It's now almost 2 weeks since I last posted an update here and, frustratingly, I don't really have much progress to write about.

What had been a promising start (well, middle; the actual start of this process was as frustrating as hell; it was only when the MD got involved that things actually started to happen) has turned into more of the same: broken promises and lack of actual results.

Only, this time, I'm not dealing with some call center. This time I'm dealing with the office of David Horne.

Since I last wrote I've emailed Mike Ross three times. The first time was to chase up what was happening with the promised phone call regarding the Ticket Wallet app. Here's what I wrote 12 days ago (on 2016-10-06):

Hi Mike.

Just wanted to try and chase up what's happening with being able to speak with someone about the original problem with the Ticket Wallet app. It's now around 2 months since I missed the single call from Katie Fisher (which I attempted to return every day for a week after, and a couple of times the second week after -- never able to leave a message because there was no voicemail system). It's now also over a month since you said that a David Ridley (you you said was Katie's boss) would contact me and I've still not had any sort of call.

With respect, this is exactly the sort of thing that I initially found frustrating about dealing with Virgin East Coast Trains: the promises of calls to get things sorted that never happen and the constant need, on my part, to chase things up to even try and get something happening.

It's also nearly 4 months since I first ran into the original problem and I'm still no nearer getting an explanation as to what the problem is or any nobody would initially believe the problem I was reporting.

Could I please get an honest update on what's happening with this?

This got no reply whatsoever. Now, I appreciate that people can be busy, but when you have an ongoing issue to resolve with someone it makes sense you at least say something like "I'm sorry, my attention is elsewhere at the moment -- I promise I'll get back to you as soon as possible". That's not an ideal thing to do, especially if your job us customer relations, but at least it lets the customer know you're there and listening.

But, no, nothing.

So 5 days ago I replied to the above, with a little chaser:

Hi Mike. Sorry to trouble you but given it's a week since I wrote, I wanted to chase this up.

And still nothing.

Later this week I'll be on the trains again and, despite getting no sort of reply whatsoever from Mike, I decided to drop a line anyway and ask for seat reservations to be made (as had originally been offered). These were done in no time at all.

While that is great it also tells me something rather odd: my emails are being read and acted upon -- at least when they're a request for a seat reservation -- but they're not being replied to.

And here's the thing that's even more frustrating about this. The email where I requested the seat reservations had this on the end as a PS:

PS: Did you receive the catch-up email I sent last week? Seeing as how I'm about to use the last set of tickets you provided me I'm very keen to get to the bottom of the Ticket Wallet app problem so I can finally resolve the problem of getting WiFi on the train and working without having to spend £10 extra every time.

That has to have been read and... given the lack of reply I can only conclude that it was ignored. I like to think it wasn't really ignored but a lack of reply looks exactly like you're being ignored.

At this point I don't know what to make of this any more. It's a simple problem I'm trying to get to the bottom of. I've been made plenty of good promises, almost all of them broken. On top of that I can't really escalate the issue any more because I'm already receiving the best help that Virgin East Coast's MD can offer, apparently.

Anyone got Richard Branson's phone number?

It's now a week since I last wrote an update and, given that I'm sat on a Virgin East Coast train right now, I thought I'd do another.

As mentioned last time, I'm currently waiting for a call from someone at Virgin East Coast regarding the ongoing situation with the Android Ticket Wallet application. It's now over 3 months since I first ran into the problem (and, of course, ran into all the issues of trying to get some sensible help and response from them) and nothing has really improved:

It's now around six weeks since I was promised a call from someone who works on the application; a call that did come the once but I couldn't answer at the time (I'm not the sort of person to fiddle with a phone while driving) and which I attempted to return for the better part of 2 weeks afterwards but never even got an answer to the calls.

It's now also 3 weeks since I was told that I'd get a call from the boss of the person who was originally supposed to call me. I've yet to receive a call from them too. I've mentioned this to Mike Ross on a couple of occasions now and haven't had any sort of direct reply as to what's going on with that situation.

While I am enjoying the benefits of the tickets I was provided as compensation from the earlier troubles (and also very much appreciating Mike's reserving of seats for me when I need them -- I do find that booked seats take a lot of stress out of traveling) I'd really love to get to the bottom of the problem with the Ticket Wallet app.

Frustratingly and amusingly I suspect I'll finally get an answer around the time I don't need to use the train quite so much.

It's now about 3 weeks since my last post about my exploits in getting a problem solved with Virgin East Coast so now's a good time for a little update.

Two things were "outstanding" the last time I wrote about this. One was that Mike (the customer relations manager in the Virgin East Coast MD's office) wanted us to meet up for a coffee and a chat about my issues and how things were progressing, etc. Sadly I wasn't able to make the original date we'd picked out as a possible so another date was arranged. At least, it was kind of arranged. It was noted that this week might be a good time to meet and I'd written back to him to say that Wednesday 21st would be good. Since then I've had no reply at all.

The second thing that is outstanding is having someone call me about the issues with the Ticket Wallet app. I've yet to receive a call from the person who originally phoned me and who I missed (and who I chased up every day for a week afterwards). I was then told by Mike, about 2 weeks or so back, that that person's manager would call me instead and that I should expect a call early last week.

That call didn't happen. Didn't happen early last week, late last week, at all last week. It's now Thursday this week and I've still not had a call.

Just this morning I've chased up both of the above.

It's now over 3 months since I first reported the Ticket Wallet app problem and I seem to be no closer to seeing it resolved, or even having an explanation as to the cause of the problem.

It's just over 3 weeks now since I wrote about how I was finally getting somewhere with my problems with Virgin East Coast, so now seems like a good time to update on what's happening. Here's the things that the PR manager in the MD's office said he'd be sorting, along with what happened afterwards:

Virgin would BACS me the value of the cheque they kept failing to send

This happened and happened quickly too. The money turned up in my account (actually rounded up a little) without any fuss or bother.

That said... I did receive a cheque from them anyway that is written to a value that has no relation to the refund I was entitled to and isn't even similar to the rounded-up value that I received via BACS. I've not done anything with the cheque yet; there was no accompanying letter to say what it was for, nothing to explain why it differed by around £10 (more) from what I was expecting and what turned up in my account, nothing to explain why I was getting it at all.

I emailed Mike (the customer relations manager) last Friday and got a reply last Saturday so say he'd look into it when he got back to his desk this last Tuesday (Monday being a Bank Holiday in England and Wales). I'm writing this on Friday morning and haven't had that update yet (so I have sent off an email to chase this up).

In the mean time I'm doing nothing with the cheque. It seems unfair to cash it if it was a simple error on their part.

Someone with knowledge of the Ticket Wallet App would phone me direct

This happened. Sort of. The day after things started to get resolved I received a call. Sadly I was driving at the time and was in no position to take it. When I finally got home and tried calling back there was no answer. Since then I've tried calling the number every day for the first week and a couple of times in the second week; I've had no answer at all. Neither have I received a call from the person who originally tried calling.

I let Mike know about this in an email about a week back and he said he'd chase it up. So far I've had no word on the subject since (again, I've sent off an email chasing this up this morning).

They'd send me 4 First Class return tickets by way of an apology

This happened and happened quickly. I've no complaints on this score. Also, Mike has been very kind in allowing me to email him direct to arrange seat reservations each time I've needed to use a ticket (once so far, second request went off this morning for the use of the second of the tickets).

The CR manager would keep in contact to update me on how things are being improved

This one not quite so much, but I didn't see this as quite so important and it wasn't something I was looking for. What mattered to me was that the refund I was owed got to me and that the apparent problem with the Ticket Wallet app got fixed.

That said... back in the early 1990s a lot of software that I developed was designed for complaints handling departments (used in some pretty well-known companies too). It was all about keeping customers happy, keeping in contact with them, keeping track of how well you're doing, keeping track of promised contact dates and ensuring they were met (that whole thing of a call to say you've failed is better than no call so you appear to have failed twice), that sort of thing. I guess, from this point of view, I do have an interest in how Virgin East Coast handle their customer relations and what systems they have in place so they appear to be competent.

As for getting to chat: Mike did name a couple of dates when he'd be close to where I tend to be working and suggested we get together for a coffee and a chat about this subject. Given we've both got fluid diaries (his far more than mine, I'm sure) it's all a little up in the air but I think there's a possible date in the next week.

So that's where I'm at: one problem solved (with an offshoot curiosity that I'm trying to get to the bottom of) and one outstanding.

Not perfect. Not terrible either.

Just one day on from yesterday's update post where I wrote about how pretty much every promise made by Virgin East Coast had (once again) been broken and it looks like it's all change (or at least looks a lot more promising now).

After I wrote the post I did the usual thing of tweeting it and I then went about the business of sending off yet another set of chase-up emails.

The first to come back was from the person dealing with the compensation cheque. I'd pointed out that it was now a week since the sending of the cheque via recorded delivery was supposed to have happened and that nothing had turned up. This was the reply:

I am sorry to hear this still has not happened. Would it be possible for you to send me your address so that I can track the cheque and I will find out as soon as possible where this is. I apologise for the delay, but rest assured my number one goal is to get this issue resolved for you. I look forward to hearing from you.

This actually annoyed me a little. I'd asked when the cheque had been sent and also how it'd been sent so that I could see if the original promise had been kept. The answer appeared to be avoiding that question. On subsequent replies I was told that it had been issued the week earlier but hadn't been dealt with in person:

I followed it up with our fulfilment department and they told me that they had it in the office with them. It is the one that was originally sent out on the 2nd August and for some reason had not been issued by that department. Our fulfilment is outsourced and so when we raise letters or cheques we phone them to check on the progress. I am sorry that they did not issue it but rest assured it has been sent now as I made it a case of urgency due to the delays you have already experienced. I can only apologise for the further delay.

Given all the previous conversations where I was told about how they were moving some systems that dealt with this -- which were previously outsourced -- in-house (although apparently not the part that involves actually sending cheques) I'm even more strongly suspecting that the first couple of attempts to send the cheque never actually happened.

Anyway, long story short(ish): after a bit of back and forth to get to the bottom of what was actually going on I was assured that the cheque had finally been sent. Frustratingly this wasn't quite what I wanted. I'm unlikely to be around to receive an item of post sent via recorded delivery so I'd have liked it to be sent elsewhere (it should be no surprise that people who use Virgin East Coast's services a fair bit are also quite likely to be away from their normal address quite a bit during "normal" hours).

That said... some progress there. While it'd taken far too long to get it resolved, it was finally starting to appear like it was being resolved.

This approach was, however, being rendered moot by other events.

Backing up again to yesterday: after I'd tweeted about the blog post, and mentioned @Virgin_TrainsEC so they could have a chance to see and respond (they didn't this time), my adorable girlfriend did a bit of checking in the background and did a little retweet:

For goodness sake, sort this out @DavidHorne @AliWatson23 https://t.co/JibgmfZwjD - 8 weeks, 11 blogs, no progress! https://t.co/iUTCApBnC7

— Jo (@0rangelic) August 9, 2016

I was sceptical that this would have any effect. I'd been promised a call or something from the "MD's Office" by the customer support people over a week ago and nothing had happened. Even when I'd sent them a follow-up DM near the end of the week I got no reply at all. I'd got to the point where I'd assumed I was just being fobbed off.

I was wrong to think so though. While the request to email the details of the issue was slightly frustrating (you'd think 11 blog posts would document the issues in enough detail, and a link was provided) it was heartening to see something happening.

I did point this out to David:

@DavidHorne @0rangelic You'll find all the details on the linked blog post (and previous 10). Plus in @Virgin_TrainsEC systems (hopefully).

— Dave Pearson (@davepdotorg) August 9, 2016

and also point out that if the details weren't in their system, that might be a brilliant illustration of the cause of the issues:

@DavidHorne @0rangelic @Virgin_TrainsEC If not, there's the real problem. ;-)

— Dave Pearson (@davepdotorg) August 9, 2016

I didn't hear much more until around 18:30 when, all credit to him, David did check that I'd had someone contact me:

@DavidHorne Not from your office, as far as I'm aware of (which was promised for last week but never happened), if that's what you mean.

— Dave Pearson (@davepdotorg) August 9, 2016

At that point he asked me for some contact details (again, a slightly frustrating indication of an organisation that doesn't have joined-up systems) which I provided (my main email address and my mobile number).

I didn't hear anything more that evening but, earlier today, I had an email from a Mike Ross ("Customer Relations Manager - MD's Office" according to the bottom of the email). He said he'd like to have a chat and could I let him know when would be a good time to call. I replied saying any time during normal business hours would be good for me.

That call made all the difference. As well as obviously offering an apology for all that had happened so far, Mike was kind enough to both explain what was likely happening and why (they inherited a setup that involved a lot of outsourced contracts for lots of parts of the business -- something they're fixing by bringing many systems back in-house) while also actually listening to what I was saying.

More to the point though, he made very clear promises on how he was going to get my issues solved. Here's the outcome of that conversation:

• Any and all cheques raised to try and get the refund to me will be stopped and the payment sent to me via BACS (something they're not set up for doing in general but which they're working on fixing).
• Someone with good knowledge of their Ticket Wallet App and their website will give me a call in the next day or so to go over the issues and try and get things working (or at least ensure there's a good understanding of the cause of the problem).
• By way of saying thanks they're going to send me four first class open return tickets for use on the East Coast line. I think that's a very kind and generous gesture and one that's going to be very useful to me over the next couple of months. (the tickets come with the offer of being able to email Mike's office and have them sort the booking of an actual seat for each journey).
• Mike has also said he wants to stay in touch and keep me informed of how things are changing in Virgin East Coast so that the issues I've experienced have less chance of happening in the future.
• Related to the above he's also said he'd like to meet up for coffee once or twice to go over things and have a chat about how the company appear to a paying customer. While I'd never hold myself up as a typical customer, and especially not one who has any particular insight, I think it's an impressive approach to take.

I am, of course, feeling cautious about all of the above. It is "just" another set of promises that could be easily broken and, so far, VEC don't have a brilliant track record of doing that. But the promises appeared genuine and to think otherwise would be to not allow them to fix the issues.

I'll write more about it on the blog as things happen.

It's now another Tuesday morning. It's the Tuesday morning after the previous Tuesday morning when I was waiting on some sort of call from Virgin regarding the missing refund. After I wrote that last post I dropped the chap I'd spoken to an email to chase up what was happening. This was his reply:

I am sorry that I was not able to contact you yesterday as this system switchover is happening we are going through an extremely busy period in the business. I have looked into your case and have reissued the cheque that you did not receive and that should be with you shortly.

Under normal circumstances I'd imagine a cheque sent in the post would arrive within a couple of working days. Given that was last Tuesday I think it's fair to say that it should have turned up by last Friday.

Thing is, when I'd spoken to that chap the week before he'd assured me that they'd send this cheque by recorded delivery to ensure that it got through.

I still don't have the cheque.

I guess this means one of 3 things has happened:

• He said he'd sent it, but he hadn't.
• He did send it, but not via recorded delivery, and it's disappeared into whatever black hole snail mail from Virgin East Coast seems to be disappearing into.
• He did send it, via recorded delivery, and we now have some clue as to where the above black hole is located.

Whatever the cause, I'm going to have to drop him a line again and find out what's happening.

On a previous post about this issue my friend Mark raised an interesting issue: if Virgin had lost access to the required data because they'd ceased using the services of some third party (as was claimed), what did this mean in data protection terms? I'd not really considered this but it was a fair question. When I last emailed Virgin I asked about this too:

As an aside, could I also ask who's a good person to speak to about what was happening with my data during the period Virgin East Coast didn't have access to it? Thanks.

That question got this reply:

The data is still with us as a company it is just in the process of being uploaded onto our systems. The information has never left our company it is just in the process of being updated onto our systems.

For now, at least, I'm happy enough with that as an explanation. I'm going to apply Hanlon's Razor to this and assume it was just clumsy wording when the subject first came up.

So, to summarise this situation so far: a late journey that happened back on June 2nd, for which compensation was confirmed in email on June 6th, the cheque for which was supposed to turn up early July at the latest, still hasn't appeared by August 8th. Worse still, I've been told 3 times now that "the cheque is in the post" and on at least one of those occasions it appears to have been an outright fib due to the closing of some of their systems.

On top of the above, there's another contact I'm awaiting that has yet to happen. Last week, when I tweeted about the previous post, the Virgin East Coast twitter people asked me to provide them with my contact details.

@davepdotorg Dave, can you DM us your contact details? ^AD

— Virgin Trains EC (@Virgin_TrainsEC) July 29, 2016

I checked with them why they needed the details (given that they're obviously already on the system) and they said that they'd escalated it to the "Managing Director's office" and that they wanted my contact details so that office could contact me. I provided them and also pointed out that email is normally the best way to contact me -- they then asked for the best email address to contact me on and I provided that too.

Having done that I was told they'd be in touch "next week". In this case "next week" was any time last week (as of the time of writing and publishing).

Nobody got in contact last week. Nobody from a "Managing Director's Office", nobody at all from Virgin East Coast.

So, as of right now, I'm waiting on the following from Virgin East Coast, all promised by them:

• A reply as to what's happening with the inability to log in with the Ticket Wallet application (outstanding since 2016-07-15, although really outstanding from a while before then).
• A cheque that was supposed to have been sent via recorded delivery on 2016-08-02.
• Some form of contact from the "Managing Director's office" that was promised on 2016-07-29 and which was supposed to have happened some time between 2016-08-01 and 2016-08-05. This contact to, in part, deal with the two contact failures above.

The unwillingness or inability to stay in contact with a customer who has problems does seem to be a persistent pattern. One that seems to go to the top.

Right, time to publish this and start sending out even more chase-up emails. I guess it gives me something to keep me busy when I'm on the train.

It's Tuesday morning. That means it's the day after Virgin said they'd call me back to deal with the refund issue from last Friday. I've not had a call back. That's the second time now I've been told they'll call me back on a specific date and I've had nothing.

Right now I'm missing a callback about the refund and some sort of update on the ticket wallet issue (which was promised "very soon" back on July 15th).

I'm also waiting for some sort of contact from another party in the organisation that I was promised via DM on twitter last Friday. No sign of that either (although no timescale was given for that).

It's starting to get a little tedious, always having to be the one to chase things up.

But chase them up I will...

Given it's been a couple of weeks, I thought I'd write a little update on the fun and games with Virgin East Coast. I'll also add another little "problem" into the mix in this post -- something that has been happening in the background and didn't seem to be an issue to start with.

As mentioned a couple of weeks back, I dropped them a line to chase things up (pointing out that the scheduled callback was long overdue) and got this reply on the 15th:

Thank you for your email reply and apologies that I did not call you on the 11th I must have missed my Outlook reminder.

I have today again tried to call our second line support team to query this again and see how far they are with this however they have not picked up so I have emailed them once again.

Last time I spoke to them on the phone the person said that it should only be a few more days so hopefully I will be emailing you again very soon with some more substantial information on this for you.

As I write this it's the 29th and I've had no update. I guess this is the problem with phrases like "very soon" -- you're never quite sure if you should read it to mean in the next couple of days, or if 14 days later still falls within "very soon". Personally, if it was me, I'd be dropping a line along the way to say "it's taking longer than I'd like, but I'm still on it". You know, that thing of ensuring the customer doesn't feel like they've been forgotten about.

So, very soon¹, I guess I'll be sending another follow-up email to try and find out what's going on. I'll update when I do.

Meanwhile.... there's another issue that's brewing.

Back at the start of June I was on a train that was delayed by more than half an hour. This is the first time this has happened to me since I've been using the trains a lot and I was delighted to find that they make a point of letting you know that you're entitled to a refund on your ticket, depending on how late you are.

That struck me as very sensible and very civilised.

So, when I finally got home, I put in my claim and on June 6th I got an email confirming I was entitled to a 50% refund and that it would be sent as a cheque to me within 28 days.

Of course, 28 days later, nothing had turned up. I called them shortly after that to find out what was going on. They claimed the cheque had been sent and suggested it had got lost on the way (in the 2 years I've been at this address it's the first time I've knowingly had mail disappear). Anyway, they cancelled that cheque and issued another, apologising for the hassle and promising that the new one would be with me within a week.

As it was I wasn't around for a couple of weeks after that so I got home yesterday, expecting to see the cheque on my doormat. I expected incorrectly.

I've called them about it again today and was told the most interesting story: apparently they can't help me right now because they've closed down a call centre down in Plymouth (I think it was), which was "outsourced", and they now no longer have access to the "computer system" with all the cases in it. They assured me that they'd get access to it within the next week or two.

Let that settle in for a moment: they apparently arranged to close down a call centre without ensuring that the computer systems that contain (some of?) their customers' data were handed over in some way, shape or form.

That's a touch worrying.

As you might imagine, I wasn't terribly pleased by this news. I'm a couple of months on from when the delay happened and I still don't have the cheque. On top of that, not having received the second attempt at sending it, I find out that nothing was likely being done about it because they'd (apparently) dropped the staff/company who would have been dealing with it. And I had to phone them (again) to find out.

I imagine that if I'd just left it to them to get in contact and let me know, I'd have waited and waited and never got anything at all.

Anyway, long story short, after pointing out that it was a bit much to ask me to let them hold onto my money even longer, just because of their system and business issues, I was passed to someone else who was able to suggest a far better and far quicker method of resolving this.

So: I'm expecting a call back from them on Monday to get that process under way. I wonder if this callback will happen?

Remember this?

I will schedule in a contact back for you for Monday 11th July and after chasing them about this again I will contact you to let you know what is happening with this now.

Well, it's now Thursday 14th and I've not had a peep out of them.

I'm on a train today. I'm actually writing this on a train. I guess I'll have to think about chasing them up tomorrow (or perhaps at least chasing them up in email today).

Little update on the Virgin East Coast Ticket Wallet app saga. After my previous reply to them I got a reply back yesterday:

Dear Mr Pearson

Many thanks for your email dated 6th July 2016 regarding the fact that you cannot sign into your Virgin Trains ticket wallet app after registering on the desktop version of our website with the email address davep.org+virgin@gmail.com.

I firstly apologise for the lack of understanding on the part of our Virgin Trains East Coast Web Support team with regards to this, the Mobile ticket issue on our app that you have described is one that has not occurred very frequently at all for any of our customers and as such this is what is causing the difficulty in resolving this for you.

I have today spoken to our second line support team and asked them the question of if there is soon to be a fix for this for you to which they have stated that they need a few more days to get this fixed.

I will schedule in a contact back for you for Monday 11th July and after chasing them about this again I will contact you to let you know what is happening with this now.

While it's taken quite a while, it looks like I'm finally making some progress. If I'm reading it right they finally acknowledge that there is a problem and that it needs fixing. It's frustrating that I've had to go backwards and forwards a few times to get to this point.

Monday will be interesting.