Rail Ombudsman Opiniones 

I had been waiting since the 2nd August 2022 for LNER to uphold a collective claim for £188.53 due to a whole series of linked incidents related to a trip to Scotland in June. None of the individual claims were paid as I claimed for each one at the appropriate time.

After presenting the Rail Ombudsman with the same information and evidence in December 2022 my claim was finally upheld by LNER who also offered a modest compensation of £25 for my inconvenience.

Like the train service itself and responses to each of my claims, the payment is also late. A least LNER are consistent!

However, a big THANKS to the Rail Ombudsman!

After Avanti cancelled a west coast main line train on 30 Sep 2022 with no advance notice leaving me (and other passengers) to find our own way to Euston I filed a compensation claim the next day. After 100 days of frustrating back and forth with various departments and agents they still would not make a logical or reasonable compensation offer and sent me the “Deadlock Letter”. Not to be put off I sent all the details to the Rail Ombudsman who reviewed and accepted the case. After less than 1 month the Ombudsman team resolved the case in my favour with Avanti offering full cash refund of my fare plus additional complimentary travel tickets.
After my experience with Avanti it was a pleasure to deal with this professional, logical and responsive Rail Ombudsman team - Jessie Smith and Bethany Smith. They guided me through the mediation process followed by negotiating a settlement agreement which I was pleased to accept.
Without their involvement I would never have received a satisfactory settlement, so I thank them and recommend anyone struggling to get compensation from a rail company to contact them.

Following a claim in September 2022, Cross Country acknowledged and duly awarded compensation. However, it was only with the involvement of the Rail Ombudsman that payment finally reached my bank account in January 2023. I was impressed by the speedy efficiency with which my case was picked up and was reassured by regular updates from Rosie Tackley. I am grateful for her input and the successful outcome.

Bethany Smith dealt with my case, she was really fair and helpful. Also the web case tracker is very clear and easy to follow. The my claim against the RSP was resolved quickly once the ofice of the Ombudsman was engaged. I was very happy with the outcome.

After a long and frustrating dispute with Avanti West Coast over delay compensation, which went on for about 5 months, the Rail Ombudsman representative assigned to my case resolved the issue within a manner of one or two weeks. Key to the process was the extensive record of communication I had kept with AWC.

I was one of the many passengers who could not travel from London to Stevenage on 20.09.22 after some idiot messed with the overhead cables. There were no trains running at all, all night, and passengers were told not to travel. I stayed at a relative's for the night, didn't sleep a wink, but asked for compensation for a meal. They refused, I asked the Ombudsman to take a look. The Ombudsman investigator accepted their lies about there being ticket acceptance on other routes (this was true, but no routes to Stevenage) and then- would you believe, stated that when they say 'do not travel' they don;t really mean it after all. It is just advisory. I guess then, when I looked at National Rail and Great Northern's twitter feed at 2.am the next day and found that there were still no trains running, it would have been preferable for me to have sat at the platform, a lone female in the dead of night, waiting for a non existent train to come, instead of seek warmth, shelter and safety and ask them to pay for my dinner. The Ombudsman has not established where the ticket transfer routes were to (i.e. not to my destination) and really, being told that 'do not travel' does not really mean 'do NOT travel at all' but instead means 'well, we haven;t got trains running on your route, but there are trains that will take you to within 20 miles of your destination if you fancy giving it a go' really just takes the pi55. The Ombudsman investigator has not pushed them at all, has not 'investigated' by asking any relevant questions and totally lacks any professional curiosity or investigative prowess whatsoever. She says I can go to the next stage- adjudication- but honestly I have far better things to do with my time. Next time I will manage things very differently- plenty of screenshots for a start as you can only scroll back one month on twitter. 2 stars though as the website is very easy to use. Hurrah!

I had a dispute with Avanti West Coast who cancelled a train mid-journey and essentially dumped us. The Rail Ombudsman took up the case and although not the fullest of compensation, battled hard to get an outcome. A good effort and thank goodness we have an organisation that can fight our battles.

Perfect! Case handled very professionally and quickly. Great customer service!

A simple compliant against Cross Country was raised in November 2022.
CC had failed to reply to a delay repay request from September 2022.
We are almost in February 2023 and this remains unresolved.

Having battled and battled with Northern Rail I contacted the Ombudsman and got an IMMEDIATE resolution. When I think of the time that I spent writing email after email to Northern Rail and getting noweher I am not surprised that the company is in the mess it is in!

Having failed to make progress with Avanti west coast I dealt with the ombudsman by email. No difficulty in submitting the information and responses were fairly timely. The ombudsman service delivered what I wanted -a cash refund rather than travel vouchers. I would use the service again with confidence

The railway ombudsman has been brilliant and quick to sort out and issue with claiming a ticket refund for a cancelled train that should have been straightforward to claim from GWR.

Excellent speedy service. It was made clear what was needed at every step of process. Postal referral was acknowledged and I was kept informed of progress every step of the way.
Case was resolved within approximately 4 weeks compared with me tussling with train company for 4 months! And I was offered compensation as well, which was an extra bonus,

Following an incident of GWR staff bullying, harassing and discriminating against me at Paddington station, I raised a complaint with GWR.

After over 40 days of waiting, GWR closed my complaint, saying that they do not compensate passengers for complaints against staff.

I took my complaint to the Rail Ombudsman. GWR offered £25 in rail vouchers.

I declined because £25 did not reflect the injury to feelings that I sustained, nor did I want "store credit" from GWR.

GWR then increased their offer to £50 by BACS transfer. I still felt that this did not sufficiently reflect the injury to feelings that I sustained.

The final decision / offer made by Rosie Tackley was £10 in rail vouchers. This was because Tackley did not recognise any wrongdoing by the staff member in my video recordings.

What's unusual is that GWR was prepared to offer £50 by BACS in recognition of the staff member's wrongdoing.

Based on my experience with the Rail Ombudsman, I cannot recommend them in good faith.

Rosie Tackley saw nothing wrong with the GWR staff member:

- failing to recognise and consider my hidden disability lanyard
- speaking to me in a rude and discourteous manner for no reason
- unfairly reprimanding me for "pushing in" when other passengers had done the same to me without challenge
- singling me out by closely examining my eTicket (something which they did not do for other passengers)
- operating my smartphone without consent
- looking me "down and up" as I passed through the ticket barrier

It is therefore possible that Rosie Tackley has compromised judgement, and is not fit to do their job.

When I couldn’t get a response from LNER from numerous emails of which I had been trying from June ! You stepped in and resolved my issue getting a full refund. Thanks for your help!

Great and quick service. Worth the time and effort.

The ombudsman sorted out my refund from Northern very quickly and efficiently. I do not think Northern would have paid me without their intervention. It is definitely worth getting them involved in Delay Repay disputes.

The purpose of my complaint was being abandoned without any assistance whatsoever which GWR have chosen not to address when they finally responded? Why your operation needed to be involved to achieve even a response from GWR should not have been necessary!

After waiting what seemed like an eternity, I had a response from the Rail Ombudsman, which failed to even acknowledge two of the three points of my complaint.

I asked for a review of the decision.

It was indeed reviewed – but by the same person who had provided the original threadbare and irrelevant response. Needless to say, he did not deign to find fault with his own initial findings.

It's hard to imagine a review process that could be more flawed, but it got worse.

The matter then pinged to his line manager, a 'lead ombudsman', so surely this would now get sorted?

Not a chance – she appears to be a close personal friend of his, judging by an avalanche of their shared social media activity.

Surely, she would recuse herself and pass the case on to another manager?

She did not.

Surely someone in senior management might at some stage step in to rearrange the lines of escalation for the purposes of maintaining impartial checks and balances, particularly when a claim to objectivity stands as the bedrock of the organisational mission?

They did not.

The senior ombudsperson found in favour of the original findings without actually saying why.

Furthermore, she made two staggering assertions along the way:

– Complaints are addressed 'as a whole'. This means that if a rail provider can provide a level of justification for any one single issue you raise, they win. The remaining points you make will not be considered at all. It's why service complaints never garner a single acknowledgement.

– Secondly, the threshold for the said justification can be met by evidence that is provided in secret. You are simply told that the rail organisation has satisfied the ombudsman that they were right, and nothing about that evidence is disclosed at all.

The escalated review response was jumbled and ungrammatical, so I asked for some clarification. My communications were ignored.

It's a challenge to see this as anything other than a fundamentally inadequate approach to complaints investigation and resolution.

The Rail Ombudsman is a private, for-profit organisation who mark their own homework and are accountable to nobody. Their other role is that they are the Furniture Ombudsman.

Take a brief moment to contemplate that.

It hardly fills you with confidence regarding their industry expertise.

Moreover, their whole commercial model is apparently as questionable as their operational processes.

They are funded by the very organisations they supposedly regulate, which leads to one possible and very problematic conclusion: an abundance in findings for consumers might very well create an existential crisis for their own business.

How can they therefore remain impartial and hope to stay in business? The answer to that may be that they cannot, which perhaps somewhat explains their opaque and seemingly indefensible methods and attitude.

The only parties who regularly benefit from their activities are the Rail Ombudsman themselves, who spoon in a fee for every complaint received, and the rail companies, who are provided with the routine stamp of approval for their frequent, flagrant abuses of consumer rights.

I would recommend giving them a wide berth.

Customers will arguably be better off running a case in the small claims court where a decision will be based impartially on evidence and consumer law.

If enough people go down this track (pun intended), rail companies may not feel they are getting their money's worth, and hopefully this organisation will be superseded by an impartial and competent governmental equivalent.

After being forced to take taxis due to Northern cancelling 2 trains at the last minute I was left £45 out of pocket with taxi fares. Northern only agreed to pay half of that back which wasn't fair as it was their fault I had to get the taxis as there was no way of being able to make the journeys without cancelling my plans any other way than a taxi thanks to the cancelled trains.
I contacted The Rail Ombudsman and explained how there was no way I could make those journeys without using a taxi. Despite all the proof they not only ruled against me, I didn't get a penny of the money I am owed, they completely failed to provide any explanation of what I should have done barring plan for your trains to be cancelled or cancel your plans. Absolutely pathetic. Oh yeah, and it took almost 2 months to find this out.
An absolute waste of space. I won't ever bother with the Rail Ombudsman again. They are clearly there just to support the rail companies. Obviously very partial and biased.