UK adults miss out on at least one refund a week, poll reveals

Over a third said they actively avoid asking for a refund

Robert Knight
Tuesday 09 November 2021 15:46 GMT
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<p>A majority said they do not like asking for refunds </p>

A majority said they do not like asking for refunds

The average Briton loses more than £1,200 every year by not returning or claiming a refund they’re entitled to.

A poll of 2,000 adults found they each typically miss out on a product or service at least once a week.

But 60 per cent don’t like asking for a refund from providers of goods and services they have purchased, and 37 per cent actively avoid doing so.

Just over one quarter put this down to disliking confrontation, and one in five because the staff had been nice to them.

The poll was commissioned by Trainline to coincide with the launch of its new ‘Delay Repay’ feature which is designed to prevent travellers from missing out on compensation in the future.

It follows a poll that revealed Britons missed out on £35 million of unclaimed Delay Repay compensation in the past year, with over one million eligible delayed journeys detected over the previous 12 months.

Mike Hyde, chief data officer at Trainline, said: “Over £35 million of eligible compensation wasn’t claimed in the past year and we wanted to understand why.

“We were amazed to discover that one in four Britons didn’t know they were entitled to compensation if their train is delayed and almost half have never made a claim before.”

The research, commissioned through OnePoll, also found almost half of adults (47 per cent) have never applied for or received train delay compensation.

And one quarter were unaware they are entitled to compensation if their train is delayed.

Another 54 per cent didn’t know how late their train needs to be for them to be eligible and just 42 per cent were clear on how to apply.

However, 15 per cent didn’t bother to apply because they found the application process too complicated and 12 per cent simply forgot.

Almost one third of people from Wales and one quarter from Scotland are not aware they’re entitled to compensation if their train is delayed.

However, it is people from the southwest and the northwest who are most likely to have never applied for or received compensation.

Mike Hyde added: “We’re delighted to launch the brand-new Delay Repay feature which is designed to enable more of our customers to receive the compensation they are entitled to.

“It will proactively contact our customers to make them aware that they’re eligible for compensation and it even gives an indication on how much they can expect to receive.”

SWNS

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