Passenger Voice February 2016: Case study
29 January 2016
Mr B contacted us in December 2015 about South West Trains’ (SWT) lost property web forms, telling us that he did not feel customers should have to agree to the website terms and conditions when sending a form online. Mr B had contacted SWT on this issue before, but was not satisfied with its response and therefore got in touch with Transport Focus.
When Mr B contacted us, we looked into this matter for him and requested more information from SWT. We asked why customers needed to consent to online terms and conditions in order to record their lost items. SWT informed us that they were unsure why customers had to agree to their terms and conditions as there is nothing on the website that is relevant to lost property. SWT therefore brought this to the attention of its data expert, who said that there is no need for this as customer data is not being used for marketing purposes or sold to third parties.
With this in mind, SWT eventually agreed that customers should not be asked to accept terms and conditions for lost property. As a result of our intervention on this complaint, a new web form would be introduced with ‘no strings attached’ that is only linked to lost property.
Mr B was very satisfied with this outcome, and was pleased that SWT had listened to his feedback and taken action on the issue.
