LIRR are torturing passengers who have been seeking refunds for their unused monthly tickets amid coronavirus outbreaks being able to recoup only small portions of their high fares — if they were able to recoup anything at all.
Many holders of monthly Long Island Railroad tickets, who travel for as little as 50 cents in costs, apply for refunds as little as 50 cents to get back as many holders of travel, depending on the distance from $ 19 to $ 500—stunned after doing. Many customers used their monthly March tickets only about a week before closing their regular passengers because of a coronavirus outbreak.
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It “seems unfair,” Valley Stream commuter Amy D’Arco, who on Friday applied for a refund of her $ 280 monthly ticket and got $ 4 back. “It was less than half the amount, and I didn’t even use the ticket for half a month.”
Gibson commuter Damian Spelling said he applied electronically to return his $ 280 ticket Monday and said he would like to get $ 25 back. She hesitated to accept the offer because she was “super confused” as to why she was falling so low.
When he checked back later that same morning, “$ 2550 turned into 50 cents.”
“It is not unreasonable; it is criminal,” spelling, which “did not disturb” accept 50 percent reimbursement. “The math they want to use is stupid.
Seeking to respond to customer complaints about refunds, LIRR officials pointed to their refund policy published online. According to the system, although monthly tickets are discounted by about 50% compared to the cost of 621 such cards, the “rebate is forfeited” once a ticket is turned into a refund. LIRR “calculates the refund by deducting the cost of the weekly fare for the one-way and period the ticket is in the customer’s possession.”
Using that formula, customers who submit their monthly tickets for refunds after the first two weeks of the month can expect to get a little back or nothing at all.
LIRR said that it has received about 9,900 return requests for the March monthly ticket, and is expecting another 500.
Anticipating high demand, Democratic state lawmakers sent a letter to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority last week — urging LIRR’s parent-agency to facilitate the process, including waiving the standard $ 10 processing fee. The letter argues that “by destroying this surcharge, you will not only end monetary concerns for your thousands of riders but also act fairly and help protect fellow New Yorkers by encouraging people to telecommute.”
Representatives for state Sen. Todd Kaminsky said they were flooded with calls from constituents looking for help to fix their LIRR fares.
“Though the impact of this virus on our economy and institutions will be far-reaching, it is now having an immediate impact on our workers,” Kinski said on Wednesday. “The MTA should fully reimburse travelers looking for ticket refunds,” And then we can see our finances in ways that do not deepen the crisis. “
MTA officials have not resolved the call to waive refund fees, saying last week that they would review legislators’ requests. But the public authority has made clear that, even without refunds, the financial toll from coronaviruses would be staggering.
MTA President Patrick Foye has requested a $ 6,000,000 bailout from the federal government to help cover the expenses, which include a loss in fare revenue from considerable drops in passengers — including about 40% on LIRR — and The agency added labor costs to the stepped-up cleanup and disinfection efforts at trains and stations.
Foye, speaking to WCBS Radio, declined to speculate about whether the unexpected expenses could result in service cuts. But, he said, without federal government assistance, the agency’s options are limited.
“There is no way MTA can get out of this to cut costs,” Foye said.
On Wednesday, a consortium of eight separate transportation advocacy and public policy groups from New York also drafted a letter to federal lawmakers urging them to come up with $ 6,000,000 in aid for the MTA.
“We understand that there will be many requests for federal aid, but we emphasize that without a fully functioning MTA, there will be no recovery in the New York City area or New York State,” the authors of the paper, who wrote MTA and Wrote the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee for the Regional Planning Association. “Public transit is the lifeblood of our city.”
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