- The Guardian Saturday 3 August 2019
(^44) Money
Consumer champions
Miles Brignall & Rebecca Smithers
All I want is to buy a train ticket
I have been trying in vain to buy advance tickets from
ScotRail for a journey between Edinburgh and Mallaig
on 19 September. We bought the outward and return
tickets from London to Edinburgh with no trouble.
Customer service staff give various excuses, from
engineering to rolling stock issues, for the tickets not
being available. I have received an email from ScotRail
saying the problem is because of ongoing building
work at Glasgow’s Queen Street station which the
route passes through. But Network Rail says there are
no engineering works on the date of travel.
We just want to give ScotRail our money and book
the fi nal leg of our Highland holiday. It isn’t even
possible to buy an off -peak return and reserve seats.
JF, Stansted Mountfi chet
ScotRail tells us that because of redevelopment at
Queen Street station, it is unable to release advance
fares beyond 13 September. This aff ects a handful
of routes , including those to Fort William, Oban
and Mallaig. It is still waiting for confi rmation from
Network Rail on the specifi cs of the next stage of the
work which includes platform extensions. Until then it
can’t sell tickets, as there may be a replacement bus for
some, or all, of the journey. ScotRail says it is “sorry for
any inconvenience ” and adds that tickets will be released
“as soon as possible”.
The journey north from Glasgow, especially the West
Highland Line between Oban and Mallaig, is regularly
voted as one of the UK’s most scenic rail journeys – it
would be a real shame to miss it.
We need our order back on track
We ordered curtains and tracks from John Lewis (£6,550
including fi tting) in April last year after moving into
a new house, but the saga dragged into the autumn.
We ordered at the Oxford Street store – picked fabrics,
booked an estimator to measure up – and then
completed the purchase in store. We were told the whole
process would take “between six to eight weeks”.
We chose the 0% fi nance option. Alarm bells should
have started ringing when we were never contacted to
take the deposit. I had to go in and volunteer to pay.
The order was then apparently never transmitted to
its home services division in Didsbury. Mistake after
mistake followed over close to eight months, adding to
the already mounting stress of dealing with moving.
My attempts to negotiate a “goodwill” payment
( though there is no amount that would be suffi cient
to restore any goodwill towards John Lewis) led to
an off er of £1,625 in cash and £150 in vouchers – it
was adamant it would not go any higher. I have been
putting together a submission to the small claims court
but am exhausted by the whole thing.
ME, London
It seems you were the victim of delays and a customer
service meltdown after the company decided to
centralise the administration behind its home
furnishings division. In the end, you did get all the
curtains although there were still problems with
one of the tracks. But, disappointingly, John Lewis
would still not budge on the original “goodwill”
payment. We think this was ungenerous given this
lengthy saga.
John Lewis says: “We’re extremely sorry for
ME’s experience and made a goodwill payment last
December. The service he received falls far from the
service standards we set ourselves.” It has lost another
valued customer – and probably many more.
Compiled this week by Rebecca Smithers
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This week: Reaching the end of the line with
ScotRail; and it’s curtains for John Lewis
Off track ... the
West Highland
Line is regularly
voted one of the
UK’s most scenic
rail journeys
PHOTOGRAPH:
ALAMY
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