Posts from August 2016

Just one day on from yesterday's update post where I wrote about how pretty much every promise made by Virgin East Coast had (once again) been broken and it looks like it's all change (or at least looks a lot more promising now).

After I wrote the post I did the usual thing of tweeting it and I then went about the business of sending off yet another set of chase-up emails.

The first to come back was from the person dealing with the compensation cheque. I'd pointed out that it was now a week since the sending of the cheque via recorded delivery was supposed to have happened and that nothing had turned up. This was the reply:

I am sorry to hear this still has not happened. Would it be possible for you to send me your address so that I can track the cheque and I will find out as soon as possible where this is. I apologise for the delay, but rest assured my number one goal is to get this issue resolved for you. I look forward to hearing from you.

This actually annoyed me a little. I'd asked when the cheque had been sent and also how it'd been sent so that I could see if the original promise had been kept. The answer appeared to be avoiding that question. On subsequent replies I was told that it had been issued the week earlier but hadn't been dealt with in person:

I followed it up with our fulfilment department and they told me that they had it in the office with them. It is the one that was originally sent out on the 2nd August and for some reason had not been issued by that department. Our fulfilment is outsourced and so when we raise letters or cheques we phone them to check on the progress. I am sorry that they did not issue it but rest assured it has been sent now as I made it a case of urgency due to the delays you have already experienced. I can only apologise for the further delay.

Given all the previous conversations where I was told about how they were moving some systems that dealt with this -- which were previously outsourced -- in-house (although apparently not the part that involves actually sending cheques) I'm even more strongly suspecting that the first couple of attempts to send the cheque never actually happened.

Anyway, long story short(ish): after a bit of back and forth to get to the bottom of what was actually going on I was assured that the cheque had finally been sent. Frustratingly this wasn't quite what I wanted. I'm unlikely to be around to receive an item of post sent via recorded delivery so I'd have liked it to be sent elsewhere (it should be no surprise that people who use Virgin East Coast's services a fair bit are also quite likely to be away from their normal address quite a bit during "normal" hours).

That said... some progress there. While it'd taken far too long to get it resolved, it was finally starting to appear like it was being resolved.

This approach was, however, being rendered moot by other events.

Backing up again to yesterday: after I'd tweeted about the blog post, and mentioned @Virgin_TrainsEC so they could have a chance to see and respond (they didn't this time), my adorable girlfriend did a bit of checking in the background and did a little retweet:

I was sceptical that this would have any effect. I'd been promised a call or something from the "MD's Office" by the customer support people over a week ago and nothing had happened. Even when I'd sent them a follow-up DM near the end of the week I got no reply at all. I'd got to the point where I'd assumed I was just being fobbed off.

I was wrong to think so though. While the request to email the details of the issue was slightly frustrating (you'd think 11 blog posts would document the issues in enough detail, and a link was provided) it was heartening to see something happening.

I did point this out to David:

and also point out that if the details weren't in their system, that might be a brilliant illustration of the cause of the issues:

I didn't hear much more until around 18:30 when, all credit to him, David did check that I'd had someone contact me:

At that point he asked me for some contact details (again, a slightly frustrating indication of an organisation that doesn't have joined-up systems) which I provided (my main email address and my mobile number).

I didn't hear anything more that evening but, earlier today, I had an email from a Mike Ross ("Customer Relations Manager - MD's Office" according to the bottom of the email). He said he'd like to have a chat and could I let him know when would be a good time to call. I replied saying any time during normal business hours would be good for me.

That call made all the difference. As well as obviously offering an apology for all that had happened so far, Mike was kind enough to both explain what was likely happening and why (they inherited a setup that involved a lot of outsourced contracts for lots of parts of the business -- something they're fixing by bringing many systems back in-house) while also actually listening to what I was saying.

More to the point though, he made very clear promises on how he was going to get my issues solved. Here's the outcome of that conversation:

• Any and all cheques raised to try and get the refund to me will be stopped and the payment sent to me via BACS (something they're not set up for doing in general but which they're working on fixing).
• Someone with good knowledge of their Ticket Wallet App and their website will give me a call in the next day or so to go over the issues and try and get things working (or at least ensure there's a good understanding of the cause of the problem).
• By way of saying thanks they're going to send me four first class open return tickets for use on the East Coast line. I think that's a very kind and generous gesture and one that's going to be very useful to me over the next couple of months. (the tickets come with the offer of being able to email Mike's office and have them sort the booking of an actual seat for each journey).
• Mike has also said he wants to stay in touch and keep me informed of how things are changing in Virgin East Coast so that the issues I've experienced have less chance of happening in the future.
• Related to the above he's also said he'd like to meet up for coffee once or twice to go over things and have a chat about how the company appear to a paying customer. While I'd never hold myself up as a typical customer, and especially not one who has any particular insight, I think it's an impressive approach to take.

I am, of course, feeling cautious about all of the above. It is "just" another set of promises that could be easily broken and, so far, VEC don't have a brilliant track record of doing that. But the promises appeared genuine and to think otherwise would be to not allow them to fix the issues.

I'll write more about it on the blog as things happen.

It's now another Tuesday morning. It's the Tuesday morning after the previous Tuesday morning when I was waiting on some sort of call from Virgin regarding the missing refund. After I wrote that last post I dropped the chap I'd spoken to an email to chase up what was happening. This was his reply:

I am sorry that I was not able to contact you yesterday as this system switchover is happening we are going through an extremely busy period in the business. I have looked into your case and have reissued the cheque that you did not receive and that should be with you shortly.

Under normal circumstances I'd imagine a cheque sent in the post would arrive within a couple of working days. Given that was last Tuesday I think it's fair to say that it should have turned up by last Friday.

Thing is, when I'd spoken to that chap the week before he'd assured me that they'd send this cheque by recorded delivery to ensure that it got through.

I still don't have the cheque.

I guess this means one of 3 things has happened:

• He said he'd sent it, but he hadn't.
• He did send it, but not via recorded delivery, and it's disappeared into whatever black hole snail mail from Virgin East Coast seems to be disappearing into.
• He did send it, via recorded delivery, and we now have some clue as to where the above black hole is located.

Whatever the cause, I'm going to have to drop him a line again and find out what's happening.

On a previous post about this issue my friend Mark raised an interesting issue: if Virgin had lost access to the required data because they'd ceased using the services of some third party (as was claimed), what did this mean in data protection terms? I'd not really considered this but it was a fair question. When I last emailed Virgin I asked about this too:

As an aside, could I also ask who's a good person to speak to about what was happening with my data during the period Virgin East Coast didn't have access to it? Thanks.

That question got this reply:

The data is still with us as a company it is just in the process of being uploaded onto our systems. The information has never left our company it is just in the process of being updated onto our systems.

For now, at least, I'm happy enough with that as an explanation. I'm going to apply Hanlon's Razor to this and assume it was just clumsy wording when the subject first came up.

So, to summarise this situation so far: a late journey that happened back on June 2nd, for which compensation was confirmed in email on June 6th, the cheque for which was supposed to turn up early July at the latest, still hasn't appeared by August 8th. Worse still, I've been told 3 times now that "the cheque is in the post" and on at least one of those occasions it appears to have been an outright fib due to the closing of some of their systems.

On top of the above, there's another contact I'm awaiting that has yet to happen. Last week, when I tweeted about the previous post, the Virgin East Coast twitter people asked me to provide them with my contact details.

I checked with them why they needed the details (given that they're obviously already on the system) and they said that they'd escalated it to the "Managing Director's office" and that they wanted my contact details so that office could contact me. I provided them and also pointed out that email is normally the best way to contact me -- they then asked for the best email address to contact me on and I provided that too.

Having done that I was told they'd be in touch "next week". In this case "next week" was any time last week (as of the time of writing and publishing).

Nobody got in contact last week. Nobody from a "Managing Director's Office", nobody at all from Virgin East Coast.

So, as of right now, I'm waiting on the following from Virgin East Coast, all promised by them:

• A reply as to what's happening with the inability to log in with the Ticket Wallet application (outstanding since 2016-07-15, although really outstanding from a while before then).
• A cheque that was supposed to have been sent via recorded delivery on 2016-08-02.
• Some form of contact from the "Managing Director's office" that was promised on 2016-07-29 and which was supposed to have happened some time between 2016-08-01 and 2016-08-05. This contact to, in part, deal with the two contact failures above.

The unwillingness or inability to stay in contact with a customer who has problems does seem to be a persistent pattern. One that seems to go to the top.

Right, time to publish this and start sending out even more chase-up emails. I guess it gives me something to keep me busy when I'm on the train.

It's Tuesday morning. That means it's the day after Virgin said they'd call me back to deal with the refund issue from last Friday. I've not had a call back. That's the second time now I've been told they'll call me back on a specific date and I've had nothing.

Right now I'm missing a callback about the refund and some sort of update on the ticket wallet issue (which was promised "very soon" back on July 15th).

I'm also waiting for some sort of contact from another party in the organisation that I was promised via DM on twitter last Friday. No sign of that either (although no timescale was given for that).

It's starting to get a little tedious, always having to be the one to chase things up.

But chase them up I will...