Posts from July 2016

Given it's been a couple of weeks, I thought I'd write a little update on the fun and games with Virgin East Coast. I'll also add another little "problem" into the mix in this post -- something that has been happening in the background and didn't seem to be an issue to start with.

As mentioned a couple of weeks back, I dropped them a line to chase things up (pointing out that the scheduled callback was long overdue) and got this reply on the 15th:

Thank you for your email reply and apologies that I did not call you on the 11th I must have missed my Outlook reminder.

I have today again tried to call our second line support team to query this again and see how far they are with this however they have not picked up so I have emailed them once again.

Last time I spoke to them on the phone the person said that it should only be a few more days so hopefully I will be emailing you again very soon with some more substantial information on this for you.

As I write this it's the 29th and I've had no update. I guess this is the problem with phrases like "very soon" -- you're never quite sure if you should read it to mean in the next couple of days, or if 14 days later still falls within "very soon". Personally, if it was me, I'd be dropping a line along the way to say "it's taking longer than I'd like, but I'm still on it". You know, that thing of ensuring the customer doesn't feel like they've been forgotten about.

So, very soon¹, I guess I'll be sending another follow-up email to try and find out what's going on. I'll update when I do.

Meanwhile.... there's another issue that's brewing.

Back at the start of June I was on a train that was delayed by more than half an hour. This is the first time this has happened to me since I've been using the trains a lot and I was delighted to find that they make a point of letting you know that you're entitled to a refund on your ticket, depending on how late you are.

That struck me as very sensible and very civilised.

So, when I finally got home, I put in my claim and on June 6th I got an email confirming I was entitled to a 50% refund and that it would be sent as a cheque to me within 28 days.

Of course, 28 days later, nothing had turned up. I called them shortly after that to find out what was going on. They claimed the cheque had been sent and suggested it had got lost on the way (in the 2 years I've been at this address it's the first time I've knowingly had mail disappear). Anyway, they cancelled that cheque and issued another, apologising for the hassle and promising that the new one would be with me within a week.

As it was I wasn't around for a couple of weeks after that so I got home yesterday, expecting to see the cheque on my doormat. I expected incorrectly.

I've called them about it again today and was told the most interesting story: apparently they can't help me right now because they've closed down a call centre down in Plymouth (I think it was), which was "outsourced", and they now no longer have access to the "computer system" with all the cases in it. They assured me that they'd get access to it within the next week or two.

Let that settle in for a moment: they apparently arranged to close down a call centre without ensuring that the computer systems that contain (some of?) their customers' data were handed over in some way, shape or form.

That's a touch worrying.

As you might imagine, I wasn't terribly pleased by this news. I'm a couple of months on from when the delay happened and I still don't have the cheque. On top of that, not having received the second attempt at sending it, I find out that nothing was likely being done about it because they'd (apparently) dropped the staff/company who would have been dealing with it. And I had to phone them (again) to find out.

I imagine that if I'd just left it to them to get in contact and let me know, I'd have waited and waited and never got anything at all.

Anyway, long story short, after pointing out that it was a bit much to ask me to let them hold onto my money even longer, just because of their system and business issues, I was passed to someone else who was able to suggest a far better and far quicker method of resolving this.

So: I'm expecting a call back from them on Monday to get that process under way. I wonder if this callback will happen?

Remember this?

I will schedule in a contact back for you for Monday 11th July and after chasing them about this again I will contact you to let you know what is happening with this now.

Well, it's now Thursday 14th and I've not had a peep out of them.

I'm on a train today. I'm actually writing this on a train. I guess I'll have to think about chasing them up tomorrow (or perhaps at least chasing them up in email today).

Little update on the Virgin East Coast Ticket Wallet app saga. After my previous reply to them I got a reply back yesterday:

Dear Mr Pearson

Many thanks for your email dated 6th July 2016 regarding the fact that you cannot sign into your Virgin Trains ticket wallet app after registering on the desktop version of our website with the email address davep.org+virgin@gmail.com.

I firstly apologise for the lack of understanding on the part of our Virgin Trains East Coast Web Support team with regards to this, the Mobile ticket issue on our app that you have described is one that has not occurred very frequently at all for any of our customers and as such this is what is causing the difficulty in resolving this for you.

I have today spoken to our second line support team and asked them the question of if there is soon to be a fix for this for you to which they have stated that they need a few more days to get this fixed.

I will schedule in a contact back for you for Monday 11th July and after chasing them about this again I will contact you to let you know what is happening with this now.

While it's taken quite a while, it looks like I'm finally making some progress. If I'm reading it right they finally acknowledge that there is a problem and that it needs fixing. It's frustrating that I've had to go backwards and forwards a few times to get to this point.

Monday will be interesting.

It's been over a week now since I last had contact with customer services and there's still been no word. So, earlier today, I sent off an email. Short and sweet, requesting that I possibly get an answer to the questions I'd asked them:

Hi, it's over a week now since I answered the couple of questions you asked and asked a couple of my own. Is it possible to get a reply and an update on what's happening?

Later on in the day I got a reply:

Dear Dave

Thank you for your email dated 6th June 2016 concerning the tickets that you have not booked with us yet and the fact that your Mobile App ticket wallet is not able to show you anything after you have installed it.

I am sorry to hear that there has been a mix up with the confirming to you if your email address has been registered or not and a such I wish to clarify this for you, also that there has been such a delay in responding to you.

I can now confirm that your email address davep.org+virgin@gmail.com is registered on our website and that you have signed up for our Ticket wallet app successfully. We apologise for telling you that it was not but this could well have been that we were searching your email address that you have been emailing us from and this is what has caused the confusion.

With regards to the use of our Ticket Wallet app before you have made a booking with us either on that or on our desktop site, it is believed that you will not be able to see much at all within the app before you make a booking with us however we have made the raise about this for you and we chased this up on the 27th June when you emailed us previously.

I will chase this up again however if possible please confirm what page you get to in the ticket wallet app at the moment so that we can identify if this is normal for a customer has no booking allocated to the app.

At this point I'm starting to seriously consider the idea that I'm being trolled. To start with, there's this bit:

concerning the tickets that you have not booked with us yet

It's hard not to read that as sarcasm. Any way I look at it it comes across as sarcasm. Sure, of course I've not booked any tickets direct with them (although I have booked lots of tickets with them this year via other websites) because of the issue -- that's the damn issue!

Anyway, possible over-sensitivity on my part aside...

The reply still seems to think that the problem is that I'm not seeing tickets I've not booked inside the Ticket Wallet app. That isn't the problem. The problem, as I clearly stated from the very start, is that I can't even log into the app. I. CAN'T. LOG. IN!

I've said this plenty of times. I've made it very clear that this is the problem. And still I'm being asked:

please confirm what page you get to in the ticket wallet app

I'm really wondering what part of "I can't even log into the app" is so hard to understand.

On the other hand, at least I've now got my second confirmation of the fact that I do actually have an account on their website, after being told I don't. I suppose that's something.

Meanwhile.... the Ticket Wallet app is still telling me that my user name or password are incorrect.

PS: "Thank you for your email dated 6th June 2016" -- it's July, not June.