I’m going off the rails trying to pay £7 fare
S.H. writes: I used Trainline to buy a £7 Merseyrail ticket from Ormskirk to Liverpool Central Station, but when I arrived in Liverpool, staff would not accept it as valid. An officer issued me with a £20 penalty notice, though at the same time he told a lady who said she had forgotten her ticket that she could buy another. When I contacted Trainline and Merseyrail, the penalty notice was cancelled. However, Trainline then refunded the £7 to me, so Merseyrail sent me a fresh penalty notice for £27, and as I did not pay, it now wants £125.
THIS could be a comedy of errors, but I know you have found it hugely stressful. The heart of the problem is that Trainline sells Merseyrail tickets online, but you have to go to a station to collect them – and absurdly, not a Merseyrail station.
So although you had a Trainline printout proving you had paid the fare, you could not collect your ticket at Liverpool Central or at Ormskirk in Lancashire where your journey began.
Trainline told me that its website explains that customers using Merseyrail have to collect tickets from another station. In fact, it offers a map covered in about 1,500 overlapping blobs showing where Trainline tickets can be collected. But it would make far more sense to avoid Trainline altogether.
What you were supposed to do was catch a train from Ormskirk heading in the opposite direction and collect your ticket at Burscough Junction, where Trainline is accepted. Then you would have had to return to Ormskirk and wait for your train to Liverpool. As a result, your 34-minute journey to Liverpool would actually have taken two hours and 22 minutes, and you would have been charged an extra £3.50 for a day return to Burscough.
Merseyrail sensibly scrapped the original penalty notice, but as Trainline and Merseyrail seem to have no relationship, Trainline refunded the £7 fare to you instead of paying it to Merseyrail. That left Merseyrail out of pocket so it reinstated its demand to you, including a £20 penalty. You were never a fare dodger, but you were treated as just that.
Not surprisingly, you offered to pay the normal £7 fare, but not the penalty, which then escalated to £125. I contacted Merseyrail, where staff made clear that this was not the first time they had met problems involving Trainline. After some discussions with me, and between Merseyrail staff and their prosecutions department, common sense and perhaps the spirit of Christmas prevailed. On December 17, you were told that if you paid the £7 fare within 14 days, there would be no penalty, but fail to pay and the next stop was court. You duly went online to pay, but your attempt hit the buffers.
You telephoned, but Merseyrail refused to take your £ 7, with a recorded message insisting nothing was owed. That left you unable to pay, and facing a court appearance. I retraced your steps with the same results, so I contacted Merseyrail and suggested I would come to their offices with a Mail on Sunday photographer and hand over the £7 in cash. Merseyrail i mmediately decided a ‘technical issue’ was to blame, and when this was corrected a few days before Christmas, I used its automatic phone payment line and found a fresh demand for £7.
Sharing your frustration, I paid it for you, rather than let the matter drag on.
It would be good to see Trainline stop offering Merseyrail tickets that it has such trouble providing, but meanwhile Merseyrail passengers would do well to completely avoid it.