I booked a ticket on the computer and the system changed by ticket from 6:55am the next morning to 11pm that night! I didn't realise until I had already paid £84.59. When I tried to cancel, it then redirected me to paying for another ticket, which I thought at first must have been just paying the difference of an off-peak ticket to a peak-time ticket, but I was then charged another £63.20! The computer system was horribly confusing, and it was very difficult to know what the right thing to do was, and it seemed that each time I clicked on the same link, it took me to a different webpage. Overall, I spent almost 2 hours trying to sort out this issue which was caused by Trainline's horrible computer system. Eventually, I requested a refund on the £84.59 which cancelled those tickets.
The following day after my journey (today), I see that I have only been refunded £10.90, which included a £5.00 admin fee for the privilege. I tried to phone customer services and could not find a phone number easily on their website, just a business services phone number, who then gave me another phone number for the personal customer services phoneline.
When speaking to customer services, they informed me that the maximum they could refund me was an additional £50.90 (which was additional to the £10.90), which still left me paying £22.79 for the privilege of using their horrible computer booking system that put me in this position in the first place. I was told that if I had called them, they could have sorted the problem pout before I would have had to pay for another ticket, however, their phonelines are only open from 8am-6pm, so there was no possible way of me contacting them before I had to get the train.
The lady on the end of the phone did what she could, and she was perfectly pleasant. However, I am still appalled by Trainline's shocking customer service policies. When I requested if there was anything that could be done to compensate me for the additional £22.79 I had lost, such as a Trainline coupon, I was told no. When I asked if Trainline had a complaints handling procedure, I was told no.
I looked high and low on the Trainline website for a complaints portal, but I was left disappointed. The fact that I am unable to lodge any sort of formal complaint is shameful, as every modern business should have one as standard. When I went onto their Customer Support page, I was left with dead-end problem pages with no way of submitting any sort of formal complaint. The Rail Ombudsman supposedly regulates Trainline, but they were unable to accept any form of complaint against Trainline. On their complaints page, it also kept redirecting me to an Italian webpage - NOT HELPFUL!
I then used their chat service and they also were not able to help me in any way. No other service I have ever used charges extra for people to receive a refund. This is terrible. They are a big company and can afford to give people proper refunds.
Your customer service and computer booking system are shameful Trainline - do better!