a small victory against the machine

I have triumphed, in a small way.  I have struck a tiny blow for everybody who has ever had their day out, or their commute to work, spoiled by a broken ticket machine, and railway staff indifferent to the point of hostility.  I have obtained a five pound cash refund from Northern (a serco and abellio joint venture).  Not even a five pound travel voucher to use on one of their trains, which would be dead handy when they operate in the north west of England and I live in Essex.  No, an actual cheque.  Practically real money.  I have to go into Colchester tomorrow, and I shall take great pleasure in banking it.

When the car park ticket machine at Wilmslow station ate five pounds worth of coins, and then failed either to issue a ticket or to return the coins, after we had got very wet standing in front of the machine in the rain, and spent ages registering on-line with the car park company by mobile, and been charged twenty pence extra for confirmatory texts we didn't want because we came prepared with enough change to pay to park, and the railway staff had been completely not interested in any of it, because the car park company was nothing to do with them, I decided not to let it rest.

It was not just the five pounds, though five pounds is a useful amount of money.  It would buy you one of my jars of delicious artisan honey, and regular readers will know the effort that goes into producing that, not to mention the price of jars and all the incidental costs of keeping bees.  It would cover any one of several items on my current Amazon wishlist, or buy me a latte and a muffin in the Tate members room when I go to see the Paul Klee exhibition.

But mainly it was the principle of the thing.  The Manchester tram system is plastered with notices warning of steep fines for anyone caught evading the fare (less than five pounds).  I have been hit with a twenty-five pound fine for inadvertently overstaying in the Walton-on-the-Naze car park by twenty minutes, although I was not causing any obstruction to traffic and it was not even a quarter full (own goal by the Tendring local authority, I have never been back since to support their struggling tourist industry).  At every turn, railway companies and car park companies are poised to slap a fine on travellers for the smallest infringement, even if due to genuine error.  Some councils will fine you for putting your bin out on the wrong day.  I couldn't fine Northern, but I could use up an amount of management time at least equivalent to the annoyance the Systems Administrator and I had suffered in their beastly station car park.

If you wanted to contact the parking company directly, you had to use a telephone number starting 08.  I had no intention of paying anything, let alone a call to a premium rate number, to complain about bad service, so the day after our trip I dug around Northern's website until I discovered an e-mail address for customer services, and e-mailed them:

Dear Sir

I am on holiday in the north west.  Yesterday I wished to go to Manchester and caught the train at Wilmslow station.  The car park machine ticket accepted five pounds in cash but did not print a ticket, or return the cash when the red button was pressed.  When buying our train tickets I asked the station staff whether they knew that the car park ticket machine was out of order.  They replied that I could pay by phone.  I explained that it had taken my cash and would not return it.  Their response was that parking was nothing to do with them and that I should take it up with the car parking company.  I suggested they put a notice on the machine to warn other travellers that it was not working.

I paid to park by phone, meaning I have been charged an extra five pounds plus twenty pence for advisory texts, without which I would have had no proof of payment.  Please could you advise me on how Northern Rail and your parking subcontractor Ring Go are between you going to reimburse me the five pounds I have been double charged.  We parked a little after ten, in a grey Jaguar registration XXX XXX.  The parking company will have a record of my phone payment for this, and I am sure that the station CCTV will show two people, a small woman in a fawn raincoat and bearded man in a black coat, spending a long time standing in front of the ticket machine in the rain before returning to their car.  Two members of rail staff were on duty behind the ticket desk when we bought our tickets, at approximately quarter past ten on Monday 16 September, and should be able to remember that I advised them the machine was not working.

When we returned to Wilmslow at just after four I checked the machine out of interest, and there was nothing to warn other customers that it was not printing tickets for cash payments or returning coins.

Yours faithfully

Mrs [my name and address]

I was sure nobody was going to check any of the details, but I didn't want to leave any wriggle room for them to say that my claim could not be verified.  The automated reply ran as follows:

Dear Customer

Customer Relations

Case Reference: NR/333594

Thank you for taking the time to contact Northern, the train company serving communities across the north of England.

We aim to respond within 20 working days.

In the meantime we can confirm receipt of your feedback/enquiry.

If you are claiming compensation for delay or disruption to your journey we need your home address, details of where you were travelling from and to, and copies of relevant travel documentation. If you are making a complaint about a Northern station, we need the station name and the time and date of the incident. If it’s a complaint about a member of staff, we need the time, date and location of the incident, and a name and/or description would be helpful. In all instances, please immediately reply directly to this email making sure the case reference number is in the subject heading.

Kind regards

Customer Relations Officer

So far, so good.  I had a case reference number, so this one was now going all the way to the office of the rail regulator if needs be.

On 5 October I received a letter:

Dear Mrs [my name]

Thank you for your correspondence, which I received on the 17th September 2013.

In the circumstances, I am arranging for a cheque to be issued to the value of £5.00.  This will be sent separately within the next 28 days.

Thank you again for taking the trouble to contact me.

Yours sincerely

[someone's name]

Customer Relations Officer.

You will notice that it doesn't contain an apology as such.  Sorry that you spent five minutes standing in our car park in a monsoon, and that our staff were unhelpful to the point of rudeness. Sorry that if you hadn't happened to have a smart phone, you wouldn't have been able to park at all.

Still, I got my five pounds back, and all up I reckon I caused them at least as much aggravation as they caused us.  Rejoice in the small victory against the machine.