Refunds on Season tickets

cs194

I had an annual 1-6 London Transport travelcard (on Oyster) worth £1,640. I had 4 months of it left and wanted a refund (as I've gone onto pay as you go) and so sent it back off to Oyster a few days ago. However I just found some small print (which no one told me despite phoning Oyster three times and going into two Tube stations) that says that I won't be refunded pro-rata. In fact it appears I'll be lucky to get a quarter of what I expected (which was £550 which is a big problem as I've all ready borrowed money in anticipation of getting this and I'm very heavily in debt).

How they can justify it by saying that annual season tickets are cheaper than, say, 52 weekly tickets and therefore I should get less back is ludicrious. By buying an annual ticket up front Transport for London are gaining instant capital from millions of commuters, not to mention lots of interest, so of course they can give a bit of money off. That's how anything works when buying in bulk. Not paying me back what they owe me is pretty much fradulent (and that's not even taking into account that we pay some of the highest fares in the world for some of the worst service).

In hindsight I should have sold it on ebay but I didn't know. I don't suppose there's anyway around this?

KeithP

Welcome to the forum cs194.

What it amounts to is that you wanted to buy a product, the 12 month travelcard, and they sold it to you at an agreed price. The product appears to be 'fit for purpose' - you have used it for eight months - but now you have changed your mind and no longer want the product. It could be argued that TfL are being very reasonable in offering you anything.

If everyone got a prorata refund for unused paarts of season tickets, I can imagine MoneySavingExpert recommending that if one wanted a monthly ticket one should buy an annual ticket and get a refund after one month. This would obviously be cheaper than buying a monthly ticket. (It might also be worthwhile getting a loan for the annual outlay).

Good luck with your quest.