Mistakenly, buying twice a train ticket for the same fare on the same name

tedysh

I purchased a half fare ticket using the SBB mobile app.
Only ten minutes later, when boarding the train, I checked my email and could not find the ticket confirmation. Suspecting that for some reason my purchase did not go through and since the train was about to depart, I quickly used (once again!) the mobile app and bought the same ticket. That worked and I did receive the email confirmation.

I have later discovered that in fact I have paid for two tickets for the same fare.
Since SBB charges 10 CHF for processing a refund and the cost of the ticket was 9,60 CHF there is no way that I could even claim this.

I am confused and I do ask myself why such human errors could not have been avoided, or at the least attempted to be avoided? The mobile app could simply display a warning message telling the user that he had just purchased a ticket for that particular fare and prompt for confirmation whether an additional ticket is indeed required.

Has anyone else experienced such thing?

RolandP

Hello tedysh

That’s unfortunate.

Have you checked the SPAM folder, to see if the purchase confirmation e-mail from the first purchase has ended up there?

I encourage you to report the case to the SBB customer service. Perhaps they can exceptionally refrain from deducting the administration fee:

https://www.sbb.ch/en/help-and-contact/customer-service/praise-comments/claims-complaints.html

What concerns the notification remark: I doubt that the app is able to inform the user when the same ticket has just been purchased before. The ticketing is not done in the SBB Mobile app yet in the centrally managed ticketing system which is also used by the web, the ticketing machines, the counter staff, the train personnel, etc.

Perhaps, our Digital Success Manager @Nicole_B could shed a light on that question or pass on your request as feature request?

Kind regards,
Roland

Nicole_B

Hello RolandP
It is absolutely correct what you write, that the ticket is generated in the centrally managed ticketing system. For this reason, there will be no single solution for a function in SBB Mobile. This should be implemented for all sales channels (online, counter applications, mobile, etc.) by all transport companies for all transport companies, which would already be an epic and would require enormous development resources. For this reason, I am unfortunately unable to forward a feature request.

@tedysh
You can see if it has really generated two mobile tickets in the app under “Tickets & Travelcards” under “Valid tickets” (before the start of validity) or under “Expired” (after expiry). If it really has generated two mobile tickets, you can try the goodwill refund option. If the amount simply appears twice on your bank/credit card online account, but only 1 Mobile Ticket is visible in the app, it has effectively only generated 1 ticket. If a payment request / ticket order fails, the amount is only “blocked” on the bank/credit card. This will be cancelled in the following days (duration varies depending on the bank’s process).

Kind regards.
Nicole

tedysh

Thank you @RolandP and @Nicole_B for answering.
Having used the contact form on the mobile app I have managed to obtain a reply email and a “good will refund”, which I am thankful for. After further research, I have indeed found the two tickets under the “Expired” “Tickets & Travelcards”. I now note that having been credited for one of the tickets, the other had disappeared, as it should.
I do understand that the estimated development effort for verifying such “odd double purchase” events could be costly. Perhaps the mobile app and the (web) online tickets would be most susceptible to such errors. I can hardly imagine a person buying twice a ticket for the same train over the counter within a short time. A feature that would resolve this may only be “nice to have” and as suggested by @Nicole_B, too hard to be worth implementing. I guess that the frequency of such occurrences should determine the business decision in this case.