Rail firm’s Poundland chocolate cheap shot backfires

THAMESLINK has been threatened with legal action by Poundland after comparing its poor service to the bargain shop’s chocolate.

After a customer complained about delays and cancellations as Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) began its new timetable, the firm tweeted: “Very sorry, Kevin. Appreciate at the moment the service is less Ferrero Rocher and more Poundland cooking chocolate.”

Austin Cooke, Poundland’s retail director, took exception, telling Charles Horton, the Thameslink CEO, that GTR had “no right to use our name to describe poor service”, adding that Poundland served eight million shoppers a week and had a “pretty good idea about what great customer service is”.

He added: “If you don’t want to hear from our extremely twitchy legal team, we suggest you remove your tweet.”

Thameslink deleted the offending message, stating: “Very sorry for using your name here. I have removed the offending tweet.”

Passengers supported Poundland’s response online: “Ridiculous of Govia to insult other brands when they’re gloriously penny pinching and provide an embarrassing service. They can’t even be described as a ‘pound shop operator’ as that’s an insult to pound shops,” one stated. Another said: “Fair play Poundland … you definitely provide better value for money and consistent service any day of the week.”

Thameslink’s services have been disrupted for more than a week, with up to half of its trains cancelled or severely delayed on some routes on Wednesday. Disruptions are expected to go on for up to a month. MPS and rail passenger groups have called for “emergency measures” as train lines operated by GTR, including Southern, Thameslink and Northern, struggled to cope with the new timetable changes.

Edward Carder, who leads the Royston and Villages Rail Users Group, said the timetable switchover had been “utterly shambolic”. He said: “We have had heartbreaking stories of children scrambling to get to GCSE exams in a panic and lost hospital appointments due to missed trains. It is essentially impossible to conduct your life in reliance on the trains at present. The service is broken.”

Chris Grayling, the Transport Secretary, said the rail industry had “failed the passengers it serves”, adding that the timetable had been implemented “much too late to permit adequate logistical planning”.

GTR was at the receiving end of another online storm in October 2016 when it urged passengers to “strike back” at the RMT transport union.

Passengers vented their anger at the firm’s handling of the dispute and heavily criticised it for poor service that was not due to strike threats, and expressed their support for the union.