to argue with London Midland over £3.20?

[PrivetDancer]

I know it's only £3.20 but it's the principle goddammit!

I booked some tickets online the other day to go into London with DD on a London Midland train.

They have a half price off-peak offer on at the moment.
So I was booking the tickets and clicked 1 adult and 1 child thinking I'd look up how old a 'child' is later, DD is only 23 months. Price came up as £9.65, I thought bargain, that's half the price it costs me to get in for work, so bought it thinking that was just an adult ticket and DD was going free.
Only when I got the email receipt did it show that I'd bought a child ticket for £3.20, adult for £6.45. My fault entirely for not checking before booking but I thought well I'll just ring up and cancel the transaction and do it again.

Not so! London Midland charge £10 admin fee for any cancellation so it's not worth it.

BUT nowhere on the site is this admin fee specified. If you click on the Terms & Conditions just before you book it says "Refunds: Normal refund rules apply as per the National Rail Conditions of Carriage. If you need to apply for a refund please log on to your London Midland account and complete the relevant form"

I have asked customer services to send me the National Rail Conditions of Carriage and all they say regarding refunds is :
In the case of a refund [under certain conditions] you may have to pay a reasonable administrative charge (not exceeding £10)

Surely this implies that where the admin fee is applicable it should show you in the T&Cs for your specific ticket before booking? Also the fact that the conditions say you can just apply for a refund online implies that it is straightforward (as it should be for an online transaction) and free (as no charge is mentioned). The refund link is actually greyed out and not available.
And on what planet is a £10 fee a reasonable one for a simple web transaction? The tickets were to be picked up at the station so there is no postage involved.

All London Midland customer services keep saying to me is that the £10 admin fee applies and that's that, even though they can't show me where it says anywhere on their site that this is the case.

So, am I being unreasonable in arguing with them about it or should I just give up?

I dont understand

Why do you want a refund anyway when you were happy with the bargain price?

because it should have been even more of a bargain!

and if they don't tell you about a £10 admin fee in advance how can they get away with just springing it on you?

YABU. You should have looked to see how old a "child" is when you were booking. Tickets are normally no-refundable.

Nope - in this case, I wouldn't. Because you are a bit at fault, they might "win", in fact I think they will, and it will leave you with egg on your face and cause you stress.

And I love a consumer challenge, I really do.

It will take phone calls and all sorts of stress and that's if you do get anywhere.

Trust your Auntie Pony, and leave it be.

you are probably right, Pony :)

"Tickets are normally no-refundable." - but it doesn't say these are, in fact it says for a refund you can just apply online..

I don't think you'll have any success. But I always like to get my money back if something has been unfairly taken from me. It is a small amount. Now you have to think about how much the aggravation of the letter writing, phone calls, perhaps copying of receipts etc might be worth.

The whole process could take hours. How much is your time worth per hour? Probably more than £3.20 I would wager.

I know, I'm sorry but I think you were a leetle bit at fault for not checking when you booked.

My parallel career is sending emails of complaint to London Midland. I have even taken it all as far as Minister for Transport. And had replies. Obviously nothing changes but I feel it's important to make them hear the passengers because they just ride roughshod

So I would fire off one more email of complaint. If you are lucky they might send you some money-off vouchers. If not at least they have to reply to you (eventually.)

woohoo! a voice of support! that's all I need :o

To be fair, they have been fairly quick to respond, it's always the same person too, she must be rolling her eyes out of her head every time she sees my reply.

I won't get in to phone calls / letters or anything, you're right that is far too much hassle for £3.20. An email doesn't take long though..

Yes I definitely don't dispute it was my fault in the first place.

Even though it doesn't mention the admin fee it does quite clearly state in the T&Cs that under 5s are free (which I blatantly didn't look at before booking).

I've even picked up the tickets now as we travelled yesterday so there's very little they'll actually do about it now I suppose. The chap in the ticket office helpfully told me I didn't need a ticket for DD :o

You are all too bloody reasonable. I wanted a campaign!

Tbh, YABVU, but I'm pretty much always in favour of someone getting one over the train companies since I've had many problems with them myself.

I would liken the £10 charge to bank charges, they charge it because they can. It's not proportionate to any real cost and is there mainly to discourage people from violating the terms and conditions in the first place. That said, if it really isn't made clear about the charge, I think it's reasonable that you make a point of it. But I suppose to get any joy there, you would have to make the case that it was their error that caused you to want a refund and unfortunately, it was your fault.

I think you might have to write this one off and make sure you pay more attention to age rules in the future.

Oh x-post lol. Tbh, I'm up for a campaign anyway :).

Did you ask them on the train?

DH accidently purchased single tickets for us rather that returns (there was a 20 p difference in price, so ultimately this mistake could have made the journey twice as expensive for us) using the machine on the platform because he could barely see the screen due to the sunlight on it.

He asked the ticket lady on the train and she was very helpful and sorted it out for us (somehow we didn't even have to pay the 20p).

I think you should just give up. You made a mistake, it isn't a lot of money and really you cannot expect it to be sorted out for free otherwise people would be chopping and changing their minds all the time with tickets. The time you would have to put into pursuing it would surely be worth more than £3.20 to you?

No, nobody came round on the train.

Hello all - hope you don't mind us responding directly on here, but there have been some interesting comments on this thread.

We are running a half price off-peak ticket offer on our website until the 5 September for train journeys on our network. There are no postage, booking or credit card fees - basically no hidden charges at all.

However, when you book a ticket, you do need to be clear what you are buying, I'm afraid. If you click on the 'info' button when selecting a ticket it tells you that children are 5-15 years old, and the FAQ section explains it again (it's even number 2 on the most popular questions section that you see automatically).

During the purchasing process, you are told on 2 separate occasions that you are buying a child ticket as well.

Now, I'm the first to admit that we don't always get things right, and people are right to 'campaign' if they feel they've been treated unfairly. However, on this occasion, we really can't agree.

Regarding the charges we levy, these are proportionate to the average cost of the admin process for refunding tickets, not least due to the initial cost of selling the ticket, a fixed charge we incur, and the complication surrounding the proportion of the fare that may have already been paid to other train operators. Unsurprisingly, refunds often cost us more than the £10 charge and never less than £7.

On a positive note, I really hope you had a nice trip! Any suggestions for other offers we can introduce are welcome!

David

I agree with "David". The didn't unfairly take your money, you did not look at what you were buying, clearly bought the wrong thing, and then got narky when they wouldn't refund you for free.

Well done London Midland for stepping up to the plate and giving a straight (and fair) answer.

Good, fair answer London Midland.

My only comment to London Midland is that it would be fairer if you advertised your cancellation fees up front so customers know what they will have to pay if they cancel the ticket.

Airlines do it, ferries do it, why not trains too?

Yes it's very clear if you look in the right place that children under 5 are free, but I will disagree with you on one point - it did not show me I was buying one adult and one child ticket until I got the confirmation email.

On the screen it just says a total price and not a breakdown of what you are buying, hence my dizzy headedness assuming I was only buying one adult ticket as it was half the price of my work one (which is not off peak so more expensive)

But my main point is still that nowhere on the site does it tell you about this £10 admin fee. So how can this be enforced?

And the terms and conditions clearly say that for a refund you can just apply online, but this is blatantly untrue.

FYI bpb, I have not 'got narky' with anyone.

"its the principle godammit" reads as a bit narky. As does posting an AIBU about it.

Oh don't be ridiculous, that's clearly tongue in cheek. And AIBU is good for getting responses.

Oh and since you (kind of) asked, David, the train was packed by Watford, so DD ended up on my knee despite having her own unnecessary ticket. Apart from that the trip was fine, thanks.