Compensation claims?

Hi. I've successfully switched my parents phone line from an abysmal Post Office BB (no LLU) to the basic BT fibre package.

The OR engineer came while I was there. Spent a good few hours said the equipment in the cabinet wasn't fitted properly. BB service was not working spent hours testing and fiiddling about.... replaced the BT faceplace claimed it was fixed and everything seemed fine for a few days....

then the phone line went dead. Well actually an awful buzzing noise no dial tone no calls could be made or received, I had to go home before it was fixed, spent over half an hour on the mobile to India before they admitted the reason the phone wasn't working was... there was something wrong with it. Told me they'd phone back in a couple days time...

Anyway a BT OR engineer turned up without an appointment on Monday said he was in the area.. spent some time on it saying there were problems in the area... this time the BB dropped out. Had to phone them again on the mobile...

Another engineer turned up Wednesday... still no fix...more calls and long waits on the mobile to people who barely speak English...

Yet another engineer knocked on the door Friday said he'd fixed the phone, that was all the problem, right? Mother said no, not really, the BB wasn't working either! So back to the cabinet he went, and back to the house... and back to the cabinet... and so forth.

Finally its working phone and BB after more than a week and mobile has used up its entire call allowance for the month.

So the question is are they entitled to some compensation for time, calls, inconvenience and lack of service and if so, how would they go about it?

Thanks for any replies.

Generally when a phone line failure is reported BT set up a free diversion of incoming calls to a landline or mobile you specify, and also a daily bill allowance of (IIRC) between £2.50 and £3 per day for outgoing mobile calls - independent of network. Whoever reported the fault should have been told that. (If they don't have a mobile then it wouldn't apply, but it could have been to yours or to next-door's landline.So you should be able to claim that amount if nothing else.

In your case I would be identifying the actual costs of your mobile calls to BT CS and claiming those on top of the daily allowance.

Edited by RobertoS (Sun 08-Nov-15 21:24:25)

Not too sure if we was just lucky, but we never got charged anything when we had a broken wire in the copper pair killing our phone, however our broadband was fine, but slower but worked.

We phoned BT via one of our mobiles and had our line redirected to that, I did ask if we would be charged for this redirection where I was told no due to it was a fault their end.

We received several calls that was redirected, some lasting several mins each, and we never received any extra bill.

So like I said we may of been lucky, maybe they caused the break due to I was told the break was either near the PCP cabinet or in it and where our PCP cabinet is one of those really old cast iron ones and all the cables inside is like spaghetti junction it would be very easy to break or knock out a wire.

*** update ***
Ooops, didn't read the OP fully, wasn't aware of the allowance, we just used our free call time on our mobiles.

Paul

Edited by PaulKirby (Mon 09-Nov-15 05:30:06)

When my transfer to BT was a real dogs dinner I found that any contact either by phone or online chat was useless. Promised compensation did not materialise.

If you post on the BT forum and can get passed to a "Moderator" (this is the crucial part) you will get satisfaction. They are BT employees as opposed to the regular helpers on that forum who are not.

You wil be entitled to a refund of any services after 3 workin days. If you get any missed engineer appointments you get £10 for these.

If you were without say phone and BB for 3 days, and you paid £30pm, you would get back £3 (roughly)

In your case I would be identifying the actual costs of your mobile calls to BT CS

Given 0800 numbers are now free on mobiles...

I have no idea what the BT CS number is, except I expect it ends in 150 or 151.

0800 800 150

BT still has 150, 151, 152 and a few others for calling from BT lines. They also allocated 0800 800 150/151/152 to allow customers to use non-BT lines at no cost and from mobiles as 800 800 150/151/152 (when they were chargeable at standard rates or in some cases free (previously)).

Alright, thanks all.

Would you believe the line has gone again, no calls again but BB still working, for now...

unbelievable.

Generally when a phone line failure is reported BT set up a free diversion of incoming calls to a landline or mobile you specify, and also a daily bill allowance of (IIRC) between £2.50 and £3 per day for outgoing mobile calls - independent of network. Whoever reported the fault should have been told that.

India certainly didn't mention anything about that and I'm the one who phoned them originally...

Edited by deleted (Wed 11-Nov-15 15:01:54)

BT also advise you can call them from a mobile (pre 1st July when 0800 calls are now free from UK mobiles) on: 0330 123 4XXX - replacing the X's with 150 for Customer Service and 151 for Faults.

In reply to a post by BuckleZ:

f you were without say phone and BB for 3 days, and you paid £30pm, you would get back £3 (roughly)

Don't spend it all at once They used to refund a month's line rental for each day of outage. Has that gone? Lost to austerity / bumper dividends..

In reply to a post by edwincluck:

They used to refund a month's line rental for each day of outage.

Which parallel universe was that in?

The one with Planet Cluck at its centre.

I should have been clearer. Back in the early noughties, when Openreach failed to show for pre-arranged appointments to repair line fault (excluding force majeure, etc.) the compensation paid was one month's line rental for each day of ongoing outage.

Let me guess, that's long gone now.

What was the excuse for removing the compensation? Let me guess again. "Engineer No Shows" had become so common, that the compensation paid to inconvenienced customers was crippling the incumbent?

Edited by deleted (Thu 19-Nov-15 00:32:14)

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

The one with Planet Cluck at its centre.

All these worlds are yours � Except Cluck
Attempt no landing there

Openreach did not exist in the early 2000's

The Ofcom mandated changes led to the rise of Openreach and a larger price list as they became a more commercial unit having to account by charging for many more things that previously were part of the overall package.

OTA2 tracks Openreach performance for those wanting to find out more

Ahh thanks.

Just finding examples in the consumer columns of compensation that BT used to fork-out in the past..

This from the Birmingham Post ("All churned up in telecoms field"; 11 Aug 1998; p.19):

So a whole weekend with no phone service. And the contrast with BT gets even starker. If you go 24 hours or more with no service BT will refund a month's line rental.

Amazing how BT relies on the 'memory hole' to vanish uncomfortable slippage in its service levels.
When did the grasping incumbent ditch that compensation level?
When did customers stop getting one month's free line rental for 24 hours without service?
When BT Openreach came into being?
That compensation today would bankrupt BT with its dreadful record for engineer no shows!

Edited by deleted (Fri 20-Nov-15 00:03:23)

I have grave doubts about what you highlight.

In fact I think it is simply incorrect wrt domestic lines. Perhaps it was true for business lines with an enhanced SLA, but that's a different matter altogether. I wonder what the business enhanced SLA terms are now?

To answer my own question.

Apparently that acceptable compensation of -- one month's free line rental (worth £16 today) for 24 hours' loss of service -- was abolished in 2006, according to a poster on Which forum.

In fact, it looks like it was a gradual withdrawal of compensation; refunds getting progressive worse every year; BT exploiting what psychologists call the 'boiling frog syndrome':

From Which forums (Sept 2013):

In reference to conversation.which.co.uk/technology/ask-which-broadband-outage-comp...:

In 2006 they [BT] switched to offer about 30p per day, or to divert your calls to a mobile and pay £1/day to compensate customer for any outgoing calls from their mobile.

Today, BT has reduced its compensation to derisory levels. Even for those suffering very lengthy periods of no service.

Tony Hazell, the Daily Mail's finance columnist, reports on one most unfortunate woman. She was given just £10 as a "gesture of goodwill" for 26 days without a service.

As usual, with BT citing the arbitrary firewalls erected between BT Openreach and BT Retail to excuse paying her any more. A grand corporate swindle in itself.

The comments beneath the Mail's article are insightful too.
Note all the reports of engineer no shows; and engineers turning up unannounced when no one's at home.
What a mess BT Openreach is in.
---

Edited by deleted (Fri 20-Nov-15 02:27:47)

Nope -- it's 100% correct. And that compensation was for Residential customers. We got five months' free line rental when BT engineers failed repeatedly to turn up and effect a repair.

Naturally BT made no effort to explain we were entitled to compo. We claimed. They grizzled. At one point denying any appointments had been arranged. But then they would, wouldn't they?! Eventually they did cough up, reluctantly.

As I said, go find an old pre-2006 phone book. Check for yourself. You'll find BT compensation levels documented under terms and conditions of service for Residential customers.

BT gradually worsened those compensation terms, in what could be dubbed 'compo slippage'. Slowly increasing the duration of outage before a subscriber could claim free line rental. That was before it was abolished altogether.

The fact no one even remembers the compensation paid out is proof the 'memory hole' works very well indeed.

Reminds me of George Orwell's 1984, and the 'mutability of history'.
And the distinction between 'truth' (about an issue) and 'fact' (what people believe)!

---

Edited by deleted (Fri 20-Nov-15 02:15:11)

A few examples of BT compensation. Saved from the 'memory hole' . Recovered from the usenet archives of the internet newsgroup uk.telecom. Compensation payouts that were standard for Residential customers. Business customers could claim much more.

Way back In 2002:

In reference to groups.google.com/d/msg/uk.telecom/sgkmllQWnM0/0DPJoRrV7JgJ:

Compensation is at the rate of a month's rental per day of total unusability but depends on day of reporting it faulty, and starts at least 24 hours after the report is made.

Watered down a bit by 2004: (even if BT was pretending otherwise)

In reference to groups.google.com/d/msg/uk.telecom/bgJTmv8SVHs/JFhdY7gjApMJ:

BT operate a fixed scheme for compensation starting the equivalent to 1 months line rental for outages of 1-3 days rising to 4 months line rental for 10 day outages or more.

From the BBC in 2004 (more compo slippage; even less generous):

In reference to groups.google.com/d/msg/uk.media.tv.misc/oIuWKv4BqdQ/P-DUsEM30K0J:

Residential customers will receive one month's line rental refund for up to three days loss of service and two months line rental for four to six days loss.

And by May 2006:

In reference to groups.google.com/d/msg/uk.telecom/1gF5xcg_yoQ/7_Q1OO4U-j0J:

If a residential line is out of service - you have two options.

1. A Daily Rate Rental Credit which is calculated as the ex-VAT line/package quarterly rental which is multiplied by 4 and divided by 365 to arrive at the figure... i.e. £28.07*4/365 = £0.301/day credit (ex VAT)

2. Alternatively, you can choose to have your calls diverted to another landline or mobile, in which case BT will give you £1/day (+VAT) compensation instead for any outgoing calls you make (i.e. via your mobile)

One comment from the time:

In reference to groups.google.com/d/msg/uk.telecom/1gF5xcg_yoQ/9fGIQdpjOBYJ:

So they've scrapped the one, two, three months (for 1-3, 4-6, 7+ days without service) of line rental as a compensation credit... It did seem pretty good, when I had several months (7+) credit applied

That dramatic 'slippage' in compensation is something the whooping BT stooges might like to contemplate.

Compensation was an effective financial penalty for poor performance. A driver for improvement. Forcing BT into pulling its finger out, and provide a decent repair service.

Look at the laughable mess at BT Openreach today. Imagine Openreach operating by those earlier Service Level Agreements -- for Residential customers -- paying that level of compensation today. The whole BT Group would be bankrupt by year end!

---

Edited by deleted (Fri 20-Nov-15 02:39:35)

So more evidence to support the notion that the UK was better off before Openreach was created and support the hypothesis that a FTSE 100 Openreach might be even worse.

Of course an advantage of a poor and never delivering anything at all Openreach is that competitors with alternative infrastructure should be winning millions of customers a year, I mean look at the massive growth of Virgin Media and massive profits they are making so much so they are spending trillions on expanding their network footprint to make themselves the new national incumbent

Human nature is to complain when things go wrong, but we rarely speak up when things go as expected.

I have had a dozen BT OR engineer visits in the last 10 years and I have never had one not turn up.

Yesterday was a prime example, BT OR turned up on time, chatted about the work he had to do to fit a new line and asked my preference etc. Asked if had a Huwaei on the van rather than an ECI (already have one) couldn't have been more helpful.

Checked everything before he left to ensure I could make and receive calls, BT OR modem actually sync'd and so on.

So thumbs up from me for their service.

Same here, don't think I have ever had a missed appointment from BT.

A couple of times when a technician was here for 3 or 4 hours he made sure his control/management knew so that he was not allocated a new task.

I have even had a B T team turn up 3 hours earlier than they planned - "because it is easier to do this at 5 AM rather than 8AM".

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

So more evidence to support the notion that the UK was better off before Openreach was created and support the hypothesis that a FTSE 100 Openreach might be even worse.

No doubt BT's generous compensation was aimed to show how great it was for customers to have Openreach completely integrated within BT's line rental monopoly. This arrangement was very profitable for BT, and after all this generous compensation was paid for out of our subscriptions anyway.

An appalling record. Imagine the cost of all those pointless truck rolls, and all those days of lost pay. Many of us, if frank, can tell our own tales of Openreach woe.

There's an interesting contributor to the Which forums. A poster who's furious with his fellow Brits for being such a bunch of spineless dweebs. For allowing BT, a ruthless £40bn corporate beast, to trample all over us. After numerous engineer no shows, the angry chappie sued BT in the county court, and won £300 in settlement. Here's his tale:

In reference to conversation.which.co.uk/technology/ask-which-broadband-outage-comp...:

I SUCCESSFULLY SUED PLUSNET/BT IN MY LOCAL COUNTY COURT !

In February 2014 I contacted PLUSNET to install a phone line & supply a modem & broadband at the new house I was moving to, I paid them £72.98, I received confirmation of my order (a contract?) in the post the following day & 2 appointments were booked for a month later for the work to be done. I moved to my new house & waited, I took 11 hours off work unpaid to be at home for the BT Openreach engineers, but no one turned up, I tried to contact PLUSNET on my mobile several times only to be told I was in a queue & had to wait over 40 minutes, I also tried to contact them by using the local call box � again I was in a queue & would have to wait over 50 minutes. I wrote to PLUSNET to complain & demanded my £72.98 back plus my lost salary circa £400 including compensation for breach of contract & explicitly gave them 14 days to comply or I would take them to the small claims court, their response was to offer me a miserly £25 for my inconvenience & my money back if I formally asked for it, �HOW OUTRAGOUS!� So of course I made a claim through MYCOL the online small claims service, I offered mediation & waited for their response, NOTHING for approximately 12 months ! so a hearing date was set & surprise surprise I start to get phone calls & an offer in writing of £150 to settle this time from BT LEGAL. I now know that PLUSNET in their incompetence failed to book the 2 appointments with their parent company BT OPENREACH thus wasting my time & causing my financial loss. The case was heard on 03/07/2015, PLUSNET/BT didn�t even bother to attend simply sending a letter, I had a very thorough, & severe but legally professional examination of my claim & my evidence by the justice (I�m not going to mention his name) my award was just shy of £300 & they have until the 25th of July to pay. I shall keep you informed. I would urge anyone who has issues with utility companies be it water/gas/electricity or telecoms to do as I did & use the small claims court � that is what it is there for! At the time of writing this, BT have 5 CCJ�s against them dating back to 2011 (& now 6 with mine) this company & its subsidiaries simply don�t care if they break civil law � it�s time we ALL complain & use the courts to get justice.

An inspiration. That's how you deal with errant companies providing shoddy service or none at all. By hitting them where it hurts - in the balance sheet. If everyone sued the Beast for damages as soon as it wronged them, costing them money, its service levels would improve massively overnight.

We shouldn't be ashamed of being litigious towards BT; it's what it deserves. The Beast is forever dragging its own disputes into Court. Only yesterday throwing its toys out of its pram over the Sky Sports ruling. Threatening to launch another protracted (five year) lawsuit against Sky TV. If that's the way BT wants it, then that's the way the consumer should deal with it too. Perpetually threatening it with civil action for damages.

It's not as if its compensation scheme is worth using. Currently set today at just 59p a day - and compo only starting on the fourth or fifth working day of no service.

Paltry compensation with no punitive value. Meaning Openreach has little incentive to actually repair faults; especially complex ones. The sloppy BT mindset that a truck roll would have cost far more than 59p any way.

You guys must be blind; or else whooping BT stooges, or both. Countless Openreach disaster stories are documented on here.

Remember the fella a few weeks back who clocked up nine engineer visits (so far). And still his fault persists. Hardly the glowing reference for Openreach that the BT stooges here like to portray,

Even our beloved Batboy -- ever the BT stalwart -- gave up at the fourth engineer visit. At that point, crystal clear that Openreach had neither the competence nor commitment to fix his own intermittent fault. Yet he still bats for Beattie! None so blind as a bat(-boy) who will not see!

------

This thread is about compensation though. And how BT has diluted compo to nothing. With the connivance of the toothless regulator. While increasing the cost of line rental by nearly twice the rate of inflation, every year since 2006. If you guys are happy with that; then maybe you're in the wrong business.

Are we the same spineless dweebs who let the supermarket cashier short-change us, without a murmur? The same peeps who blithely pay a plumber's bill; coughing up for non-existent repairs when he never even showed?! Or the type who sit at the train station tight-lipped and twiddling their thumbs for hours on end; waiting for a broken-down train that ain't never gonna arrive?! Those are the Brits the world of commerce just loves; the spineless dweebs of society.

*sigh!*

If nothing else, we do all agree that things were once much better? Not so many years ago, BT was indeed contracted to pay Residential customers reasonable compensation. As documented above, refunding many months of line rental for ongoing and unrepaired faults.

How did it all go so dreadfully wrong?

Edited by deleted (Fri 20-Nov-15 20:05:41)

And very forward thinking to be offering it almost ten years before Openreach was created.

Markets change and as we as a nation have adopted call bundles, and more calls are on mobiles call revenue that was the gold mine has decreased increasing pressure on all the nice bits that a Telco would happily do before.

In reply to a post by edwincluck:

Even our beloved Batboy -- ever the BT stalwart -- gave up at the fourth engineer visit. At that point, crystal clear that Openreach had neither the competence nor commitment to fix his own intermittent fault. Yet he still bats for Beattie! None so blind as a blind bat(-boy) who will not see!

No I didn't give up - the fault went away.

I'm confident I know what's causing it and when it returns next year, I'll be able to report it safe in the knowledge it will recur when the engineer attends.

At the moment and probably for the rest of the winter, there's nothing to report. My connection is perfect and so is my phone.

Oh and I should mention, it's Sky Fibre Pro

Edited by deleted (Fri 20-Nov-15 20:06:24)

In reply to a post by edwincluck:

Imagine Openreach operating by those earlier Service Level Agreements -- for Residential customers

From what I can make of it, Openreach are paying their customers Service Level Guarantee Payments of at least a month's line rental per day when they have missed their targets. Payments don't need to be claimed, they are credited automatically.

LLU providers such as Sky and TalkTalk also appear to have tighter Service Level Agreements than BT Retail who do not use LLU. So the payments kick in earlier for Sky and TalkTalk than BT Retail.

Lengthy delays in repairing circuits costs Openreach. A lengthy delay, for example needing streetworks and civils that result in delays could mean Openreach make no money at all throughout the life of the circuit just in SLG payments let alone the cost of the works.

Edited by deleted (Fri 20-Nov-15 21:44:33)

In reply to a post by MHC:

Same here, don't think I have ever had a missed appointment from BT.

Well we have had only one missed appointment, phoned BT and they turned up the next evening.

In reply to a post by MHC:

I have even had a B T team turn up 3 hours earlier than they planned - "because it is easier to do this at 5 AM rather than 8AM".

Well we haven't had one arrive that early before, but we have had one arrive 2 hours before the allocated evening slot, we was told they finished their last job faster than the allocated time.

Only once or twice we have had issues with the quality of their work.

Overall we have had a good outcome from BT Openreach appointments, touch wood.

Paul

In reply to a post by edwincluck:

While increasing the cost of line rental by nearly twice the rate of inflation, every year since 2006.

Openreach annual price to Communications Providers for line rental:-

01/03/2006 to 31/03/2010 £100.68
01/04/2010 to 31/03/2012 £103.68
01/04/2012 to 31/03/2013 £98.81
01/04/2013 to 30/04/2013 £94.75
01/05/2013 to 19/12/2013 £93.27
20/12/2013 to 16/05/2014 £93.32
17/05/2014 to 30/06/2014 £96.17
01/07/2014 to 31/03/2015 £91.05
01/04/2015 to date £89.50

My annual line rental is £156 including Vat, which once we remove the Vat is £130. So the provider is making a gross profit of £40.50pa from me on rental. Call charges are laughably low.

So BT Retail, Sky, TalkTalk and many others are the ones messing around with line rentals.

Alas does not fit the popular narrative so people tend not to pay any attention

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by edwincluck:

They used to refund a month's line rental for each day of outage.

Which parallel universe was that in?

Childish and trite.

The BT compensation for outage, in 2002, for example, was:

In reference to forums.thinkbroadband.com/bt/t/4448758-re-compensation-claims.html:

Compensation is at the rate of a month's rental per day of total unusability but depends on day of reporting it faulty, and starts at least 24 hours after the report is made.

With that proof now on the table, I could ask "what parallel universe are you living in"?!

But that would be childish and trite.

In reply to a post by edwincluck:

I could ask "what parallel universe are you living in"?!

But that would be childish and trite.

As demonstrated by raising it after 10 days and intervening posts by both of us, when you have already replied to the same post. I shall have to puzzle out what triggered it.

Particularly, as others have pointed out, you were talking about Openreach, which didn't exist. I doubt if they would pay end user compensation seeing as we don't pay them anything.

Have a nice quack.

So, the fault came back after the equinox as I suspected it would.

I called it into Sky yesterday. Openreach engineer attended today and it looks like he's fixed it.

Excellent service from Sky Fibre Pro

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

as we as a nation have adopted call bundles, and more calls are on mobiles call revenue that was the gold mine has decreased increasing pressure on all the nice bits that a Telco would happily do before.

Agreed, but way back, BT had some ads which compared UK and USA households, telling us how many more hours a month the US households used their phones, speaking to friends and relatives (with no mention of call bundles in most US domestic call plans). I think it was an attempt to 'guilt-trip' us while conning us at the same time, considering it was like Apples and Apricots to compare the services in just call minutes per month.

One of my early ISPs (ultra.net, before it was taken over by a cable firm from Chicago) offered tiered charges based on connect hours, no doubt because of the 'included calls' element most homes and businesses had. They went from about $5 {2 hours} to $100 {unlimited hours} per month. I signed up for the $5 a month service, getting a whole 5 MB of web space... this was 10x the storage a UK ISP I used at the time (~1993) was offering. {Zetnet in case anyone wondering.}

Ultra.Net also sent me 2 floppy disks with the forerunner to Netscape Navigator, NCSA Mosaic! Also Trumpet WinSock (SLIP/PPP) and other internet related software (might have been first encounter with Eudora, BICBW).

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In fact I think it is simply incorrect wrt domestic lines. Perhaps it was true for business lines with an enhanced SLA,

While there may have been some errors (1 month compensation for 3 days after an initial 3 days, from memory), it was related to domestic lines with no enhanced SLA. I was given a compensatory credit amounting to 6 months line rental after quite a number of days - by simple calculation probably 3 weeks without service, I think, on my Home Highway.

Given the cost of HH, and that it was on the same account with 2 other phone lines, I think I cancelled HH soon after, because then the credit covered the other 2 lines (and frankly, the times when I needed HH at 128 kbps, or used the 'third number' were getting fewer and fewer). I don't remember the year, sorry, but clearly it was before HH was phased out.

In reply to a post by ultra:

Agreed, but way back, BT had some ads which compared UK and USA households, telling us how many more hours a month the US households used their phones, speaking to friends and relatives (with no mention of call bundles in most US domestic call plans).

If I remember right, all US telephone customers always had free local calls as a right, at no extra cost. This not only meant they could spend longer on the phone chatting, but also meant they could have unlimited internet access long before we did, since the ISPs provided local numbers for dial-up.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

they could have unlimited internet access long before we did ...

unlimited dial-up but only if you were willing to pay a hefty ISP fee ($100 is still quite a hefty fee now, let alone 20++ years ago).

I suspect all ISPs in the States had similar charges. with the exception of AOL, of course, which paid local ISPs for dial-up ports, to be able to cope with demand (and still didn't!).

When visiting friends in the vicinity of San Diego, I was told (by the 15yo daughter) that everyone raced home to get connected to AOL after school (around 1500) else one only got engaged tones. I think that's why she parked a half block from school...

She parked, at 15? Then got home as quickly as possible?

Yes, she drove to school, and parked within a block (perhaps capacity within the school car park was insufficient). Yes, she was 15 (though perhaps closer to 16, I didn't ask). Leaving school, she like all the other teens using AOL, dashed home to get the computer on and dial-up AOL before all ports were jammed. She'd then have the computer running to download ZIPs etc from her friends...

In California, since 2006, a driving permit can be held by teenagers from 15.5 to 18 years old, and the test taken from age 16. I was visiting in 1997 or thereabouts and don't know the exact rules back then, but her parents would not have allowed her to pick me up at the railway station (I went from Cardiff on Sea to San Diego on a day trip) if there had been some restriction or likelihood of her being stopped.