Great Western Coffee Shop

'I wanna tell you a story'.

I paid for via the GWR website a 1st Class single from Paddington to Reading; to be sent to our daughter in Sussex; around 6 days before travel.
She called the day  before to say it hadn't arrived.
I called a lovely lady at GWR who checked and said that was correct, as in they hadn't yet received a 'delivered' acknowledgment for the ticket.
She put me on hold for a short while, then came back on to say she had arranged for an authority to travel being left at Paddington ticket office.
Daughter went into Paddington ticket office on the day of travel, but they knew nothing about it.
She explained what had happened, and provided the GWR ticket reference.  This they couldn't find, and kept asking for the ticket barcode (which she didn't have!).
As her train was due to leave immently, she paid for her own ticket.
The posted ticket arrived after she returned home a week later.

I kept her bought ticket and tried to claim back via the website.
Unfortunately the website only had a delay repay which came anywhere near claiming.
This of course was refused as the train ran.

I went on to the GWR chat this morning to ask about a refund, but was told unless we had the ORIGINAL ticket, we couldn't claim a refund.
The original which was posted was kept for a few days after she returned home, but then recycled.

Have we lost any chance of a refund, as GWR could see from the post dates that it was delivered late and could thus refund us surely?

Assistance would be appreciated please, especially if there is a small chance of our nearly £50 refund!

With thanks

I woukd suggest you repeat the « call a lovely lady at GWR » again and explain the situation and ask if it (the original ticket) has now been delivered, which presumably they can check and advise you (as if you didn’t know, but don’t let on) that it has. They can almost certaibly advise *when* that was too, and when that advice is that it was delivered after she left home/day if travel(?), THEN ask how you can get if refunded as she has just proved that it was impossible to have used it.
Good luck

Many calls further on........
A gent advised late last week they could see the tickets (package) was delivered on 2nd November, so noted the details down and said he'd pass the case further up the chain.
More calls and emails.
Upshot today after speaking to customer support.
"We can see the package was delivered after the date of travel but we need to see the actual ticket inside as proof"
Reply being "You can't, as they were recycled a few days after receipt as being of no use".

Implication is there was nothing inside the 'package' unless you can prove it.................

May someone please message me with Mark's email address to take this further.
Only been going on a month!

Thanks to a forum member for a link to 'higher up the chain' in GWR.
Issue now fully resolved - full refund and a £10 ticket voucher for future use.

Shouldn't really be necessary in this day and age to have to escalate this type of issue.

Excellent news.

As an aside, credit card sized tickets with a magnetic stripe on the back shouldn't be recycled as the mag stripe contaminates the card. You could I suppose cut off and recycle the narrow bands of card either side but hardly worth it.

With the advance of technology, we will all be seeing less orange tickets around stations not to mention the litter issue.

Now wheres that plastic smartcard?