount..

danielhead

This is still an ongoing saga! Losing the will to live to be honest. This is where we have got to:

Southeastern refused to do anything

Went to citizens advice who went away and confirmed that it was the banks legal obligation to get the payment to us.

Went into Santander local branch who were much more helpful, they put in a request to open the old bank account we used to have with them.

5 or so days later the account got opened however it seems to actual payment was made a couple of days before this!

So went back into Santander branch, they went away and confirmed with accounts that if a payment is made and it does not get transferred automatically into an account, it sits in a holding account for approx 48 hours max in which time the payment would be rejected back to the originating bank.

Spoke to Southeastern, they spoke to their accounts department, they have not had anything back, it's the banks responsibility

Spoke to Santander, they confirmed that they will not look into the transaction properly until a BACS trace is carried out on the amount and if it confirms the money is with them, they will look into it and get it assigned to our account.

Spoke to Southeaster, they looked into is, I mentioned a BACS trace, the person on the phone wasn't sure what that was but said they would look into and put something in writing to confirm they haven't got the amount. This should take 5-10 days..

HellsGranny

In the meantime, as LivingTheDream said, email the CEO of Southeastern, in my experience, getting to the top bloke gets things done much quicker!:)

Cheers, HG

jc808

Southeastern are absolutely BEYOND USELESS in respect of refunds or missold tickets. Best of luck contacting Charles Horton - maybe he will kick his cruddy little franchise into touch, or maybe he wont who knows eh?

danielhead

Complaint with Southeastern has now been closed, they have written to me to confirm they do not have the money.

Complaint with Santander is closed, they have written to me to confirm they do not have the money with a report of the date and time the payment got rejected back.

Complaint now raised with Passenger Focus, though they seem to be as useless as most companies about phoning back! Hopefully they can do something..

Livingthedream

Online small claim court I reckon one of the two companies will settle, unfortunately not too sure one who I would sue first :think:

danielhead

Might be the next step if Passenger Focus can't help. I need to find out who is legally responsible for getting the money back to me before I can take any of them to court.