Rail passengers are being forced to pay thousands of pounds more in fares as a result of poor advice from the national telephone helpline and individual stations, a consumer organisation reveals today. Research by Which? found that in some cases passengers are being charged almost double the cheapest price because of errors made by staff . Which? asked 25 questions of both station staff and the National Rail Enquiries (NRES) helpline. Only half of the 50 questions were answered correctly. If customers had followed all the advice given ,they would have been PS1,263.60 worse off . Bad advice was given for the cheapest fare for a single journey between London and Grantham .For a ticket bought on the day of travel, both NRES and a  King's Cross station clerk quoted GNER'sPS44.50 fare ,ignoring a Hull Trains service which leaves 10 minutes earlier and costs just PS20. Some of the most costly misinformation was given for journeys where season tickets should have been recommended .Passengers making a return journey between Swindon and Penzance twice in a week could buy a ticket from one company for PS70 which would cover all the travel. But both NRES and station staff quoted PS67 for each journey, making PS134.However, the NRES website proved to be a much more reliable source of information . Which ? also checked "the earlier you book, the cheaper the ticket" claims by five companies and found this was not always the case .On some services, prices went up and down  _ . Ithiel Mogridge,52,gave one example of poor advice :"Last Christmas I found my brother a ticket on the  _ to travel from Blackburn to Yate. While the direct route wasPS51, this one involved a change in Newport and cost just PS21. I emailed the details to him and his partner. They went to Blackburn station ,where the clerk insisted the fare was PS51." Malcolm Coles, editor of  _ ,said. "Staff training needs to be improved. In the meantime ,we've designed a checklist, available at _ " When the author said that customers "would have been PS1,263.60 worse off", he was telling us that customers would have
saved PS1,263.60 if they had followed the advice spend PS1,263.60 more than the lowest price used PS1,263.60 for the survey of 25 questions been cheated of PS1,263.60 from the poor advice