Here is the letter that Paul rowlands wrote.

Tickets to travel

Hi,
My wife and I travelled into Manchester on Sunday 18th December 2011. We were dropped off at Piccadilly Station, and before we headed into town we thought it wise to purchase tickets to get back to Wilmslow, to avoid a rush at the end of the night. We did so, using a Virgin ticket machine, at a cost of £2.20 each (off peak).

We arrived back at the station later in the evening, and boarded the Wilmslow train. This was the Arriva 21.34 to Crewe. The ticket collector asked for our tickets, which we duly produced, only to be told they were not valid for travel. He pointed out the very small lettering that stated the tickets were only valid on Virgin trains - something I was totally unaware of. Given I was travelling the same route, I assumed all tickets were valid on all trains.

The ticket inspector then proceeded to charge me £9.60 for an Anytime Day single. I challenged this, as my original tickets, which I thought were valid, were £2.20 each. He explained the Anytime ticket was the cheapest available.

I'd like to put this in context.I travel into Manchester from Wilmslow on the train quite regularly, and I was never made aware that a ticket purchased from a Virgin machine wan't valid on Arriva. We are only talking about £10, but frankly I think this is disgraceful! Surely the ticket collector could have exercised a little common sense, as it was clear I'd purchased a ticket in good faith?

I always buy a ticket to travel, I've never dodged a fair in my life, and I even cleaned up the table before my wife and I sat down, only to feel ripped off be a train company I thought was decent.

Very disappointed.

Paul Rowlands

Most ticket machines will display all fares and you should than have the option to select the one you want and re4ad CAREFULLY the qualifying text. I regularly travel Glasgow to Leeds and the fare I pay via Appleby is roughly £47 return, which I select specifically in preference to the £90 or so for via other routes.

I can get a half price walk-up fare between Glasgow and Newcastle if I narrow my option to Cross Country only and saved £10 on Stoke to Manchester by using Virgin in place of Cross Country for the trip. With a restricted fare like this all the fare goes to the nominated operator rather than a portion based on the calculated share of the fare like yours.

I can't help wondering whether you would have actually been better off getting a TfGM ranger fare - unlimited travel to their boundary stations with a real bargain for travel after 18.30 - valid on all trains to the last station stop within/at the boundary.

Lesson learned but a PR fail for YAC/ATW.

Hi Paul,

I've forwarded your message on to Virgin too, as it also concerns them. Good luck getting a decent response.

A better PR action would have been to recognise a bona fide mistake and waive the penalty "this time". A bus driver who treats the forgetful pensioner with a friendly 'remember your pass next time' delivers a far better result than a miserly one demanding they pay the full fare - word soon spreads and it loses far more business than the tiny sum gained

Tickets from the Virgin machine are valid on Arriva trains. The problem is that the £2.20 to ticket is only valid on Virgin services. Having said that I have every sympathy for you as this is entirely the fault of the very complex fares system as I believe there is in fact no ‘Off-Peak Single’ fare apart from the Virgin specific one; you are expected to buy a return instead!

In the case of Manchester Piccadilly to Wilmslow, a search on National Rail Enquiries for trains on a Sunday evening gives no less than 8 different fares:
Off-Peak=£2.30 "Off-Peak Day Single"
Off-Peak=£2.75 "Cheap Evening Return"
Off-Peak=£4.50 "Off-Peak Day Return"
Off-Peak=£5.50 "Off-Peak Day Return"
Anytime=£4.20 "Anytime Day Single"
Anytime=£5.10 "Anytime Day Single"
Anytime=£5.80 "Anytime Day Return"
Anytime=£7.40 "Anytime Day Return"

As I mentioned what is particularly confusing is that there is only on 'Off-Peak' single and this is the one which is only valid on Virgin services. For any other operator you would need to buy a “Cheap Evening Return”. For anyone making a single journey in the Off-Peak it would be extremely easy to choose this at a ticket machine, rather than the "correct" thing which is to buy a return and throw away part of this.

This is of course insane, but things like this have been allowed to persist for years during which time the Department for Transport have just ignored the problem, with the rail industry claiming it has simplified the fares a couple of years ago whereas in fact they just renamed a few of them.

Fortunately there is now an organisation which is specifically campaigning for a thorough overhaul of the fares system, and also successfully campaigned to reduce the size of the fares rise this year. They also have a good understanding of what is wrong.
They are:
http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/fairfares/
"help make fares cheaper, simpler and fairer".

Dear Michael,

Thank you for your response. It has come as a pleasant suprise given the previous response from Arriva Trains Wales, which pretty much stated I need to seek help when buying a ticket from a machine. The truth is, I used the Virgin self service machine as it was familiar, available and fast. I had absolutely no idea the tickets from this machine were not valid on all journeys, in all instances - a salutory lesson learnt.

For the record this is something of a concern. I am a fairly switched on person who travels regularly, and if I can fall foul of this disconnect in the system, I genuinely feel for the more vunerable passenger, who, like me, buys a ticket in good faith, only to be caught out.

Unfortunately, I had assumed this whole episode had been resolved to my dissatisfaction, and had made a point of avoiding Arriva Trains Wales in the future. I've therefore destroyed the 'unused' tickets we purchased. If you feel you would be prepared to extend an element of trust and allow me to claim 2 offpeak singles from Manchester to Wilmslow without a supporting ticket I'd be most grateful. If, as I suspect, this cannot be done, would you consider donating the money to a charity? I'm not that precious over a couple of pounds - this is purely about the principle.

You have restored a little faith in Virgin, however could I ask that you look at the automated ticketing machines, and make them a little more "passenger proof"?

Best regards

Paul Rowlands
-----Original Message-----

Dear Mr Rowlands,

Thank you very much for your correspondence concerning your
journey between Manchester Piccadilly and Wilmslow on 18
December 2011. I am sorry for the delay to our response.

The ticket you bought states that the ticket is only valid on
Virgin Trains Only. The Self Service Ticket Machine offers a
wide range of fares including Any Permitted, which would have
been the appropriate fare for your subsequent journey with
Arriva Trains Wales.

The Self Service Ticket Machine states the fares terms and
conditions and the departure screens clearly state which company
is providing the service. Any customer who does travel on an
Arriva Trains Wales service with a Virgin Trains Only ticket
will be asked to pay the appropriate fare for the journey
in-line with Arriva Trains Wales onboard sales policy.

We can not refund the additional ticket cost, however, as a
gesture of goodwill we can offer a refund of the unused Virgin
Trains Only tickets on this occasion. I would require that you
send the original unused train tickets to the following address
quoting your reference number 4-2083420. Please also provide
your postal address to enable us to reply in full:

Virgin Trains

Customer Relations

Freepost BM 6613

PO Box 713

Birmingham

B5 4HH

Thank you for your time and my apologies for any inconvenience caused
as a result of the delay to your claim.

Yours sincerely

Michael Gartland

Customer Relations

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After getting a frankly rude response from ATW, which pretty much suggested I was a bit simple for assuming an automated ticket machine was there for my convenience (apparently there are lots of signs, terms & conditions and so forth dotted around the machine that I can read while I hang aimlessly around the station, instead of getting on with my journey. Alternatively they suggest I should seek out human assistance. not sure how many of you are familiar with Manc Piccadilly on a weekend evening, but its hardly awash with 'Happy to Help' chappies in epaulettes, ready to wisk you on your way!

Virgin responded and fair play offered to refund the original "unused" tickets we bought. Unfortunately as I had assumed the whole thing had been resolved before xmas to by dissatisfaction I had binned the offending items. I've asked them to show a little trust and refund me in any event, or if not to donate it to charity.

Thanks all for advice, but I reckon this particular horse has been flogged senseless, which probably seems like a more preferable mode of transport at the moment!

Paul,

I have every sympathy for you.

My suggestion to the rail operators to help fix this would be to make sure that every pair of stations had an off-peak single, off-peak return, anytime single and anytime return which were all valid for any operator and on any permitted (i.e. reasonable) route. These could then be listed at the top of the screen and would be simple to use.

Lower down the screen could then be listed all the potentially cheaper tickets (e.g. operator specific, route specific, evenings only etc) but tickets listed there would alert the user to check the conditions carefully.

At the moment it is crazy with what often seems like a random subset of fares available between each set of stations. If someone like you was travelling in a single direction at an Off-Peak time and only saw only one ticket listed with this description then why would they think to check the small print?

The Government and the Department for Transport is really responsible for this mess as they could force a change in the fares system, but they haven't yet. Government ministers always say they want to do something about it, but again nothing happens, possibly because the franchise system makes such changes very difficult.

Hopefully the Fair Fares campaign will help push through changes:
http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/fairfares/

Paul

I buy from the machine regularly and the ticket selection display does qualify the tickets, although the extent of the detail can be rather commuted. My purchases often include Glasgow - Leeds where the £47.00 return fare is only valid via Appleby and via any other route the fare is over £90.00. There are likewise a range of Glasgow-London fares and several appera as off peak return with very brief eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Delete 18 ! answered phone and papers landed on keyboard - several fares appear as off peak return but each with a particular condition, and you really need to know yout trains to understand which is which. Biggest irony is that I can buy a Glasgow-Midlands fare for 10p less than the Glasgow-London fare but can visit London and then Midlands with the London ticket - 200 miles for 10p!

Paul,
If you are ever in a postion to photograph the screen from the ticket machine then I would appreciate if you could let me have a copy (one option would be to add it to this campaign).
Thanks,
Paul (FixMyTransport Volunteer)