On Saturday Sophie and I went up to London for the day, for Sophie to attend a photoshoot for the Miss Teen World 2008 comp, she is through to the 2nd heat.
We travelled by train,· We arrived at B station just before 10am, we parked the car and got the Pay and display ticket, then went to the Ticket Office, only to find it was closed. A notice was stuck to the door stating “ Due to unforeseen circumstances this ticket office is closed today……”
· We went over to the Automatic Ticket machine, there was a very long queue and people seemed to be struggling to get money to be accepted, by now the train was approaching, there were still 4 people in the queue in front of us so we went to the platform.
· I thought we could get a Permit to travel, there used to be a little machine for that purpose on the platform, but it was no longer there. The train was in by now so we jumped on the train.
· We looked for the conductor but could not find him during our time on this leg of the journey, it was a very long train. We had to get off at T B to change for L B. The train arrived at T B slightly delayed and we only had about 6 minutes to go under the platform and over to the next platform, there was no time to go to the ticket office at this stage as we would have missed our connection, I was getting panicky about not having got our tickets yet but thought we would be ok to buy them on the next train.We got on the 10.42 to L B and didn’t see the conductor immediately, but then he came , I got my purse out ready to hand him my credit card and explained we had not been able to purchase out tickets earlier, but he told us that was not acceptable and he had to issue us with penalty fares, I tried to explain that we hadn't had any opportunity to get the ticket but he was a total jobsworth and wouldn't listen. So we had to pay the fare of single ticket and the penalty is double that, then had to buy ticket to our next destination and buy singles to get home. I'm appealing , I feel I've been treated like a common criminal!! I'm livid!
The photoshoot went well and we 've got some great photos. Sophie will be on the website next month and I hope I can ask Purplecooers to have a look and vote for her to get her into the next round.
13 comments:
How I HATE jobsworth people. It must have been entirely clear that you were a genuine person. Poor you and good luck with the appeal.
Take tht anger and write to British Rail, or who ever runs trains these days, adn complain giving all the detiasl you gave here. Throw in soimethign about rying to be environamentally frindly by leaving car a thome etc adn tap your feet. Hopefully you will get redress!
You should chase this up. You know they say 'Give a man a peaked cap..etc' What a stupid little person.
good luck, hope you get redress.
Ooh the exact same thing happened to me once - it is soooo infuriating. Our local station is on a branch line which connects with the main line to London. I used to work 2 days a week in London and quite often the ticket office would be closed and sometimes there was no conducter on the train, so you had no choice but to pay at your destination - there was no way you could avoid paying as there were ticket barriers at the London station. You also couldn't lie about where you'd boarded the train as all the other stations were busy commuter places which had ticket machines and offices which were always manned. Anyway I once got a jobsowrth like yours and I was fined - I really should have taken it further, I hope you do.
Put your foot down and tel them what you think aboeut their service. And their employees.
I know exactly how you feel, but I'm afraid you may not get anywhere. I am an ace complainer and a similar thing happened to Em a while ago. There was no train home from Waterloo to our local town so she got one to a nearby town and they made her pay a penalty, taking ALL her cash money to pay for it. She was in tears by the time I picked her up. I hope you get on better than me when complaining about it. Its disgusting, everything is automated but nothing works. The country is falling apart.
PS Also meant to say - good luck to your daughter. I presume this is a pageant? My eldest daughter was a model (didnt do pageants) and I know how tough it can be. Look forward to seeing the pics.
God, it makes my blood boil. We are constantly dictated to use public transport and in a word it's complete Crap. It's no wonder there are so many cars on the road with this kind of rubbish that we Britons have to put up with. Do appeal. More people should in these circumstances because in a nutshell, it's the scum of the world that are spoiling it for the decent human beings who just want to get on in life.
Take care, Crystal xx
As I said before Muddie, get assertive and get that letter written. Glad to hear the shoot went well and I'm looking forward to voting for her.
So infuriating Muddie, I can understand your anger. I would write a piece to your local newspaper too, so it can highlight the fact what an absolute "shoddy" affair Rail Service is, best of luck with the redress Muddie.
Wishing all the luck in the world to Sophie, she deserves to be a winner, she is a beauty.
Camilla.xx
Hello to you Muddie, and very best wishes to lovely Sophie!
Now, on to the train and tickets.
Absolutely document everything, in even more detail that you have done here.
Write to all parties, the train company, newspapers, local television (here they have special reporters just looking for such wrongs to right,) even your local government. Hit them all with lots of your well written words.
If if has happened to you, there must be lots of other folks who have had the same experience. I might even go back to the same local station around the same time of day, and see if other folks are about to step into the same situation. If so, you are assembling a posse!
xo
Glad to hear the photo shoot went well, look forward to seeing the pics!
Good luck with the appeal!
very glamorous pics, those. But outrageous indeed about your train journey. You MUST complain, and make sure you cc in the CEO or whatever of the train company. It's the ccs that ensure that something gets done. Let us know how you get on, and DON'T give in.
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