Online reservation (Cork-Dublin) cancelled without my knowledge!

[lukasdf]

Hi everyone,

I am hoping to get some advice on an issue I experienced with train travel between Cork and Dublin last week:

On 15th July, I made the following online booking for myself and my wife:

Date: 16/7/2010 Cork – Dublin, leaving 13:30, arriving 16:25 at €36.00 per person
Date: 17/7/2010 Dublin – Cork, leaving 14:00, arriving 16:50 at €10.00 per person
Total paid: €92.00

I received a "confirmation of reservation" email, and assumed everything would be fine.

I got to Kent Station Cork at 13:05 on the 16th and was unable to get my tickets from the machine, so I turned to the man on the ticket desk and gave him my email printout. After a pointless discussion (I won't go into details), the staff member agreed to look up my reservation on the computer, only to tell me it had been cancelled!

The thing is: I didn't cancel it! I had booked accommodation in Dublin for the night, plus concert tickets (all of this non-refundable). I arrived at the station in time for the train, with my luggage (and so did my wife).

The was more pointless discussion, during which it was alleged that I had cancelled my booking over the phone about 4 hours after the original booking had been made. However, I had not been in touch with Iarnrod Eireann since making the booking on the morning of the 15th, as I was still intending to travel! I had received no email message (or anything else) to tell me about the cancellation of my booking.

The train I had booked eventually left without us (I reckon the seats had been resold). We were told to buy new tickets at the normal price for the next train, but I refused. We'd been at Kent Station for almost 45 minutes at this point, with no one able to explain what was going on.

We ended up having to run home, and then drive to Dublin and back as the concert we'd bought tickets for started at 18:30.

Today, I checked my bank account, and Iarnrod Eireann have charged me €92 for a service they failed to provide. I am absolutely disgusted.

I have written a letter of complaint, which I posted to Dublin on Monday. Is there anything else I can do? How long should I be waiting to hear anything back (if I ever do hear anything... )

Many thanks in advance for any advice / ideas,

Lukas.

[Colm Moore]

Talk to your bank / credit car company and raise it as a security issue.

Ask Irish Rail for the recording and other details of the booking being cancelled, for example, they should have the phone number from which the "cancellation" came as it goes through an Lo-call (1850) number - their phone company will bill them for their part of the call cost. I imagine they also have caller-ID.

Confirm again with your bank that the money left - sometimes the authorisation of a transaction will show as a withdrawal for a few days, but will then disappear.

Get a print-out of your account status ASAP and then do it again after a few (possibly up to five) days have elapsed.

[Mark Gleeson]

Staff member in Cork followed procedure, if the computer says its cancelled its cancelled, no discussion.

The most likely scenario is someone else rang in to cancel their reservation and then through some goof up the wrong reservation code was entered and cancelled.

Refunds take 4-6 weeks at best

Unless the cancellation is made by email, no email is sent to confirm.

[lukasdf]

Thanks everyone. If there's any news on this matter I'll post it here. All I can say is that I'm wary of using irishrail.ie ever again.
Lukas.

[Mark Gleeson]

Irish Rail is looking into it. There is no indication that the system did something wrong, it looks like a human element in the system goofed up

If you could email/pm the booking reference code it would help

[lukasdf]

Hello all,

In response to my letter and a follow-up email sent to Irish Rail reservations, I received a reply from the refunds team today acknowledging that it seems my difficulties were the result of human error. They do not record calls so I guess this makes it impossible to figure out exactly what went wrong. Importantly, however, I have now received an apology, a full refund is being processed, and they're also offering me two free adult return tickets on the Cork - Dublin service. Obviously, I'm quite pleased with this outcome. A big thank you to all those who have offered advice.
Lukas.

[Colm Moore]

Great!