No Reservation for TGV - High fee charged

DanielL
Traveller
1 comments

Posted 12 years ago

Hi guys,

I'd like to let you know about a very bad incident I experienced with a french conductor during a TGV journey from Toulon to Geneve (Genf) in September 2012 .

Unluckily I was not able to get a reservation for the train connection, due to a lack of seats for Interrail pass holders. The just offered me to pay to full fare of approx. 75€, which was absolutely out of question, since I bought a 10 in 22 days interrail pass.

Thus I googled other possibilities to board the train despite this lack of interrail reservation.
Unluckily I couldn't find the abonnement forfait 2e classe-reservation anywhere, not even with the help of french speaking citizens. So I read about a maximal fee of 20€ for a lack of reservation here: [u]https://rail.cc/en/tgv-reservierung/f3949[/u] and accepted that.

After I had boarded the Train my ticket was inspected. I was sitting on 1st floor to the opposite where the baggage was stored. (I think those places cannot be reservated anyway) When I stated that I had no reservation, the conductor quickly took my 10 in 22 day and claimed it was a fake, as the dates would to been changed by me to gain personal benefit. He was talking to me in a very very rude language with a threatening voice and accused me more than two times as a liar.
I was not even given a chance to justify. He said that things were setteled and I was a liar.

He didn't care about the bottom travel report at all, where the ticket said that we had to write down every train connection with the according dates and final stop. The ticket was fully valid. There were no dates at all changed. This fact could be proofed with the travel report.
Firstly he told me that he kept my pass and charged me a 100€ fee, and I would be kicked off in Lyon. I didn't agree with that, so he said I could keep my pass by paying a fee of 200€. I had no idea what this fee was composed of, nor did the conductor want to tell me. He didn't want to tell me his name either. I said, that I would not pay 200€ to him.

He said my onliest choice then was to get off in Lyon and face the police, but then my fee would even be more: 340€!So I said that was fine with that. He quickly stated that I had five minutes to think about it.
When he returned, I wanted to speak to another conductor. He permitted me talk to another conductor, the train operator, wo could barely speak english, but accepted my interrail pass together with the carefully filled out travel report.
The conductor who previously accused me of lying was furious and then charged me fine of 100€ for the lack of reservation. I accepted this to keep the trip going, as a I wanted to proceed to Zurich and take to night-train to vienna, to stay at friend's.

I asked for a receipt and got one, with the number of that TGV-Conductor. My Interrail ticket was declared as invalid by him, the days were circled and Ticket in invalid in french written above. So obviously the person wanted to hinder me from proceeding my journed. He went off, by saying: You are a liar and that was the first time.

So what I would to to know now is:

1. Do you know any official way to complain about this conductor?
2. Sould I complain at the SNCF office or at the Interrail office?
3. Is there a valid official source, which states that the max. fee for boarding without reservation is 20€? Or is there a official source listing the penalty fees?
4. The conductor stated, that there was only the way to pay the fee in the train or face the police. In Germany there is the possibility to pay it in a few weeks after the incident by transaction. Is this possibility also available in France.


Thanks and kind regards from Germany

Daniel