Time is running out to make a claim for compensation out of a £25million allocated pot – money expert Martin Lewis has revealed who is eligible and what you need to do to get your hands on the cash
You only have until Friday to stake your claim for compensation with a company that has settled out of court in an alleged overpayment case – you don’t even need evidence for the smallest payout. Money expert Martin Lewis has issued an urgent alert for the public to check if they can claim cash back from a company which has allocated £25million in compensation for alleged, historic overcharging. He issued his warning at the start of the week but time is now running out with the deadline fast approaching.
It relates to travel with South West Trains over a period of almost two years, so millions could be eligible for some cash. On Monday Martin posted on X, formerly Twitter, urging people to check if they made journeys with the company from 2015. He wrote: “URGENT: Did you travel with South West Trains 2015 to 2017? Quickly check if you’re due an easy £30+. It’s paying up to £25m in compensation for alleged historic overcharging, but you’ve only got till 11.59pm on Friday to do it…”
The financial guru provided a link to an article on his moneysavingexpert website which explains exactly who can claim and what the payouts are likely to be, with or without evidence. It states that if you took a South West train out of London between 1 October 2015 and 20 August 2017, and held a Transport for London (TfL) Travelcard, you could have been overcharged and can claim compensation.
The company ran services to and from London Waterloo station covering destinations in south west England such as Basingstoke, Bournemouth, Bristol Temple Meads, Exeter St. Davids, Guildford, Portsmouth, Reading, Salisbury, Southampton Central, Weymouth and Woking. The case against South West Trains involves ‘boundary fares’ for those with a TfL Travelcard.
Boundary fares enable passengers to travel beyond the zones of their particular Travelcard by only paying for the journey outside their zones because they have already paid a portion of it. A group legal claim was brought by campaigner Justin Gutmann who said that around 1.4million Travelcard holders had been charged twice for parts of their journeys with the company.
Lawyers for Gutmann argued that not enough was done by South West Trains to make customers aware of boundary fares and how to buy them. The company denied this and admitted no liability but the case has been settled out of court with up to £25million made available for payouts.
Estimates from legal documents show that each affected passenger lost a total of £27.90 on average. Martin’s website explains why you can claim without proof and what you are likely to receive. “These figures are reflected in the amounts you can claim under the settlement – £5 a journey, capped at either £30 if you’ve no proof or £100 if you’ve limited proof. If you can provide all the evidence required, there’s no cap – you can claim a full refund of the difference between what you paid and what the boundary fares would’ve cost,” it reads.
