More simplified train fare scams and lies.

Following on from my earlier post exposing the train fares scam since the “simplification”, I have an update:
Cross Country admit the wrongly priced ticket are STILL on sale – even though they say they’ve know about them for a week (since last Wed – even though I first contacted them on 29th April!)

And yet, a letter from Arriva XC arrived this very morning – the key sentence is:
“Value tickets are now being charged based on the milage[sic] used. I can confirm the cots[sic] of your tickets are correct and in line with the CossCountrys[sic] fare structure for Value tickets”.

Here’s where we are now – I phoned ATOC, passenger focus, Virgin and Cross Country. They all blame each other, and after I gave up with the interweb and call centres, I went into a ticket office, and a helpful man looked at his official fare book, scratched his head, looked at something else, scratched his head again, looked puzzled and explained:

“I don’t understand this – according to the official fare book from ATOC, your ticket has gone up from £12 to £16 but that £16 fare isn’t shown as existing in the ticket system, another part of which says that the cheapest fare is £19.50 but that doesn’t exist either, and the cheapest ticket I can now find on the system is £21 which is an incorrect fare which it won’t let me book”.

He then rubbed his head in his hands and explained that basically, the whole thing had been a nightmare and that just today they had found another anomaly which meant that a certain Cross Country first class fare was £72 more than it should have been!

I tell you, this thing is going to blow up big time – but it’s taking more time and energy than I have. Can anyone help me with this? I need a fares expert and a media expert – I’ve contacted the Western Mail, Daily Telegraph, You and Yours and Moneybox. I need help pushing this story out to more media though, and with more rock-solid examples of how the public are being ripped off by this scam. Like this example below…

Newtown > Witley.

Here’s the national rail site showing that the 1445 is NOT available for travel back, and just to be double sure that I was understanding it right, a direct quote from 08457 48 49 660 (nice to hear an English voice there now!) is that “that journey is not permitted at that time”.

So, the evening peak rule strikes again?

<!–adsense#Widebar–>

So, I try all available fares – aha! Here we go…only £139!

But that’s an insane price.

So, I try Virgin Trains – here we go – fully permitted, and for £63

Let’s try another option
But here’s another anomoly: Reading > Newtown: according to National Rail enquires, there ARE advance tickets available for travel this coming Saturday to Newtown. But when I or the nice man on the phone tries to book, it says “an error occured”. So I call AXC and they say it’s because either the tickets haven’t been released or they are all sold, but can’t tell me which – and yet, National Rail says they ARE released and SHOULD be available.

So, let’s see what else we can buy: From the National Rail site (note: all images are < 40k)

Ouch! But if I book RGD>BHM>NWT, it’s only £35.

Hmmm, maybe Virgin are cheaper – they were for my other fare..

£63.70?! The same train, same time? This is nuts! And all this had happened since the 18th.

PS – the guy at ATOC says Arriva have nothing to do with CrossCountry trains – so what does the A in AXC stand for then?!

No wonder the public is confused!

Link update: This has been picked up by MoneySavingExpert at last.
Here’s the main thread. Here’s another forum thread.
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