I'm overwhelmed with the level of interest - almost 200 views a day at the moment - it's spurring me on to get this (soon to be THESE) Arriva Trains Wales policies overturned.
I'm not (yet) actively looking for examples of ATW sticking two-fingers up to the advance fare-paying public, they're just rearing their heads on their own at the moment!
Today, I'm giving you an advance viewing of the email that'll be dropping into Lynne Milligan's Inbox in the morning.
Enjoy, and thanks again!
Steve
Good morning Lynne,
They’re just like trains!
They really are!
No sooner does one
non-customer-centric policy that shakes me to the core arrive, but there’s
another one right behind it!
And I have to say, you’re very good at
them!
In a very untimely coincidence, this
week I’ve managed to lose my annual season ticket – the non-compensable one
that caused me to contact you in the first place.
Unfortunately, this is the second
time this year, and I have been informed that this means I can’t get a
replacement.
That’s right. Arriva Trains
Wales expects me to write off the remaining £170 of credit that I had on the
ticket.
Just like that.
Wow.
Okay, I know that I have to take a
great deal of the blame for losing it in the first place – and the second
place, come to think of it – but is this really
the policy of a public service company?
When I first mislaid the original, I
berated myself for doing so only a couple of weeks in to the 12 months and £680
outlay.
I was relieved, however, to find out
that for the reasonable sum of £10 (or two Lisvane to Cardiff return tickets) I
could get a reprint.
I don’t recall that it was made clear
to me that this was a “One Time Offer” although, to be fair, it is
possible. At the time, this wouldn’t have bothered me as I had no
intention of losing it again.
But, despite my best endeavours to
live up to this self-promise, it would appear that “accidents can happen”.
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE. I kid you not, they actually can.
However, ATW don’t appear to
recognise that whether or not a customer has had a previous accident is a mutually exclusive event when it comes to calculating the probability of another accident occurring.
ATW seems to work on the theory that if it's happened once, the chance of it happening again is zero.
Now, I studied Mathematics. I specialised in Statistics. I even spent a few years teaching the subject. But this strain of the science has, until now, eluded me.
It appears that there’s a “2 strikes
and you’re out” rule that, even now, I’m struggling to find on the website.
When I asked the otherwise very
polite female ‘mushroom’ on the Helpline why this rule was in place she told me
“they don’t tell us why, they just tell us that’s what happens”. Helpful.
Kept in the dark and fed on s***.
You can check this, it was recorded for training and monitoring
purposes.
It’s not that I would resent paying
another £10 to recover the remaining £170 credit that was on the ticket – well,
I would a little, but that’s my problem – but it seems that this isn’t an
option that’s open to me.
Surely £10 would cover all the
administration and printing costs required to check my details – and if not,
you either need to pay the people checking the details less than £100 per hour,
or you need to speed them up a little.
Is this something that you would be
able to look into now please, or should we add it to the agenda for our coffee
morning?
Kindest regards
Steve
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