Eurostar: beyond belief

I am at a complete loss to understand Eurostar's attitude to their customers.

Faced with problems moving their trains through the Channel Tunnel*, their reaction has been to cancel all services, and leave their customers without any alternative transport. Their website suggests that passengers postpone their trips, or claim a refund. The text shows no understanding of their impact on the lives of their customers and their families - let alone the extra severity caused by Christmas.

Eurostar are now offering some compensation (including hotels, but only local transport) to those they have abandoned - there was no mention of this for many hours after they first stopped running. But amazingly, there is no sign of any effort to help their customers travel by alternative means.

This is a company that operates a large fleet of trains, none of which are currently stuck in the tunnel. They may need one or two to test technical solutions, but the vast bulk of the fleet is surely available to move customers between London and Ashford or Dover, and between Calais or Boulogne and Paris/Brussels. Vehicle shuttles (which carry coaches) and ferries are still running across the channel - so it should be perfectly possible to transport their customers between their start and end points, even though it would clearly take longer than normal.

But no, Eurostar have decided that passengers (who don't have any trains at their disposal, and lack the economies of scale to hire coaches or negotiate ferry/shuttle transit) are better placed to fix up replacement transport.

Is this a calculated decision by a company that thinks it has a strong enough monopoly to allow them to treat customers badly, or are they simply out of their depth?

*Note for anyone reading this later:
Very cold weather in Kent and northern France saw Eurostar trains failing as they entered or exited the tunnel due to the change in temperature between cold outside and warm tunnel.

o2 - selectively incompetent

The company that can transfer your mobile call from cell to cell as your train hurtles along at 125mph ...

... "cannot" automatically refund customers the balance on closed accounts. Not a candid "will not". But "cannot"*.

Accounts for which o2 have an operative Direct Debit. Where the amount that o2 owes the customer is not in disupute.

They "cannot" automatically give back this money, but unfortunately have to sit on the money. They email to say "The balance on your account means you have nothing to pay this month" - but don't even help you find out how to get it back manually.

Somehow, someone has forgotten to enter anything about refunds into the online help system. You have to call them. Enter your mobile number, wait for an operator, give your number again, and ask nicely. Then, and only then, are they able to give back money that they owe to you.

How odd that they should be so capable and slick in other areas, but not in giving back money.

* source: phone call to an agent identifying herself as Amy, c0915 16/12/09

Amazon - endorsing Marketplace scams

Amazon lend their reputation to "Amazon Marketplace" - a supposedly safe place to trade with suppliers you have never heard of, with the reassurance that Amazon are there to see fair play.

A great idea - but it doesn't actually work that way. Amazon is quite happy to allow traders to impose ludicrous P&P charges - which you can't work out until you have finished your order.

We all understand that nothing is for free - and that postage does cost money. Where Amazon is the supplier, you pay so much for the first item, and then much less for each extra item. That makes sense.

But buy using Marketplace and some traders will charge you the same P&P for each and every item. I assembled a basketfull of stuff at prices that seemed keen but not ludicrous. Cost of items: £19.82. Plus £57.07 for Postage and Packing.

This is a joke. If Amazon really think it important to allow suppliers to quote low item prices which they finance through high P&P charges (and I can't see why this is a good idea) then the user needs to be allowed to work out the attractiveness of the offer by seeing the incremental P&P charge for each purchase - alongside the item price. Amazon could modify their site to do this if they were bothered. But they don't.

As things stand, Amazon are lending their reputation to very dodgy practice. Would you want to do that with your expensively-promoted brand?

Forgotten your railcard? That will be £440 extra, please

East Midlands trains have announced a new Penalty Fares regime:  anyone found on a train without a valid ticket (and that means the right railcard to go with it too) will be charged DOUBLE the full walk-up fare to the next stop.

For passengers making a mistake on a London-Sheffield train that runs fast London-Leicester, that could be a very expensive mistake. Up to FIFTY times the original fare.

Example: a family of two adults and two children travelling to Sheffield on a fast-to-Leicester train from St Pancras. They travel on specific-train tickets bought with a Friends and Family railcard.

The tickets alone will get them through the barriers at St Pancras, so it is quite possible that the first they know of losing (or forgetting) their Railcard is when their ticket is inspected on the train between St Pancras and Leicester.

No railcard means their tickets are invalid. Under the new Penalty Fares regime, it seems that they will be charged £378 immediately (2 x Adult single, 2 x child single London-Leicester - doubled). That will cover them to the next stop at Leicester. Their cheapest option would be to get off at Leicester and buy a replacement railcard, AND new tickets Leicester-Sheffield (because their existing tickets were only valid on the train they have just got off). This will cost them at least another £62 (£36 off-peak singles plus £26 for a replacement railcard). If they chose to stay on the train it would cost £64 for fares Leicester-Sheffield, but they wouldn't need to buy a replacement card).

So - the minimum penalty for losing or forgetting a railcard looks like being £440 (£378 on the train + £36 for fares at Leicester + £26 for a new railcard). This is the penalty for not being able to produce a £26 railcard which is registered on a database to them personally. For a journey that might only have cost them £8.50* in the first place. That's a fine of more than 50 times the fare, or rather more than many families will budget for their summer holiday. Or 75 hours' work at Minimum Wage.

What a brilliant way of encouraging families to travel by train!


Notes

*£8.50 fare offered by trainline and EMT sites at 0906 04/12/09 for travel on 0955 from St Pancras on 14/01/10 made up of two adults at £3.30 and two children at £0.95 after Friend & Family railcard discounts

For a student or Senior Citizen being discovered without their railcard, the penalty would be £153: Double the London-Leicester  single fare of £63, plus £27 from Leicester to Sheffield. They might save £6 on the Leicester-Sheffield section if travelling "off-peak".

Wasting money AND giving wretched service: East Midlands Trains

Answering complaints and enquiries by email is cheaper than answering phone enquiries, if you structure the enquiry/complaint form properly. An agent responding to emails can be loaded close to 100%, with no gaps waiting for calls. The customer has been obliged to compose their thoughts in their own time, rather than doing so whilst the agent listens.

So, how stupid is it for a hard-up organisation to encourage enquiries to be made by phone rather than email?

This is what you get when you fill in an online complaint to East Midlands Trains:

Thank you for getting in touch. Although we aim to respond in 5 working days, you will definitely receive a full response within 20 working days.

20 working days - that is FOUR WEEKS. For a train company, whose enquirers are fairly likely to be asking about something that won't wait four weeks. (In my case, I wanted to know about Engineering Works four weeks ahead, because their online information wasn't working).

They realise the problem, so they add:
In the meantime, if you have any urgent questions or concerns, please call us on 08457 125 678 (option 5, then 3) and we'll be happy to help

So - having invited you to fill in a form, they then acknowledge that this may well not be suitable for your needs, and suggest another approach. Not an alternative (there is no way to retract the enquiry/complaint you have made online) but AS WELL.

So an organisation struggling to deliver competent Customer Service (and that is being kind) not only encourages customers to contact them using a more resource-intensive route, but duplicates work for itself in the process.

Sheer Genius.

Postscript:

I did phone for the information, and suggested to their staff member that they could save themselves work if they warned of their "20-working-day" response standard before inviting online contact. He clearly wasn't programmed to handle such a suggestion, skipping to the next prompt in his script "What is the problem you need help with?". Thick, or rude - I couldn't work out which.