—Southern Trains basically commits a fraud and makes it appear to be a mistake

—Corporate behavior discriminates against vulnerable people, who may not be familiar with all of the company’s services and may already have more financial stress in their lives

Reporting and opinion by Mathew Carr

Nov. 26, 2023 — You would not know you can get about 50% off your train ticket if you use a ticket machine at Victoria Station, UK.

If you are travelling Saturday and returning Sunday you can pick up a weekend return for about £15 —- only if you know how.

Buying a single each way would cost you about £30 all up. Single day returns are also about £15.

The lack of the offer for the weekender ticket on the machine in the station is deceptive corporate conduct in my opinion.

I know it’s technically possible to sell the weekender ticket there, because I bought one from the machines a couple of weeks back.

Further, the government has scrapped plans for train companies to close down ticket offices operated by real people.

So, given the train companies will need to keep funding the system that employs humans ….they are probably looking for additional ways to make money since they are not allowed to cut costs by firing them.

The scam?

I initially bought a same-day return ticket because that was the only one available at the machine and I wasn’t sure what time my next train was and I was not not clear in my mind when I would need the return trip.

When I noticed that I had to wait almost an hour for the next train, I decided to use some of that time to ask a real ticket person in the ticket office whether the weekender was still being sold.

It was! I asked why wasn’t the option being offered on the machine and the human conceded it was a known problem.

I put it to the person the company was trying to improperly extract additional money. They didn’t address my question.

The person agreed to swap my day return for a weekender for a 50p fee.

This meant I could travel the return leg without spending another £15 or so.

Result!

Now …what was the motive here?

Southern Trains wasn’t after the 50p, it wanted the extra £15, I contend, following the money.

By failing to include the weekender as an option, Southern would potentially have basically robbed me of that money.

While £15 isn’t a huge sum, lots of little ripoffs add up to a large fraud against the people.

Corporates need to drop tactics like these … and those deploying them should be punished and perhaps fired.

Please comment, Southern … at mathew@carrzee.net