Customer Charter Claims - How many is too many?

I'm a big fan of TfL's Customer Charter claims system where you can claim for a refund of your single ticket if your journey on the London Underground is delayed by more than 15 minutes. Obviously they rely upon the vast majority of people doing this, but with more apps around that make it easier for you to claim, I imagine the numbers are going up.


I received an email from someone this morning (who shall obviously remain nameless) who asked the following: "Have you heard of anyone receiving a letter from TfL's Fraud Investigation department regarding their customer charter claim forms? I had one today from them saying that they've decided to defer the processing of any pending or future refund claims, because basically they feel I've made too many. At this point I should mention that I live on the Jubilee line...

Is it something to worry about? I'm considering writing them a letter to ask them exactly what I've done wrong, because I don't think three or four claims a month is particularly excessive. Certainly not excessive enough to write me a letter basically branding me as a fraud."

He or she has a point. The Jubilee Line has been notoriously unreliable and riddled with delays and signal failures - in fact there's one on the Line as I'm writing this post.

Admittedly there are some people who do take advantage of the system and TfL should have checks in place. But surely they should check that the person's claim match up with the actual delays before issuing a scary letter from the Fraud department? Maybe they have in this case. However, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a number of claims a person made - before a "send scary Fraud Letter" button is activated.

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on this and also if TfL would like to comment, that would be great too. Thanks.

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