Nothing worse than a broken promise, is there - particularly when it's First Great Western doing the breaking. You may recall that last week I had the horrendous three hour trip on the train that got stuck behind the broken down one. (If you missed this exciting installment, you can catch up on it here.) But anyway, this was the night the train manager was forced to do the Walk of Shame (First Great Western Walk of Shame is now © copyright Economy Klaus 2008) and promised all and sundry compensation.
All of us? Surely not, I thought. So I had sought clarification: "What about if you're a season ticket holder?"
Train manager: "Yes, if you contact First Great Western customer services."...which I duly did, having spoken to someone on the phone who'd told me that a goodwill payment would be considered.
Considered and rejected, that is. Extract from letter as follows:
"Blah blah blah...We do our best to make sure our customers travel safely and arrive on time...blah blah blah...we know that reliability has not been good enough...we have changed the way we plan maintenance and repairs to our fleetl...(EK thinks: Huh? What has any of this to do with my claim?) ...blah blah blah...as a season ticket holder you are entitled to a discount when you renew your ticket...blah blah blah...Apart from the circumstances I have explained...(EK thinks: Ah ha! Now we're getting to the point midway down the second page)...THERE IS NO FURTHER DISCOUNT OR COMPENSATION FOR INDIVIDUAL DELAYS, AND THIS APPLIES TO THE SPECIFIC DELAY ON 1 JULY.
So no wonga, then, for being stuck for three hours on a train while my childminder virtually has one of her own!
All of which begs the question: why did the train manager tell us we'd get compensation? Was it an attempt to quell the angry passengers by telling us we'd be able to make our claim? Or was it a genuine mistake? Or...was the train manager right and are First Great Western customer services wrong? Who knows?
It some respects the answer doesn't really matter because, whichever way you look at it, the service is poor. I certainly hope the train manager wasn't telling a deliberate porky: he's a chap I've seen many times before and he strikes me as earnest and morally upstanding, if not a bumper laugh riot in the morning.
Also, am I right in thinking that FGW customer services must have most of their reply letters in template form so they can just cut and paste in a load of standard paragraphs in an attempt to bore the complainant into a coma before they reach the point at which they actually answer the specific query. (If they are using the template approach, can I suggest just two templates: one bearing the word 'Yes' in 72 point font and the other bearing the word 'No'. That would cut to the chase.)
Anyway, as far as this compensation claim is concerned, it's FGW-1, EK-0. But I live to fight again. (I am losing the will to live because of First Great Western ® is now a registered trademark of Economy Klaus 2008.)
5 comments:
You will get compensation - when you renew your season ticket. As will every other season ticket holder, whether they were on the delayed train or not. (I'm sure you don't give back your 10% discount if you were on no delayed trains the previous month - it's just the luck of the draw)
If this isn't OK, don't buy a season ticket, buy daily tickets and then you will get your daily ticket back if the train is delayed over 60 minutes.
I'm sure the TM was in good faith - personally, I'd lie just to keep the peace if I was in his shoes!
As a season ticket holder, the only thing that irks me is the feeling that if the performance is bad enough to invoke the 10% discount by day 6 or 7 of the month, what is the incentive to even bother trying for the rest of the time! (I appreciate people renew at different times of the month, so I am talking specifically about my season ticket "month")
And also, they have obviously built the 10% into the price as I have had the discount every time I have renewed! So, is it truly compensation? Or just a loaded ticket that they can then take back what they added in the first place?
Quote - "I'm sure you don't give back your 10% discount if you were on no delayed trains the previous month".
No delayed trains for a whole month? Yes please! Where do I sign up for that?
Having suffered at the hands of FGW/Network Rail following the Didcot signalling failure I wrote asking for compensation and received the following reply. It seems that they are using the same excuses for all the claims by season ticket holders. It seems to me that the 10% discount is for last years failure to achieve targets and should not apply for any severe delays in this year!
Thank you for your email of 1 July 2008. I was disappointed to hear about the disruption to your journey from Didcot Parkway to London Paddington on 17 June. Our aim is to make sure our customers travel safely and arrive on time, so I am sorry.
Network Rail have informed us that a power surge caused a complete loss of signalling in the Didcot area at 05:20. As a consequence, we were only able to run a limited service on some routes. We are sorry this happened and Network Rail has assured us they are investigating the cause of the problem.
As a Season Ticket holder you are entitled to a discount when you renew your ticket, if we have not met our punctuality and reliability trigger targets. Reliability is the number of scheduled Monday to Friday trains that actually run. Punctuality is the number of Monday to Friday peak trains that arrive at their destination on time (which means within a set number of minutes of the scheduled time).
When you hold a Season Ticket and we fail to meet one of these triggers for your journey, you get a 5% discount on the cost of your next Season Ticket - as long as you renew within four weeks of the last ticket's expiry, for the same route and same or a shorter period. If we miss both triggers it's 10%. We have recently considered the impact of our performance on our customers and announced that we will be doubling our compensation for the rest of the year.
There are some situations where we are allowed not to count a day for Passengers' Charter statistics. Typically this is when we have particularly serious disruption on the network, although there are other criteria. When we don't count a day we put notices up at the station and give Season Ticket holders a full pro-rata refund for that day. Although this is available to all Season Ticket holders - even if you are not affected by the delay - the usual practice is to offer a goodwill gesture if a specific service or route is badly affected. When we offer this we publish details of how to claim at your station and on our website.
There are no plans to offer a specific gesture of goodwill to season ticket holders affected by the disruption on Tuesday 17 June. I know that this may have been the case for disruptions like this in the past; however these were goodwill gestures made at our discretion to recognise repeated performance issues.
In terms of what is on offer to season ticket holders, you are probably aware that your renewal discount is now doubled for the year, and there is also an enhanced rate for next year. This is a very significant gesture in itself, set up to apologise for poor service, and despite our recent improved performance this discount will cover incidents like this. With this in mind, there will not be any additional payments made on top of the renewal discount.
Thank you again for your email. I hope I have managed to explain clearly how and when we pay compensation on Season Tickets. If you need more information you'll find full details of the current renewal discounts on posters at our stations and on our website.
Yours sincerely
Anthony Ray
Customer Services Advisor
It's a rolling 12 months, not 2006, 2007 2008.
As a season ticket works out at a considerable discount over buying on open ticket every day, season ticket holders are already traveling at a much cheaper rate per journey than passengers who have bought single journey tickets.
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