West Coast Train

iantrogg

Now don't shoot me down please.

I might very well be in the wrong here.

I recently travelled to London with my daughters dace school to visit pineapple studios..great day, thoroughly enjoyed it.

I travelled on train, and as I'm a miserable bu!!er I took my laptop. (-wanted to enter competitions on the route down.)

I found the internet connection on the train, after paying 3 quid for to be intermittent. NOT slow. Intermittent. Had to keep refreshing pages to get them to load.

At the end of the trip, I emailed and asked for a refund, as I was unhappy with with the service provided.

Now, I Know this is only 3 quid, but, if I pay for a service, I do expect that if I am not receiving the service I have paid for for it to be at least acknowledged with out complaint..

This is my original email to them.

Good Morning,

I am currently travelling to London on train XC05, - and after paying for 2 hours internet use, I am disappointed by the intermittent service, and slow response times.

I understand that service will be slower than a standard broadband connection, however, I am finding the service so slow that it is unusable.

Please advise how I can apply for a refund.

I paid by SMS with telephone number 0xx.

I look forward to your response with a satisfactory outcome.

Many Thanks

..Please note - I said I am disappointed by the intermittent service, and slow response times.

The Response i got?;


Status: Closed

Yep- Status closed, with no email. - mmm.


I replied with,

I don't understand? Closed? I haven't received a response to my original complaint?

And then I got;

Dear Mr Murry,

Thank you for your email. I'm sorry to read your comments regarding the wifi service on your journey.
Following investigation I can see you were connected from 10:44:59 to 11:46:10 and 11:52:20 to 11:59:27
today with 2 internet session seen. No further connections from your device were seen beyond this time.
During this time connected your device downloaded a large amount of data [48Mb], more than we would
normally expect to see from a connection of this duration. No other passengers connected were seen to be
experiencing difficulties and no issues were reported with the service.

Please ensure there are no programs running in the back ground, such as operating system updates,
streaming or cloud based storage apps that may hamper your ability to browse websites. Please find
below a replacement pass for use on a future journey on a Cross Country service. If you have any
queries regarding this, or indeed any further issues while using the service please don't hesitate to contact
us on 0207 096 6966 (option 1) so we can assist.

02 hour WiFi access code - xxx

Kind regards

<snipped any identifying info>

I then sent

The connection was very intermittent, cutting out continuously. I had to keep refreshing pages in order for them to load. - which certainly may account for what you perceive to be a "large" amount of data.

When I pay for a service, I expect the service to be a certain standard. The service I received fell well below of what I expected.

Please advise how you shall enable a refund. - a replacement pass is no use to me as I am not intending to travel any distance in the foreseeable future.

Thank you

Ian

and I then received

When my colleague responded to you at 12:07 on the 17th February the pass was showing as to only have used 48mb over a duration of 1 hour 10 minutes. At this stage the fair usage policy would have been activated, which would have capped your download speed as not to impact upon other customers use - this is stated in our terms and conditions. From the information I have available to me now, that my colleague wouldn't have had when he first responded, this didn't appear to effect your devices ability to receive data all that much as it proceeded to download 30mb over the next 50 minutes.

All of this would indicate that the equipment and the service provided were working as intended, in this case you would not qualify for a refund. My colleague has provided you with a 2-hour access code as a customer service gesture, this will remain valid for 1 year from the date provided. This can be used on-board any cross-country service. I have included this for you below.

I then replied,

48 mb in 1 hour 10 minutes is not a lot of data at all...
The connection was very intermittent, cutting out continuously. I had to keep refreshing pages in order for them to load. - which certainly may account for what you perceive to be a "large" amount of data.
When I pay for a service, I expect the service to be a certain standard. The service I received fell well below of what I expected.
Please advise how you shall enable a refund. - a replacement pass is no use to me as I am not intending to travel any distance in the foreseeable future.
Thank you

Now I know that a replacement pass is not a bad offer, however I really am not intending to travel to London, or indeed, on a train again for a very long time. I really don't think I should have to accept this.

Long story short,

Last email received,

Dear Mr Murry,

As the SMS provider is currently unable to refund direct to your mobile bill all refunds for passes purchased by SMS are processed via cheque. To facilitate this process please provide the below details:

--Full name
--Full address including post code

Thanks,

.....

Happy.

Then

Good evening Mr Murray



Thank you for using the Cross Country WIFI service and I am sorry to read your comments with regards to the performance.



I have read the comments in the incident ticket and I do believe that my colleagues are correct in their investigation that the WIFI service was operating in a normal state and this is shown by the levels of data you have used:



26.86 MB uploaded
74.64 MB downloaded



However, you have asked for a refund and the notes do indicate that this has been granted by my colleague, therefore, an SMS refund will be processed with the details you have provided:



Mr Ian Murray
22 x

Sx

Nx

Nx
<adress ssnipped>



If in the future you do decide to use the Cross Country WIFI service and have any problems then please do contact me



Regards

Andy

Now, technically, I have won.

But, Really not happy that he agreed with his "colleagues". The fact is

they provided me with a service.
It was crap
they ummed and arrrhed
agreed a refund
but will not admit that their service is flawed.

!!before I get shot down!!

I know its only 3 quid, but that's really not the point.

The service did not, and fundamentally did not work for me. Therfore, I asked for a refund. They, the train company, tried to say no, but I still won.

timbo58

£3, yes I suppose it IS the point but surely there comes a point where £3 isn't really worth moaning about?
Especially when you were refunded !!!!!!.

Thank christ you don't travel with them daily perhaps?
and they can do the same.

Take it as 'a win' if it makes you feel better, however the Toc obviously felt they could use £3 worth of arguing time better elsewhere IMHO.

The_ICT_Engineer

No Cross Country Trains services go to London, the nearest they would get would be Reading or Stansted Airport.

keyser666

I use East Coast Trains for my daily commute to work and use their onboard, it is not to be relied upon but to be used as and when as such. There are so many variables, train signal, tunnels etc.

The west coast line is known for it's horrendous signals all the way down the line and I think 48mb is quite a lot and you done well getting that in such a short period

Jeff_Bridges_hair

It does seem pretty poor but on the other hand are you sure there was nothing else running in thebackround of yoru laptop that could also be slowing down the connection. And if you were trying to stream anything then they are not built for this and indeed I think they try to block such services - youtube/iPlayer and such.

Web pages with lots of pictures on it will also slow down the connection as they will say you are DL too much.

iantrogg

3 quid is not worth complaining about, I realise that.

It really wasn't about the money.

And, In my original complaint to them, I did make it clear that I wasn't expecting a blistering service. However, I think my main complaint was they refused to accept that even though data was downloaded, I still experienced problems.

Yes, in the grand scheme of things, this is nothing. However, guess I needed to vent. - Praise Vent and Warning thread after all.

- They also said they had no other complaints about the service on that train. But - how many people would complain if it only was £3. -- not many I guess.