Great Railway Journeys of the World
We had a big response from listeners - more of which in "previously on PM" on Friday's programme. We broadcast the edited version of two interviews recorded shortly before 17.00. Some questions and answers - which shed light on what happened - had to be cut out for timing reasons. Here is the full version:
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As many listeners observed...what IS it with Terms and Conditions? Do people read them?
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I'm sure I'm not alone in clicking to agree in order to be able to obtain the service offered by a website. Usually this is because I trust the provider, say for known software that won't install unless I do agree ( I would I hope never do it for an unknown service or seller).
In the case of the Advance train ticket everyone should understand that these are limited by time and train, which is perfectly reasonable. What fails the test of reasonableness is to prevent the traveller from getting off one stop early. He/she has cost the train company no more by doing so, and has indeed freed up a seat for use by another passenger - even if the computer does not know it is now free. Moreover the bad PR will have done the train company no good. Sadly I assume that the staff at the station felt they could not exercise discretion, a de-skilling and disempowering that adds nothing to job satisfaction and in the end does the customer a disservice too.
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Well said Anne P.And so true.
On our first-ever trip to Berlin this summer, what impressed me most was the complete absence of ticket barriers, turnstiles, station staff ticket checks etc when using the trains, including the underground. I was able to buy a 5-day ticket on arrival at the Airport (how innovative is that?) which covered my daughter & myself for our whole trip on trains (under & over ground) buses & trams. What sort of joined-up customer & visitor-friendly-thinking is this?
I spent a lot of the early part of the year travelling by train between my home & Leeds (2 trains there & back each day) & negotiating the user-unfriendly ticket barriers at Leeds. Half of them seemed routinely to spit out your ticket for no reason at all, necessitating the member of staff standing nearby letting you through a single manual gate. It was infuriating, having paid quite substantial sums for the ticket, to then be queueing up to be herded through barriers, each time having to make sure you're holding your ticket in your hand, along with however many bags you happen to be carrying, children you are holding onto, or prams you may be pushing.
How come Germany seems to have a system that leaves you feeling good about using public transport, while we feel depressed and irritated after hearing of the experience of last night's traveller? Have the ticket staff no discretion to use common-sense about such matters? Sadly I know the answer is "Clearly not."
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Annasee, I can certainly back up the experience of travelling by train in Europe. I decided to travel by train to Zagreb on holiday back in June, and I have to say that the whole experience was orders of magnitude better once I'd started using the trains in mainland Europe.
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When I was a kid, we travelled from Cleveland, Ohio to New Castle, Pa on old-fashioned choo choo trains.
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GameStation: "We own your soul"
GameStation has today revealed that it legally owns the souls of thousands of customers, thanks to a clause it secretly added to the online terms and conditions for the official GameStation website.
The "Immortal Soul Clause" was added as part of an attempt to highlight how few customers read the terms and conditions of an online sale. GameStation claims that 88 percent of customers did not read the clause, which gives legal ownership of the customer's soul over to the UK-based games retailer.
The remaining 12 percent of customers however did notice the clause and clicked the relevant opt-out box, netting themselves a £5 GBP gift voucher in the process.
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2010/04/15/gamestation-we-own-your-soul/1
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Shame on the railroad for hassling a professor for disembarking a stop early. Newcastle & Durham train stations recently sprouted awful turnstiles that obstruct luggage and passengers. Ann P is right to praise German trains: We lived years in Germany and know most European trains are a third the price and twice as nice.
Sincerely, Bruce Scholten
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Instead of trying to justify their absurd policy, East Coast should be looking at their terms and conditions with a view to changing them. How can it possibly do them any harm to allow a passenger to get off the train at an earlier stop? Why should you have to stay on the train for the whole journey if you don't want to?
Suppose you bought a return ticket but didn't use it at all. Would you be fined for that?
If you didn't finish a meal in a restaurant, should you pay a penalty? If you leave a cinema half way through a film, would you pay a fine?
It's all nonsense. Rail companies should be reminded they are there to provide a public service - often subsidised by the tax payer. Unfair terms and conditions should be ruled invalid.
Rail Companies that behave against the public interest should have their licences revoked.
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I think I've just realised why they might do it! Is it to stop people swapping tickets - say if someone had bought a reduced price ticket Manchester to London, & couldn't use it, if I wanted to go Manchester to Milton Keynes on the same day, I could theoretically use that ticket & no-one would know. Thus the train company would have lost the revenue from my having to buy a ticket. Is that it?
That's the only reason I can think of for the draconian punishment imposed for getting off one stop early.
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Annasee - Surely a ticket is a ticket. It's not personalised, is it? Once bought, anybody can use it - no?
And why on earth would you want to go to Milton Keynes anyway?
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Martyn Evans - known by his friends as Marty McFly
Not a man to take lightly.
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Let's face it, most people when they tick the box marked "I have read and accept the Terms and Conditions" haven't done so. It's like the old "I Accept this licence agreement" when installing new software. In general terms, people can understand that certain saver fares may mean not travelling during certain times. But a system whereby someone is fined for leaving a train early shows how ludicrous train ticketing is in the UK. A fare paid should relate to the distance you are allowed to travel (in an ideal world). If I buy a bus ticket to go from A to B, but get off two stops early, I'm not fined for that. If I book a taxi to take me from the station to home but decide to stop and walk the final mile or so as it's a nice day, the taxi driver won't charge me more for this. On the Underground or a tram, there's no excess fee if I don't travel the whole distance I've paid for. Only on the train system do we have the crazy situation that Professor Evans encountered. There's also the situation that you can save money if you buy tickets "splitting" your journey at a mid-point, even if you remain on the same train all the way through. Is it no wonder that we complain about such an absurd state of play?
What is needed is to take the ticketing out of the hands of individual train operators, and have a single national body that can issue tickets based around a simple system of "money paid" being roughly equivalent to "distance allowed to travel"? Oh wait, I seem to recall we had thay a couple of decades ago. What happened?.....
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Sid 5.
"the clause, which gives legal ownership of the customer's soul over to the UK-based games retailer"
I thought such a transfer had to be signed in the transferror's blood to be binding.
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12. Noisette D Agneau
Hmm. Not sure about virtual blood ...
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I like the way these two stories, selling the soul and the train journey, tie together. As I listened to the media relations manager for the train company, that's excatly what I thought - 'our soul'.
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The Intermittent Horse 14.
;-)
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Simple answer, turn the whole of public transport into one Co-Operative.
Staff & customers will determine sensible Terms & Conditions.
As there is only one operator/service provider you can't de-fraud another by travelling on a different route.
I recently went by train to London and missed the initial train by a couple of minutes. I knew I could connect with another London bound train by using the next train, but it was provided by operator. Technically I was de-frauding some train operators because the train operators haven't allowed for users making mistakes.
Having multiple train operators means that problem resolution becomes virtually impossible. Solution, have one operator. You can't have a privately owned monopoly and nationalisation puts too large a distance between the users and the managers.
Answer, a Co-Operative public transport system where the managers are directly answerable to a customers/staff committee.
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Posting this comment has taken some time, because I needed to register (quick and easy!) and I thought it prudent to read the BBC's terms and conditions (not so rapid). I was struck by "The BBC may change these terms from time to time and so you should check these terms regularly. Your continued use of bbc.co.uk will be deemed acceptance of the updated or amended terms." In other words, we can change these terms after you've agreed to them and it's up to you to find out if we have or not.
Anyhow, what I wanted to add was the point that Eddie Mair raised, but which hasn't yet been picked up in comments: £155 is a disproportionate sanction for getting off the train early. As I understand the Unfair Contact Terms legislation (and I'm not a lawyer) the penalty has to bear some relation to the loss incurred. And it's very difficult to see any loss that East Coast have suffered. At most surely it would be the difference between the advance ticket that Professor Evans bought and the cost of an open single? At present they seem to be saying he should pay more than somebody who boarded the train without any ticket at all and then bought one from the guard.
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By what legal right does a train company 'punish' and 'fine' a passenger? Just because they have stated they will in printed terms and conditions doesn't give them the right to punish. What will they do if the passenger says '**** off, I'll pay no fine'? Surely this relies on the obedience of a compliant public. Would a court uphold a 'right' to fine by train companies?
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14 TiH
spot on!
:-p
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God bless rail privitisation I say.
;-)
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5. A games company owning a non-existant imaginary object wouldn't bother me, but I'd prefer the fiver!
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Annasee (9) and Horse (10). Once you have read and digested the T&Cs you will discover that the ticket cannot be transferred to another person. I, like many others, have bought these super-cheap tickets as a gamble — if you can use it you get a cheap journey, if not then too bad. Yo only have to look at all the empty reserved seats to realise that people do this.
If you want a ticket that allows flexible timing and/or flexible break of journey, then pay for it. These cheapo tickets are all singles, so there is no excuse for not planning your destination when you buy the ticket. However, the railways could do more to emphasise the limitations of these tickets when you select them; many yards of small print is not the place to hide such an important clause.
This is not an issue of private ownership of the railways either. East Coast has been re-nationalised (ask John Prescott).
Eddie, where did you get that picture from. Although it does not appear in any print, large or small, trespassing on the railways is one offence for which the death penalty is still in force. A much more attractive picture, as this is East Coast Railways, would be the company MD.
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Had Professor Evans been getting off at my local mainline station in the evening he would have had no problem as all the barriers are left open - presumably so they don't have to provide staff to disentangle those whose luggage gets trapped in the gates.
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Nigel_N (22) - I haven't been on a train in GB for 25 years and I've no intention of reading the T&Cs. But I do have some questions. How can they prevent you transferring the ticket to somone else? Does it have a name printed on it? Even if it does, is it a requirement to carry indentification to prove that you are the named passenger?
Anyway none of this answers the real questions. Why is it not permissible to shorten your journey? What possible disadvantage is it to the train company for someone to do that?
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Surely, an excellent innovation to be charged extra for under-consuming a product. Could this catch on, celebrity chefs increasing the bill for those who didn't eat all their snail sorbet?
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Intermittent Horse (24) I would guess that they are concerned that you might make a habit of buying tickets thirteen weeks in advance and then selling them outside the station to turn-up-and-go punters, or even putting them on ebay. The disadvantage to the train company of allowing someone to shorten their journey is that it allows flexibility by the user without them paying the flexible price.
At the end of the day, if you don't like being resticted to when to travel and where to get on and off, don't buy these super cheap tickets. Other tickets are available, they just cost more.
What would really piss me off is if people who have no intention of travelling by UK train were to make so much fuss about a percieved restriction to their "rights" that these super cheap ticket were withdrawn from those of us who use and benefit from it.
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Some of the website terms & conditions are so long that you'd get timed out of your transaction before even skimming through them, let alone interpreting the flowery language into anything sensible.
I've been on train journeys recently where my ticket wasn't checked at all on some legs of the journey. Like others, I'd be interested to see if this stood up in court.
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Did anyone else have to use a magnifying glass to see they key in the 'Most common lies ever told' pie chart above?
Some good points raised above and good to see some new posters.
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Lady Sue 28.
"use a magnifying glass to see they key "
Your browser has a built-in one at ctrl+
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Nigel_N - Nope, I still don't get it.
Company offers a journey at a specified price. Customer accepts the price and buys ticket. Customer decides not to complete journey. No inconvenience of any kind to Company. No cost of any kind to Company.
Being a regular Easyjet/Ryanair customer I know all about flexibility versus cost. Many times I've taken chances on flights and not been able to make use of them. If I want total flexibility I expect to pay for that. But the train company's stance is bonkers.
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This non-transferability (if that's a word) of tickets has me a little worried. Does that mean if, for example, my partner can't get to a computer and I buy his ticket for him online, I/he/we both are committing an offence if he then uses that ticket?
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31 - I don't see how that could possibly be the case since you don't give your name when buying the ticket and it does not have your name on it.
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Annasee, I share your frustrations with the Leeds ticket barriers. For months I had the barely restrained urge to modify those signs that said 'Ticket Barriers Now In Operation' - cos let's face it they weren't. My main bug bear is that the machines rub off the ink on season tickets after about two weeks, and you only get one replacement pass a year. I frequently have agruments with the conductors on the trains because they can't read the faded date on my yearly pass.
If they are still bothering you, you do know that you can tailgate through those things with no issues whatsoever - the poor staff just stand and watch you do it, I think they're as narked as we are!
My parents once got on a train from London to Leeds on which there was an American family who had the wrong kind of ticket for the train which they'd bought in advance over the internet whilst at home. The conductor merely shrugged his shoulders and said, 'Well you tried. Most of the people that live here don't understand the system, you wouldn't have had a hope from the US. I'm supposed to charge you the full fare all over again, but...' and then loped off down the aisle with another lovely shrug. I say 'random London train conductor for Media Relations Manager'.
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I've just gone to book a ticket through FGW (other train companies are available), and it's not that clear as to the restrictions on whether you can leave the train early when you click on the link in their booking system. It comes up with a generic link that says you are able to break your journey and leave the train early except for "certain ticket types" without defining what types. You then have to go back about three steps in the booking process to be able to find out if your ticket is one of those affected. Not very user friendly!
All this discussion is all well and good when dealing with booking of tickets online. Can anyone comment on their experiences when buying a ticket from a ticket office? I have memories of being told "you can't travel before X:XXam or between Xpm and Ypm", but never that I'm not allowed to leave the train before the station I bought the ticket for. Are passengers advised of what they're allowed to do when buying the ticket in person? What about when they buy a ticket from a machine in the station?
There are so many grey areas involved here that it's no wonder that people aren't impressed with the train operators.
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34 - having bought an advance ticket this morning I can say that I was certainly not advised of any restrictions. The booking clerk not only couldn't work out how to book the ticket I requested and took about 15 minutes for what normally takes 5, but unlike other occasions I was not warned about having to travel only on the train I am booked on. Having said that, they're quick enough to warn you to get off again at the London terminus if you've boarded without the right kind of ticket.
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I've also been on many train journeys where my ticket was not checked at all. That annoys me because it encourages people to think they might get away without buying a ticket. Sometimes there are no ticket checks on the train because it is so overcrowded at busy times that no conductor can get down the aisles. So if the companies are losing revenue that way, they have only themselves to blame for not putting on more carriages.
Manchester often has platform checks when you get off the train. This is fine if you didn't get on at an unmanned station (as I do) where it's impossible to buy a ticket, then you get on the train expecting to buy one from the conductor, who is so busy closing or unlocking the doors every 2 minutes on a suburban trip, that he hasn't time to get round all the passengers needing tickets. Then you end up queueing at the ticket check to buy your ticket from the single staff member with a ticket machine & a lot of other disgruntled commuters who then miss their connections.
Not that I'm bitter about this, you understand...
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FF 34, The 'certain ticket types' are bound to be the ones you buy.
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FF 11, I see those terms of acceptance on the internet all the time and just agree to get on with things.
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Got in just before PM on where David Miliband is going...you only had to look at his agonised face to know...the 'if only's' were written all over his face.
Of course Labour does need a ruthless, smiley-faced fratricidal leader at the helm, so perhaps the unions picked the right brother, although as many unions had as many as 17 votes per person, it wasn't a particularly democratic exercise...I thought David had the edge in terms of charisma and purpose.
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Can I just ask why tickets booked in advance are cheaper anyway? It's not as if it helps the rail company know projected passenger numbers - the trains run empty or loaded, not difference to the company - so why should someone who plans ahead get any benefit over someone who just turns up?
Just going back to two fares - peak and off-peak - costed on distance travelled would be easier for everyone, passengers and companies included.
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The other day I agreed to an on-line licence agreement that said that it was 120 pages long. No, I didn't read it, and can't even remember what it was for.
Just looked at the iTunes licence agreement. Pasted into a word processor it comes to 34 pages and 14,644 words!
I think consumers should have a work to rule on licences: Don't agree to them until they've been read, and as you said on the programme, get terms and conditions read out when booking in person.
It would bring business in the country to a standstill. We only get anything done because we don't read licences..
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Can Eddie (or other) please ask the train company why they have this clause (i.e. can't get out early). What is the logic? It's the obvious question!
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rosepoet 39.
"although as many unions had as many as 17 votes per person,"
Care to elaborate, and with credible references?
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Like the majority of customers, passengers, consumers and people in the UK I'm not a lawyer and I live in Scotland so my opinion may not be the most reliably informed (some corner of my head has a mixture of English, Scottish, EU, and US law milling around) but ... isn't there the danger of a tort of false imprisonment here?
Can't imagine the train companies would try enforcing such a thing here in Scotland -- do correct me if I'm wrong. We have little patience with things like private car clamping, private water companies, and other such nonsense.
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"On the Andrew Marr show, my colleague Polly Toynbee has just said that she knows one Labour MP who had 12 votes in the leadership contest because he belonged to so many organisations affiliated to Labour. She said it might be time to rethink the “dotty” system."
http://hurryupharry.org/2010/09/27/one-man-twelve-votes-labour-needs-to-sort-this-out/
Credible? I don't know. But I AM glad that I belong to a political party which has a one-person-one-vote system - both for electing leaders and for voting for party policy.
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29: nope - not working but nevermind. It's all past sell by date by now. Thanks for helping me out though!
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Lady Sue,
You can find the original of that chart here.
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Since we're having a railway grievance airing session here (and I do feel better for a good rant & even better when others agree...) another annoyance is that sometimes the ticket machines swallow your ticket at the end of a journey, leaving you with no proof that you ever bought it. If, as I often did, you pay cash at the station, and are self-employed, you then have no receipt for claiming your travel costs. (Actually I've still claimed for tax purposes, & never had a problem, but obviously in this climate of fear & the customer being in the wrong, it's only a matter of time.) What does the machine want with my ticket?
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annasee - What does the machine want with my ticket? It does not want your ticket, it wants your soul!
Re - earlier posts on t's & c's
I - in the same situation as you - always collect my ticket form an office and ask for a VAT receipt which confuses the hell out of the robots now staffing main terminus stations.
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That is why an advanced purchased ticket is cheaper. If he had purchased his ticket on the day of travel from a station booth, would he had the same problem?
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48- annasee - what's almost as bad is the parking at our local shopping mall where the ticket machine won't let you leave until you take back your ticket...I suppose it saves them issuing receipts.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
And talking of once proudly publicly owned facilities:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-10664412
Can you at PM help with this?
Today is the closing date, but I'm sure ten quid can be pledged still.
There seems to be a media take-over of the story right now with a different slant:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-11426029
The 'castle' structure is called a Straining Tower.
One does worry about agri-industrial developments in Poland where cheap land (by the same token as cheap labour here) was/is available.
Is Vyrnwy safe without a million of us coughing up?
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Oh dear. Nearly five months in, and someone hasn't heard yet that we have a coalition government - or doesn't understand that coalition entails compromise. Oh dear.
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S&R: Have you emailed Eddie with this story?
It is one that is also close to my heart, being a place that I have visited many times and to which I'd hoped to return many times in the future.
Thank you for highlighting it.
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I just went through the rigamarole of getting a BBC ID, and did read the rules, but after all that I've forgotten what I wanted to say.
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Two more horror stories of the World Turned Upside Down from acquaintances . ..
A student in Derby bought a return weekend ticket to London. In the event she had a lift down to London with a friend and so only travelled on the train for the return journey. For this she was taken to court, for not actually using a seat she had paid for. The court threw it out.
Even more bizarre, a business man bought an advance single ticket from Newcastle to London with a reserved seat. As it happened he couldn't be in Newcastle that day but had to be in Grantham where he boarded the *same* train that he would have got from Newcastle and sat in the reserved seat *with his name on it*. For this he was required to pay an additional full price single ticket. What a way to run a railway - or any business. I contend that this is nothing to do with Terms and Conditions but a way of screwing more money out of passengers.
In Sweden I once, by mistake, boarded an intercity train which was the one timetabled before the one for which I had a ticket. When the ticket inspector pointed out that my ticket was for another train company (yes, they've done that to their railways, too)I asked if I needed to buy another ticket. 'Yes' she said 'you should - but I don't care' and she walked on leaving me to think how civilised Sweden could be
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I don't know whether anyone else has made this point, but on checking the price of tickets from Birmingham to Darlington and Birmingham to Durham on the same train that Martyn Evans was travelling on, the price of both tickets is exactly the same!
Surely this is really a case that there is bad programming in the ticket barriers and the railway company spokesperson is trying to justify his mistake by hiding behind unfair conditions and terms of service.
Surely the answer to this is simple. Simply make tickets available to 'up to' the stop on the ticket, similar to bus fairs, which you pay a fare which is the same however far you travel. People used to complain about the confusion of tickets on privatised British Rail. But the system was a lot simpler... just buy a ticket at the station and travel, no standing on one leg and singing rule britannia for a cheaper ticket.
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