Man fuming after Stagecoach bus driver 'ignores' him

He says the firm took seven weeks to say sorry

Stagecoach have come under fire from a Plymouth man who said he was ignored at a bus stop, as the firm then took seven weeks to issue an apology.

David Stanbury and three others – unknown to each other – were left waiting at a bus stop at the George Park and Ride on Wednesday, July 31, when a Stagecoach bus they tried to flag down ignored them.

Mr Stanbury, 82, said he filed a complaint several days later, and even spoke to another Stagecoach driver at the time of incident, but it took the company 24 days – more than three weeks – to reply to him.

Due to an error in his complaints’ submission – he wrote 01.45 instead of 1.45pm – the firm dismissed it by saying ‘we don’t run buses at this time’.

Though Mr Stanbury immediately rectified his error, it took the firm another three weeks to get back to him, making it almost seven weeks in total before he received an apology.

In correspondence seen by The Herald, a member of the Stagecoach Customer Engagement Team replied to Mr Stanbury on September 17, offering him a seven-day ticket. However, he already receives free bus travel as he is a pensioner.

The member of staff tells him: “I can only apologise for this incident and I will issue a notice to all drivers to ensure they stop regardless.”

The Herald has this week contacted the firm’s representatives for a response, but has received no formal comment at the time of writing. Mr Stanbury said the matter has now gone beyond the initial complaint.

He said: “I was pretty annoyed at the time, as were the other people who were strangers to me, and we did report it immediately, but the George Park and Ride is run by Plymouth Citybus and it’s not their fault.

“We asked a member of staff there and he said it is not the first time it has happened, which may or may not be true, but he also said they had spoken to a Stagecoach driver – who I spoke to as well and asked her to report it. It was only two days later that I reported it, and the reply was meant to be within seven working days, but it has gone on since then.

"I think they have never investigated it, and they have never said it has been referred to the directorate. I have my suspicion it has been dealt with at a lower level and never reported to management.”

He added: “I had a perfectly legitimate complaint, and of course all the evidence would have been there because of CCTV on the bus and also at the George Park and Ride. That would have shown clearly that what I was saying was true.”

He said that by the time the company responded to his initial complaint, evidence through CCTV may well have been overwritten. Despite his own mistake, he said it would have been obvious that he was referring to a daytime service.

He said: “It took them four weeks, but then they said ‘we don’t run buses at this time’... but anyone looking at it would have immediately realised it was a mistake, and by the time they did I thought that they would probably say that CCTV was not available so they couldn’t actually check it.”

Mr Stanbury added: “I ran a small business myself and of course you are always going to get complaints, but complaints are an opportunity to investigate what you could do better next time.

“So I would have expected a reply which said ‘thank you for bringing this to our attention, please bear with us while we investigate it and we will be back with you in a fortnight or whatever’. But there was nothing in the long chain of emails that indicates they ever looked into it at all.”

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