Workers who bought season tickets through a company offering cheaper fares have been left waiting weeks for a refund on their tickets.
Commuter Club offered discounted tickets for those travelling to work by train. Promoted by adverts on the London Underground, its website boasted that customers could cancel their tickets “at any time, without penalties or fees”.
With the vast majority of employees now working from home due to the coronavirus outbreak, thousands of Commuter Club customers have tried to cancel their tickets and claim refunds from the firm. However, users have reported significant problems when trying to do so.
One Telegraph Money reader said he had emailed Commuter Club to cancel his account more than two weeks ago and had yet to receive a response from the company. During this period an additional payment had been taken from his bank account, even though he had tried to cancel the service.
Many more customers have taken to social media to complain about the firm’s service.
Commuter Club said it had seen cancellations increase more than 100-fold since the country was placed under lockdown. The firm has been processing around 1,900 cancellations each week but admitted that some refunds were taking longer than 30 days.
Irina Iovita, of Commuter Club, said: “We are facing an unprecedented increase in cancellations due to the Covid-19 lockdown.
“We would like to reassure all our customers that even if it takes longer than normal to process a refund, the refund is nonetheless backdated to the date of their cancellation request or earlier if they stopped using their ticket before initiating a cancellation.”
Ms Iovita said the firm had changed its refund process to allow customers to cancel tickets without having to return them by post.
She added: “I would like to thank our customers and staff for their patience and support in this incredibly difficult time. We regret that some of our customers may be frustrated by the delays in processing cancellations and would like them to know that we are making every effort to serve them as quickly as possible.”