Rail Card Renewals

[Tea Room? At this time of day it's nearer Staff Canteen.]

Anyone else have problems with replacing a Rail Card?

The system assumed I have an "account". Do I? I didn't know that.

Anyway my Senior Citizens card expired back in March so I decided, admittedly a bit late for my likely near-future use, to renew it.

After the first failure an advisor told me I would have to apply for a new one, since the renewal itself has an expiry date, by re-registering.

Oh, all right. Fair enough. I'll do that.

What a rigmarole!

If I could be certain I can renew at my local railway station, which I think still has a real ticket office, I would do that; but of course that would be too simple and efficient for the "smart"-'phone brigade to comprehend.

Answering the same Railcard web-site questions over and over again, password problems, the wretched 'Captcha' thing failing at least twice, round and round the system being continually referred back to Square One.....

Eventually I gave up and sent a terse comment to that effect, followed by:

"If Network Rail doesn't want my trade (and the unions certainly don't), why should I bother?"

Something similar with my company IT dept today...

Best one for a while was last week when they were advising us of new security processes..."in the event of your laptop being stolen, email us....".....my question was "how?"

All the best

Derek

I recently renewed mine, which was well out of date. Completely pain free, but I do have a little book in which I record the miriad passwords you need nowadays

When renewing rail cards (or so I have been told) it is cheaper to renew online than by going in to your local station. Roughly the same price for 3 years online or 2 years over the counter. Worth checking, anyway.

It's also probably quicker on-line unless the ticket-office can issue them there and then. Frankly for the ease and convenience the price difference make the station the better option than a flaky web-site.

The site offers either a "smart"-'phone version or plastic card. No mention of local purchase. Since I am not one of the Great Family We-all with half a Cray in my very large pocket, I have to request the physical card.

I am though wondering if my problem in not within that one web-site. The Railcard site is easy to use so I don't think I am cocking it up, but it just keeps failing. However, it is not the only one. I tried to reach the Members' Area of a club I am in, but it kept rejecting my password for no stated reason. It did not actually say so: it just did not do anything.

I started buying Railcards when my step-daughter began university so that I could pay for all her rail travel at the Student Railcard discounted rate. For some reason, I can't recall why, I opened the account in her name but with my email address and bank details. When I all but gave up driving anywhere of any distance I wanted to buy Senior Railcards for myself and my wife but for some reason the online site will not let me open an account in my own name because my email address has already been used on another account. I have tried to delete the previous account without success, even though it was me who set it up, so I have had to continue purchasing and renewing our Railcards in my step-daughter's account name although I pay for everything directly from my bank account. I find it a little odd and frustrating that I can't dispense with an account that I set up with all my details but in another person'e name and open account in my own name.

This is really odd, both my wife and I have railcards, both bought online, and only one email address. No problem renewing on line

Chris

Can you not just get an additional email address? ( g mail for example)

Stuart

Presumably the same as everyone else these days: they assume you own, can use and do use a cellphone.

Stuart, yes I suppose I could do that but I will probably just renew the next railcard on the old account. It really doesn't matter that it is under the step-daughter's name because I pay for it and all the cards I have ordered through it have always arrived with the correct names on them. It just seems odd that I can neither delete the account or change it to my name, or at least I couldn't the last time I tried. I will be renewing the wife's card next pension day so I will try again to update or remove the account.

Sorted though for a year not three.

I ascertained by telephone call ("Press 4 for ... " that our station does sell them.

A trip to town (Buss Pass!), a short form to complete, £30 transaction and there we are; done in just a few minutes. Instant too, no waiting for several days for its arrival.

The Railcard web-site is relatively simple to use, as big commercial sites go, IF it works. It's that IF which was the stumbling-block. It didn't! On the occasions it does work / might work / feels like working anyway, the site offers only two options: a plastic card posted a few days later, or something I-know-not-what sent to your "smart"-'phone.

So one option, as I've no such telephone anyway.

The paper form asked for my portable number but not home number. Since I can never remember the former, I left the line blank, but it was optional anyway.

Why do big organisations think that because they and a lot of their customers use "smart"-phones, everybody does?

......because big organisations are now staffed by people who have had smart-phones and internet access since they were 9 years old.

Therefore they cannot conceive of anybody not having a smart-phone, or anybody wanting to physically go all that way to a ticket office and talk to a human being, when they can do it all at the touch of a button from home.

People like us who remember (and prefer), the old ways have mostly retired.

PS, unless it is vital to me that someone has my number, I just make one up. Giving out your mobile number invites a lot of spam and nuisance texts, and con artists.

. 

Edited By John Doe 2 on 24/08/2022 09:24:56

I have thought that may be the case. So many businesses are now so assumptive. They are mirrored by the narrow-minded "lifestyle" columnists, creating between them what I call 'The Great Family We-All'.

Unfortunately too many of these organisations are also very poor at designing web-sites for the user rather than programmer. Oh yes they all know JavaScript, C++, graphics-editors etc., but miss the point of the site being to enable non-specialists to obtain information or send requests! Sometimes I think it is wilful, to deter any contact except for purchasing.

Railcards' web-site is fairly good for the user until something goes wrong.

The best site I have used is the UK.gov one.

I like that idea - the false number - but you'd have to careful not to use inadvertently a genuine one. Better to say, "I don't have one". If it's database that has an attack of the vapours when faced with a blank cell, it might work with just an 11-digit long string of one digit.

If the number is given to a large organisation, for it then to be used by the fraudsters and spammers suggests negligent security by the company. Or it is selling your details deliberately and negligently.

It's the way of the world. Don't forget that in our youth we also rode roughshod over the elderly! And weren't generous with their pensions...

On the latter: yes they should, but some office staff are shockingly casual about GDPR. Having told someone in an email that I would telephone to give my bank details rather than email them - because email is not secure - they emailed back with my bank details saying they had found these on file; were they the correct ones? Words failed me......

I seem to get more spam and junk email after I have given out my genuine details on an internet site - even so-called https, i.e. supposedly secure sites. Difficult to know which sites are leaking the info.

I've had good use from my railcard. Unfortunately, I don't think the railways are viable in the long term, too useful as a political football to some and for others, an unfair burden on the taxpayers who have little or no access but have to contribute to subsidies.

Speak for yourself !

The problem with SO many of these "On Line" transactions is that they have been designed by Geeks who are totally conversant with the system, but make NO allowance for anyone who is not.

Have just had to give up trying to update the Electoral Roll, on Line. Yes they provide a unique security number for the address, but make no place in which to enter it, despite having advised you that bit is easier On Line!

It would also have helped if they had got the address correct!

They have forgotten, or never learned, the Radio Amateur's motto of "Keep It Simple Stupid"

As you say, "If your laptop, is stolen report it on line"!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"If your house is on fire, go into the hall and dial 999"

Computers are logical, but many of the program writers are not!

Howard

Another big irritation is not telling at the start, what supporting information you will be asked for, or what constraints you will meet, as you progress through the screenfuls of bumph.

.

I abandoned ActionFraud as useless several years ago when I discovered it could only accept certain types of incident. Once I had summarised Proust on it, it told me mine was of course, the wrong type of attack. Oh, and it had no facility for accepting forwarded messages for analysis! I was not really surprised to learn later that it is not even a UK Home Office branch, but some commercial contractor in the USA.

.

On the other hand.....

Some years ago I visited my bank for some account advice. The lady there was very helpful, opened the relevant Intranet site on a monitor visible to us both, and we started work; her tab-navigating a very simple, clear display. It seemed somewhere between later MS-DOS and the elegant default forms offered by MS 'Access' when was a database-builder offering very neat data-entry methods.

Afterwards I complimented her on the bank's excellent system design, saying my work's internal admin was an utter shambles. Ours was a random mix of 'Excel and 'Word' forms; very clumsy, no overall pattern or consistency, full of basic errors like the poorer choice of application for the form, no proper tab use, and very poor cell-locking that made entering and editing anything difficult and frustrating. All concocted by people paid much more than me to know much more than me, about such things.

The cashier told me that their system was from an external contractor, but made to try it out on over 100 employees of different grades in many branches, who were invited to judge it and suggest any improvements; before acceptance.

That resulted, she said, in a system very robust, simple to use for everyone, consequently very efficient and much less prone to errors.

So it can be done.

'

As I did say though, Railcard's site is simple to navigate. It just doesn't work properly.