Commuter Love
January 19th, 2007I don’t know about you, but when bad things happen to me, I like to have someone to blame for them. Often, things are nobody’s fault, so in those cases I blame the person with the worst excuse. Generally, in the case of travel woes, this mantle falls to the train companies, because I know what a train looks like and I know what a leaf looks like and I don’t see how the latter can stop the former. “Leaves on the line” is a rubbish excuse.
Yesterday I was stopped getting home by leaves on the line, but I think that since the leaves were still attached to the tree at this point I shall have to concede that it is a pretty good excuse. The fact is that due to The Great Winds (which after that hurricane last month seem to be taking the piss a little) all the trains that might have taken me home yesterday (i.e., from Manchester to Leeds) were cancelled, and I had nobody to blame. But wait, what’s that slightly-jazzy, a-bit-too-much-like-swing-for-the -nineties, brass-heavy music I can hear? There’s only one transport company with its own theme music!
I phoned Network Rail and they said that since my life was in a mess, my best bet was to call the National Express. So I did. I said “I just want to check your service is actually running.”
“Yes,” he said, “and it’s a regular service, too.” This made me smile. I got him to assure me, and repeat twice, that there were no significant delays to National Express’ coaches. So I booked a ticket. It cost me four pounds. That’s about $600, for any Americans reading. This was around quarter to five. At about quarter past six I arrived at the coach station, to find it full to the brim with what looked like all human life that had ever existed. Grannies, babies, students, parents, everyone.
But nobody was singing.
I waited half an hour, and then a coach arrived. It was the five past three coach, pulling in almost four hours late. Now it seems to me that if the five past three coach arrived at quarter to seven, then at quarter to five they should have known something was amiss and told me so. I voiced this opinion to the man at the coach station’s control point, who told me — and I love him for it — that the man I spoke to on the phone was “an ass”.
Eventually I slept at my brother’s halls in Manchester. So I won the office Who Took The Longest To Get Home game, with a total score of seventeen hours and counting, and I saved a few quid on a train, and I reduced my carbon footprint by two train journeys.
And, I get to whinge to National Express until they send me some free stuff. I won’t settle for no-free-stuff.
So life could be worse. Tomorrow, as they say, belongs to me.
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February 17th, 2007 at 00:00
From: National Express
To: taylor.andrew@gmail.com
Thank you for your e-mail.
We are currently investigating the points raised and we will contact you further once our investigations are complete.
Thank you for bringing these matters to our attention.
Yours sincerely
Customer Relations Department
February 17th, 2007 at 00:00
Oh, I didn’t mention the word “ass” or their swingin’ theme song in the version I sent them. It was a bit more formal.
February 17th, 2007 at 00:00
What a magical story. I try to avoid trains entirely unless I have to go to London, which I’ll only be doing two more times before I finally up and leave.
February 17th, 2007 at 00:00
From: National Express
To: taylor.andrew@gmail.com
Dear Mr Taylor
Thank you for your email.
I was sorry to hear of the delay on your service with us to Leeds recently.
On that day in question we did experience exceptionally severe weather conditions with gale force winds and driving rain. As a direct result many rail and coach services were cancelled and those that did run were subjected to strict speed restrictions for safety reasons.
I am sorry if you received any incorrect information from our staff, I hope you’ll appreciate that National Express is unable to accept liability for delays caused by severe weather conditions.
In situations of this nature, we do advise passengers to contact the 24 hour control centre emergency number which is printed with the tickets. The control centre can then advise the passenger on the most appropriate action to take or arrange for alternative means of transportation to their ticketed destination.
Once again, thank you for taking the trouble to contact us, as customer comments are used as a basis to improve our standard of service and provides us with invaluable feedback. I do hope that this will not deter you from travelling with us again in the future.
If you have any other queries regarding this matter please don’t hesitate to contact me directly on [phone number] and I will be happy to talk to you.
Yours sincerely
[Fantastic Name]
Customer Liaison Executive
Travelling with [them] again in the future? How could I travel again? I haven’t managed to travel with them at all yet. And how can I phone the number printed on the ticket, which says it’s for emergence use only, when I’ve not yet bought a ticket?
From: Andrew Taylor
To: National Express
So let me get this straight so there’s no confusion. You’re saying that as my delay was caused by bad weather I’m not eligible even for a refund of the ticket price?
Only when I phoned up to check on the service levels available the storms had been raging for two hours and your coaches were already running at least an hour and a half late, and I was explicitly and repeatedly told that the service was running as normal.
I don’t blame you for the delays themselves, because obviously I don’t expect you to be able to see into the future, but I DO blame you for the huge discrepancy between what I was told was happening and what was in actual fact happening and what had in actual fact been happening for at least an hour. I DO expect you to be able to see into the PRESENT.
You lied to me and took my money under false pretences. That is an act of fraud.
Is my £4 really that important to you?
Andrew Taylor
February 17th, 2007 at 00:00
Dear Mr Taylor
Thank you for your email.
I am very sorry to learn of your dissatisfaction with my previous response.
Having reviewed our past correspondence, I find there is little I can usefully add to my previous comments about the disruptions you experienced when travelling with us recently. Please though allow me to reiterate my earlier apologies, as well as offer my reassurance that we do appreciate the difficulties caused in such situations. We really make every effort to ensure our service operates as planned.
It is always a concern to us when our customers remain dissatisfied. Having noted your comments, I feel that a further gesture on our part would be appropriate.
I have pleasure in enclosing an E Coach Travel Voucher to the value of £ 5.00 which I hope will go some way towards restoring your confidence in the service we provide.
To use your voucher, simply visit http://www.nationalexpress.com/book (don’t forget to log in or register)
Voucher Number:[number]
Security Code:[code]
If you do not have access to the Internet, please call [number] and one of our Customer Relations Advisors will be pleased to help you.
Once again, my apologies. Here at National Express, we value your custom and hope that, despite your present sentiments, you will choose to travel with us again in the future.
Yours sincerely
[name]
Customer Liaison Executive
February 17th, 2007 at 00:00
To: National Express
From: Andrew Taylor
Thankyou for the e-voucher, but it doesn’t really help me unless I choose to travel with National Express in the future, which I currently don’t plan to. I also notice that it probably costs you practically nothing to give away such a voucher and that it would be very hard for me to use it without giving you more of my money. In fact, since you have kept £4 of my money in exchange for this voucher, what I effectively have here is a £1 discount — which is pretty useless, you must admit. What I would like would be a cash refund of the money I paid you, and some reason to believe that you will fix whatever system caused this problem in the first place. Any “gestures” you choose to make should be on top of that refund, not instead of it.
Andrew Taylor
February 17th, 2007 at 00:00
You ought to put these emails in a new, updated version of this article. Not everybody reads the comments.
February 17th, 2007 at 00:00
This entire saga is sending me into a whole world of mixed feelings. On the one hand, it seems that National Express are being really very polite and nice and actually giving you your money back (albeit in ’store credit’). But on the other hand I dislike it when they call things like this a ‘gesture’ since it seems to imply they’re doing it essentially out of pity and not because they accept that they’re in any way in the wrong (as they clearly are), and also I see that National Express credit isn’t a whole lot of use to you. But on the other hand there are probably sound legal reasons why they’re reluctant to accept culpability in writing…
I don’t know what to think!
February 17th, 2007 at 00:00
Yes, I had a very similar thought just before I hit send, but then I had a much clearer thought that just said, “you know what? Fuck them. Until they stop lying to you and give you your money back, you have no obligation even to be civil to them”.
I just wish I felt it ws acceptable to publish the guy’s name, because it really is brilliant.
February 28th, 2007 at 21:52
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