Brits losing £1,200 a YEAR by not claiming refunds they’re entitled to

THE average Brit loses more than £1,200 every year by not returning or claiming a refund they’re entitled to.

Research of 2,000 adults found they each typically miss out on a product or service at least once a week.

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But 60 per cent don’t like asking for a refund from providers of goods and services they have purchased, and 37 per cent actively avoid doing so.

Just over a quarter (27 per cent) put this down to disliking confrontation, and one in five (18 per cent) because the staff had been nice to them.

The research was commissioned by Trainline to coincide with the launch of its new “Delay Repay” feature, which is designed to prevent travellers from missing out on compensation in the future.

It follows a study that revealed Brits missed out on £35 million of unclaimed Delay Repay compensation in the past year, with over one million eligible delayed journeys detected over the previous 12 months.

Mike Hyde, chief data officer at Trainline, said: “Over £35 million of eligible compensation wasn’t claimed in the past year and we wanted to understand why.

“We were amazed to discover that one in four Brits didn’t know they were entitled to compensation if their train is delayed and almost half have never made a claim before.”

The research, commissioned through OnePoll, also found almost half of adults (47 per cent) have never applied for or received train delay compensation.

And a quarter (27 per cent) were unaware they are entitled to compensation if their train is delayed.

Another 54 per cent didn’t know how late their train needs to be for them to be eligible and just 42 per cent were clear on how to apply.

However, 15 per cent didn’t bother to apply because they found the application process too complicated and 12 per cent simply forgot.

Almost a third (30 per cent) of people from Wales and a quarter (26 per cent) from Scotland are not aware they’re entitled to compensation if their train is delayed.

However, it is people from the South West (67 per cent) and the North West (63 per cent) who are most likely to have never applied for or received compensation.

Hyde added: “We’re delighted to launch the brand new Delay Repay feature which is designed to enable more of our customers to receive the compensation they are entitled to.

“It will proactively contact our customers to make them aware that they’re eligible for compensation and it even gives an indication on how much they can expect to receive.”

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This post first appeared on thesun.co.uk