Rail passengers 'being taken for a ride'
Rail passengers 'being taken for a ride'
Thursday 20th August 2009
Rail passengers are being taken for a ride by rail staff who give them poor advice on fares, a consumer watchdog has found.Which? says its research found two thirds of station clerks and four in ten call centre staff failed to quote the cheapest fare.
The watchdog asked staff at station ticket offices and the National Rail Enquiries (NRE) call centre about the cheapest way to take a specific journey by train.
It claims to have been told the correct answer in only 93 out of 200 questions asked.
Martyn Hocking, editor of Which? magazine, said: "If you just want to know the cheapest way to get from A to B, you'd expect staff at the station ticket office or on the end of the rail enquiries helpline to be able to tell you. It's not acceptable that passengers could be paying well over the odds because of poor advice. Rail firms must ensure that staff are properly trained and that fare information is clear."
The same research in 2007 received similar results, Which? said. It said in the latest research, where there was a choice of train company, their staff were quoted the more expensive fare 27 out of 50 times, with 80 per cent of ticket offices ignoring the cheaper option. In some cases, the fare quoted was more than double the cheapest available option.
Which? also asked staff about making the same journey twice in one week. Two thirds of staff gave the price of two returns, when a season ticket, or rover ticket, would have saved money.
The news comes just hours after government ministers claimed train travellers would see a better deal, with prices expected to fall next year.
The watchdog added half of questions about breaking a journey were answered incorrectly, and when asked about journeys close to the end of a peak period, staff tended not to mention that delaying the time of departure - sometimes by just a few minutes - could result in savings.
Which? also checked how efficient lost property offices were, and found that five out of 16 train stations failed to contact owners when it handed in a coat and wallet clearly labelled with a name and phone number. At one station, the coat was returned to the owner, but not the wallet or the cash it contained.
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