Transport User Voice – June 2018 – We help passenger receive full £2000 refund instead of initial £259

23 May 2018

Mrs J is a Southeastern season ticket holder and was recently diagnosed with arthritis. She reduced her working week from five days to two and has a medical note from her doctor.

Mrs J contacted Southeastern to ask whether she should keep her season ticket and purchase daily tickets, or what the cheapest travel option would be as she would now be travelling less frequently.

Mrs J did not receive the advice she needed from Southeastern, so she kept her season ticket. As a result, Mrs J was seeking a backdated refund of £290 per month from July to November for the days she didn’t use her season ticket. Mrs J was promised by a customer service agent that if she could provide a medical note this would be done for her.

However, Mrs J’s medical note was rejected on the basis that Southeastern do not offer refunds if passengers are working reduced hours. Mrs J disputed this but was told that the customer services agent who made the initial promise made a mistake.

Southeastern initially offered £15 as a gesture of good will for the poor advice as it felt that it wasn’t clear what Mrs J’s travelling pattern was going to be. After considerable back and forth, we made the case that the value of Mrs J’s loss was considerably greater than that due to the incorrect advice she received. Instead of taking the season ticket refund, which she should have been advised to, she kept hold of it on the basis she was going to receive a refund for those unused days.

Once Mrs J’s travelling pattern became clear Southeastern offered to provide a refund on the season ticket backdated to the original date of Mrs J’s medical note totalling £2,069.30.

Mrs J was extremely pleased with this and thanked us for our intervention.

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