Hi,

My relative attempted to book a train ticket from destination A to destination B in the EU. Instead she bought it in reverse from destination B to A, the prices are the same either way.

Immediately after purchase she contacted the website to adjust the error.

She was told she made a mistake and that the tickets are non-refundable entirely blaming her for the error.

However, I am not sure the error on the ticket was entirely her fault.

1) She has a disability and found the website was confusing and difficult to use. There were web accessibility problems. Web accessibility problems will have a disadvantage to people with certain disabilities and it will cost them money in a situation like this one.

2) She had to keep on moving back or refreshing pages as they kept timing out. The error made in the purchase might have been the result of the poor website performance, or because she had to go back on the pages.

3) The information provided on the site was not clear enough, or was not delivered in a way that was clear enough, further increasing the possibility of the error being overlooked during the check out.

4) Despite reaching out to the seller immediately after making the purchase for a ticket for a journey that is to take place only in July, the seller refused to reverse the charge or fix the error on the ticket.

5) The seller blamed my relative for the error, when the fault could lie with the website itself. This would actually means that a seller can design a website that would deliberately lead some customers to make errors, thus making people buy two tickets instead of one, and in that way sell more tickets. It’s concerning.

Do we have any rights in these situations?

Or do the ticket selling sites do what they want more or less?

Any views would be great.

Thank you.

What site?

Can you not do a change back via her debit card bank

Although looking around at reputable companies such as Eurostar, I see that they don't mention anything about cancellation rights within 14 days. Rail tickets may be an exempt category under the Consumer Contracts Regulations

Exemptions There are some contracts where you won’t have a right to cancel a service. For example, hotel bookings, flights, car hire, concerts and other event tickets, or where the trader is carrying out urgent repairs or maintenance.

https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/consumer-contracts-regulations

Bank (HSBC) apparently can only dispute it after the transaction was done.

Website where the ticket was bought: Trainline.fr - the homepage looks nice and is Web Accessible to a good standard, but once you go through the booking things change, even I can see that.

Surely switching the departure station and destination station around is not a big fix for a ticket seller. The journey remains effectively the same.

I can't help directly, but just this week I incorrectly booked both flights and hotel on the wrong days. I realised just after booking and called first thing next morning. Both FlyBe & premier Inn changed them FOC, even although they were both fixed. They both did say it was because I called within 24 hours.

problem is your seller is not the operator, they are just a middlemen and it is not in their interests to do anything to help you. they may well not have actually ordered the tickets at that point but they wont care as they know there is little you can do about it.

;5127650']Bank (HSBC) apparently can only dispute it after the transaction was done.

 

Website where the ticket was bought: Trainline.fr - the homepage looks nice and is Web Accessible to a good standard, but once you go through the booking things change, even I can see that.

 

Surely switching the departure station and destination station around is not a big fix for a ticket seller. The journey remains effectively the same.

If these were bought using a credit or debit card then do a chargeback. And lodge a formal complaint with Trainline for what its worth.