Problems with Greater Anglia delay repay outsourced to "Travel Compensation Services"

jamesbrownontheroad

Hello all.

A couple of weeks ago I was delayed by more than two hours when a train from London to Norwich was cancelled due to a suspected defective track.

Since the last 'delay repay' claim I made with Abellio Greater Anglia, the company appears to have shut down their own claims department and outsourced them to Travel Compensation Services.

The claim process was all online, and involved uploading a photograph of the tickets as opposed to sending off the paper tickets themselves.

However something with the claim has gone wrong. It was authorised for a 100% refund, and TCS claim the payment has been made to directly to my debit card (note - not a bank transfer... I didn't enter my account number and sort code, but used the iOS camera to read my debit card's 16 digit number and enter it in a web form.)

The process has now stalled completely. TCS have emailed saying it's been paid, there's nothing they can do, and have given me an "ARN" number to pursue the claim with my bank. HSBC / First Direct can find no record of a payment, and have told me that the ARN is useless without a specific transaction to relate it to.

TCS have shut the claim, and have provided no direct contact details, emailing me from a 'no reply' email address at a duff web domain.

Has anyone else had positive or negative experiences with this new outsourced service?

KeithP

Was the sixteen digit number on the form the same as that on the card?

Or did your telephone make a mistake?

jamesbrownontheroad

KeithP wrote: »

Was the sixteen digit number on the form the same as that on the card?

Or did your telephone make a mistake?

There's no way of checking, because the claim form doesn't show this info. I've asked them to confirm it, but I'm expecting them to refuse to release that info for security reasons...

KeithP

But surely if you now send them the real sixteen digit number and ask them to confirm whether it is the same as the one you sent earlier, they should have no trouble giving a 'yes' or 'no' answer.

If they say 'no' then I guess you may have to write off the money as you gave them wrong information.

KeithP

Perhaps another route would be to seek a chargeback via your bank.

Reason = promised refund never received.

You will probably need to show your bank proof that they did promise a refund, but you appear to have that proof.

Have a read of MSE's Chargeback article for details.

Did you buy the tickets using that debit card?
If not, that may be a stumbling block.

jamesbrownontheroad

KeithP wrote: »

But surely if you now send them the real sixteen digit number and ask them to confirm whether it is the same as the one you sent earlier, they should have no trouble giving a 'yes' or 'no' answer.

If they say 'no' then I guess you may have to write off the money as you gave them wrong information.

The difficulty here is that there is no contact info. TCS use a no replh email address to send messages, and the delay repay claim is now closed to any appeals via the website. I've had to scrape an email from their website and cc in Greater Anglia customer service.

jamesbrownontheroad

KeithP wrote: »

Did you buy the tickets using that debit card?
If not, that may be a stumbling block.

Thanks for the suggestion. This is where it might get complicated, as I bought the tickets with a credit card from another retailer as part of a large (16 trip) block booking of many weeks' travel. ;(