Reimbursement of "consequential loss"

[whole diary]

[TaplowGreen]

Evening all.......this one has probably been done to death elsewhere but in common with many other people, due to the farce last night I was forced to get a taxi home at considerable expense......OK I wasn't "forced" but realistically I wanted to get home sometime before midnight and as FGW^▸ (First Great Western) were unable to give me any prospect of help I decided to JFDI^▸ (just flipping do it (polite version)) and sort myself out.

Needless to say, on enquiring this morning as to the prospect of a refund/compensation in respect of this (my hopes weren't high), I was advised by FGW that "we aren't able to compensate for consequential loss" - clearly this is rubbish, it's not that they are "unable" to help, its because FGW have adopted a policy of not making payments in these circumstances...."not prepared to" would have been a more appropriate statement.......but to be honest, unless they aspire to a Ryanair type service (successfully challenged in the Courts) is this a reasonable position for FGW to take, when people have paid for a service which is not forthcoming and there is no contingency in place for many hours?...........and yes I know "weather" is "beyond the control of the rail industry" (the usual catch all when something goes horribly wrong), but surely the onus is on the supplier to make provision, or refund those who do it themselves?

[ellendune]

but surely the onus is on the supplier to make provision, or refund those who do it themselves?

Only up to a point they are only liable to refund what you have paid I am sure the T&Cs clearly exclude consequential loss as do most airlines.  What airlines have to do is put you up until they can get you home. 

Don't forget if they have to give everyone a taxi home in such circumstances (total loss of railway) then:

• a) there are not enough taxis available for everyone by a long shot
• b) the roads could not take the extra traffic is there were
• c) Paddington to Twyford is relatively cheap by taxi compared to Swindon, Bristol, Exeter, Cardiff or beyond!
• d) They delay minutes would not pay for it so
• e) the fares or subsidy would have to increase to pay for it (don't give me the stupendous profits argument it does not wash unless you are a certain railway trade union leader or a journalist and ignore the facts)

I know passengers were frustrated and I have been there myself, but there is only so much that can be done.  Look at all the knock ons to the service today and think that sorting that mess out might also have cost FGW^▸ (First Great Western) a bob or two!

[JayMac]

Sadly, your contract with a train operator specifically excludes consequential loss. You can only appeal to a train company's better nature.

Condition 42 of the National Rail Conditions of Carriage says:

(c) This Condition 42 sets out the entire liability of the relevant Train Companies in relation to delays, cancellations and poor service. Except as shown in this Condition 42, the Train Companies do not accept liability for any loss (including consequential loss) caused by the delay and/or cancellation of any train. However, they will consider additional claims in exceptional circumstances.

Your refund/compensation rights are limited to the cost (or a proportion of the cost) of the ticket held. And with FGW^▸ (First Great Western) that only applies when delays/cancellations are the fault of the rail industry.

To make it clear, I'm not siding with the train operator here. Just pointing out the position vis ^ vis your contract with said train operator.

Personally, I empathise fully with your frustration TaplowGreen.

[LiskeardRich]

Could FGW^▸ (First Great Western) not put on some coaches/ buses to replace?

I know they are in the wrong place but in Cornwall First bus has in the region of 20- 30 double decker buses sat idle during the school summer holidays, as they are only essentially required for their Truro College contracts. Some spend the summer holidays sat doing nothing, others are sent out to replace single deckers on heavily seasonal routes (freeing up the single deckers). It also leaves from what I've heard 120 hours a day short on driver rota in Cornwall not having the college runs, so would surely mean drivers in need of hours as well

I'm imagining that such school/ college contracts exist all across the First bus empire and this situation is common.

Surely one First division could help another out with the use of their otherwise idle buses and get the rail passengers moving.

Whilst I appreciate double decker buses are not suitable for such journeys, are they better than nothing?

[ellendune]

Yes the buses may be standing idle, but the drivers are not there either. How easy do you think it would be for First to conjure up both buses and drivers at short notice on a Friday evening in London? Also how many buses would be needed to cover for each train cancelled? I guess you would need one double decker for every two carriages of every train cancelled! That's an awful lot of buses and drivers. 

[TaplowGreen]

A Business that cares about its customers doesn't hide behind regulations stating what it doesn't have to do, it asks itself what is the right thing to do and what it can do to help its customers and acts accordingly.

All too often in the case of FGW^▸ (First Great Western) customers are effectively abandoned with little or no help, information or communication - last night was simply beyond the pale and was the culmination of weeks of unreliability.

With the exception of individual pockets of excellence, FGW customer service is poor, and exhibits all the worst attitudes of a monopoly supplier - its the same old thing - 1st class prices for a 4th class service.

To be frank I don't care about the money, if I thought that the experience of last night would have taught FGW something and that there would be a plan in place to treat customers decently if it happens again but I'm not hopeful......I was at Reading and I know numerous people who were at Paddington last night and it sounds like something out of Dante.

[ellendune]

To be frank I don't care about the money, if I thought that the experience of last night would have taught FGW^▸ (First Great Western) something and that there would be a plan in place to treat customers decently if it happens again but I'm not hopeful......I was at Reading and I know numerous people who were at Paddington last night and it sounds like something out of Dante.

Good because that is a lot stronger base to criticise FGW.  They do need to up their gave on communication in the face of disruption... ...even when they have no information from NR^» (Network Rail - home page) on the timings for resumption.  All we ask is thet they are open and honest (oh and there on the ground)!

[LiskeardRich]

You'll also find that their Twitter teams tell you what you want to hear quite often, and then front line staff tell you what they've advise is not possible.

I've sent my complaint to the top now as I lost patience with being fobbed off and not being contacted back when promised.

If you want to send a complaint by email to the top find someone senior's name and then firstname(dot)lastname(at)firstgroup(dot)com works nicely.

(this seems to be the format for most large company's staff email addresses)

It seems delivering on their customer service and promises to customers is a shortfalling within a number of large businesses from my experience recently.

I've had issues with 5 large companies recently, and the only one I can compliment on the way they handled my complaint was Santander, which surprised me as they seemingly have a poor reputation.

[a-driver]

If you've got a receipt for the taxi journey it's still worth submitting even though they say they won't reimburse for consequential doesn't mean to say they won't, even if it's a contribution towards.

I suppose the risk of saying we will cover you for consequential loss is that some passengers might go a bit OTT^▸ (Open Train Times website) with it, you can imagine the helicopters, chaffueur driven limos all outside Paddington station!!!!!
What I' saying is it's a bit hard to say we will cover for consequential loss but listing all the conditions and exceptions.  By saying they will not cover it means passengers are likely to be a bit more prudent with their options of alternative transport

[TaplowGreen]

If you've got a receipt for the taxi journey it's still worth submitting even though they say they won't reimburse for consequential doesn't mean to say they won't, even if it's a contribution towards.

I suppose the risk of saying we will cover you for consequential loss is that some passengers might go a bit OTT^▸ (Open Train Times website) with it, you can imagine the helicopters, chaffueur driven limos all outside Paddington station!!!!!
What I' saying is it's a bit hard to say we will cover for consequential loss but listing all the conditions and exceptions.  By saying they will not cover it means passengers are likely to be a bit more prudent with their options of alternative transport

I reported this back on another thread, but for the record I did submit the receipts with a letter, and got a full refund from FGW^▸ (First Great Western)! 

[SDS]

A Certain FG Open Access TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) did put on their JCheck feed the following message, when Notwork Fails own testing train took the overheads down and then the fatality at Stevenage, which I think was not supposed to go public.

"Customers are authorised to take onward road transport to their destinations".

[bobm]

Can I just make a plea at this point?

The search facility in the forum software is challenged enough at the best of times.

Therefore can we avoid the temptation to replace Network Rail with other versions of the name or DaFT^» (Department for Transport - critical sounding abbreviation I discourage - about) for the DFT^▸ (Department for Transport)?

Thanks awfully.

[Chris from Nailsea]

What he said - please. 

[TaplowGreen]

What he said - please. 

Agreed - childish and irritating.

"Customers are authorised to take onward road transport to their destinations".

-good to see this pragmatic approach being taken - no doubt the cost can be offset by the huge amounts of compo FGW^▸ (First Great Western) receive from NR^» (Network Rail - home page) in such circumstances.

[SDS]

What he said - please. 

Agreed - childish and irritating.

"Customers are authorised to take onward road transport to their destinations".

-good to see this pragmatic approach being taken - no doubt the cost can be offset by the huge amounts of compo FGW^▸ (First Great Western) receive from NR^» (Network Rail - home page) in such circumstances.

It was actually Hull Trains.

And in response to the other thing, make new rules if you want to restrict what I say and how I say it. I always though this was to a legal point (IE non slander/not libellous etc) free and easy speech. Clearly not seeing as im now being ganged up on by two 'mods'.

Unfortunately most of the problems on the railway are caused by NeR. So yes they are a failure and yes they don't work. If they did work then the delays would be less.

Lets take a Quote from East Coast (http://www.eastcoast.co.uk/customer-service/delay-repay/)
"Roughly 15% of delays to our services are caused by things we^re responsible for. 67% are caused by factors Network Rail is responsible for and 19% are due to other train operators. "


This will be my last post, good night.