What Annoyed the Internet This Week?
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Like most of the UK, I detest train companies. They treat their staff unfairly which forces them to strike all the time, their customer service is appalling and they charge you ridiculous amounts of money to sit in one of their sub-par trains for a few hours.
I am so disgruntled with the train service that I recently became a National Express customer and would rather be on a bus for 12 hours (£20 return) to get from home to uni than on a stuffy, overcrowded train for 6 hours (£100+ WITH A RAILCARD).
Anyway, everyone’s favourite train service Arriva has caused a bit of upset this week after a customer took to Twitter to complain about lost property charges.
So my lost wallet was found by @ArrivaTW and they charge me £2 to release it, then take 10% of the cash that was in the wallet! #TheftByTrain
— Adam Howells (@AdamHowells) September 11, 2018
Being militantly skeptic of anything posted online, I read the replies to his tweet to see if this was legit. Sure enough, Arriva itself responded.
Hi Tim, you can view the Lost Property Charges here – https://t.co/1SRWSVlrfo. If you're looking to discuss this further please get in touch with our customer relations, the email is- customer.relations@arrivatrainswales.co.uk ^Joy pic.twitter.com/6fOCICRqbE
— Arriva Trains Wales (@ArrivaTW) September 13, 2018
Having never lost anything on a train, I’d never heard of a ‘Lost Property release fee’. I mean, the postage fee is fair enough but why would a train company feel entitled to 10% of the cash in someone’s wallet? Surely that’s not their money to take. What’s to stop the policy becoming 100% of the cash in the wallet in future?
Within hours, hundreds of Twitter users replied to the original tweet as well as Arriva’s response.
Hi Jason, to store & process all the items we recover takes a considerable amount of resource. As such we, like all other train operators in the UK, have handling fees as set out in the National Rail Conditions of Travel ^Joy
— Arriva Trains Wales (@ArrivaTW) September 13, 2018
A classic case of “Well all the other _____ do it so why shouldn’t we?”
https://twitter.com/AledMorgan_/status/1040269889053835265
Good point. I’m sure that extra £4 from someone’s purse really makes all the difference in the running of the company.
Does it cost 10x more to handle a wallet with £100 than £10?? How can this be? Please explain
— Blueshift (@RockLordsRock) September 14, 2018
Maybe Arriva will argue that the extra few grams in a wallet with more money costs more to handle. Maybe two workers need to lift a wallet with £100 in so the 10% accounts for all the extra manpower.
Hi Sara, I do not have detailed information about the pricing structure I'm afraid. To discuss in detail please get in touch with our Customer Relations team customer.relations@arrivatrainswales.co.uk ^Liv
— Arriva Trains Wales (@ArrivaTW) September 13, 2018
That's not what I asked. I asked how you could ethically justify charging for mobility devices for disabled people?
— A Big, Fat Dynamo (@cheesepickles) September 13, 2018
Liv and Joy of the Arriva customer service department had a hard day, didn’t they? They’re the real victims in this.
Arriva you’re getting nationalised first babe x https://t.co/U5Jzllyk5H
— Jamie Dickinson (@jamielewis016) September 13, 2018
It’s true, Margaret Thatcher and John Major started all this when they decided to flog the railway off to greedy businessmen.