Poundland owns Thameslink on Twitter spectacularly – as McDonald owns Grayling

An attempt by rail company Thameslink to defuse the anger of its passengers over poor service has backfired spectacularly and its shorthand earned it a free ‘pounding’ on social media from retail company Poundland.

Thameslink’s Twitter team had put out a tweet comparing its own poor service to a Poundland product – and the retailer’s response was, well, priceless:

Dear Mr Horton,

We couldn’t help notice that your Twitter team described your failure to provide an adequate service as ‘Poundland’ cooking chocolate.

Aside from the breach of our trademark we think you’re taking the chocolate biscuit.

In the past week, on the introduction of the new timetables your rail company has

1. Cancelled hundreds o f services
2. Blamed a dog on the line for delays and
(https: //www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/govia-thameslink-railway-new-timetable-14688233)
3. Secretly cancelled services rather than have to announce they’re cancelled
(http://www.newsshopper.co.uk./news/16255751.Petition_calls_ for_Thameslink_to_ lose_contract_as_trains___39 _disappear__39__from_ timetables/).

Frankly you have no right to use our name to describe poor service. We served 8 million shoppers last week and didn’t have to close any store due to leaves on the roof, the wrong kind of rain, or a shortage of managers.

In fact, our Welshpool store flooded and our store colleagues stood at the entrance to help customers get their shopping, so we stayed open.

We think we have a pretty good idea about what great customer service is compared to most rail companies.

But if we ever fall short, perhaps we’ll describe ourselves as a bit Thameslink.

If you don’t want to hear from our extremely twitchy legal team, we suggest you remove your tweet.

Meanwhile, Labour’s Shadow Transport Secretary similarly took to social media to destroy his opposite number’s own lame attempts to deflect blame for his incompetence onto Thameslink:

Perhaps Thameslink should take the lesson from being ‘owned’ by Poundland and do something similar to the dire Chris Grayling.

Comment:

Small wonder that the vast majority of the UK public agree with Labour’s policy of bringing the railways back into public ownership.

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