Greater Anglia Reviews 

Lost my phone in Norwich train station. I was told to 'look after my personal property a bit more better' by a member of Greater Anglia staff. I shan't be using Greater Anglia railways ever. Look forward to hearing from them and would like to hear what management have to say.

My experience with Greater Anglia has been consistently unacceptable, and the situation is made worse by one crucial fact: it seems that there is no other train operator and no other train route to Stansted Airport. If you want to reach Stansted by train, you are forced to use Greater Anglia. This monopoly shows in every part of the journey — outdated systems, unclear rules, and an approach that feels designed to penalise rather than serve passengers.

Despite Stansted being a major London airport, the route is not properly integrated with London’s contactless network, unlike every other London airport:
- Gatwick — Fully contactless (Thameslink, Southern, Gatwick Express).
- Luton — Fully contactless to Luton Airport Parkway (Thameslink, EMR).
- Heathrow — Fully contactless (Elizabeth Line, TfL Rail, Heathrow Express).

Stansted is the only London-served airport where the main rail route does not accept normal TfL-style travel. Yet this is not made clear enough during the journey.

For example, at Tottenham Hale, there were no staff present at all to advise, warn, or assist passengers. No one to explain the lack of contactless acceptance. No one to point out the inadequate signage. There may have been some signage but clearly ineffective since I couldn't notice it.

But the moment you arrive at Stansted Airport, suddenly there are four staff members standing ready — not to help, not to guide, but to issue penalty fares. Zero staff where passengers actually need information; multiple staff where passengers can be charged. The contrast feels intentional and deeply unfair.

Like many travellers, I tapped in using contactless — which is the normal, expected way to travel across London. I followed the exact same process that works seamlessly when going to Heathrow, Gatwick, or Luton. But Greater Anglia treats Stansted differently, without making that difference clear. The system is confusing by design, and the penalties fall on honest passengers simply following standard London travel patterns.

The fact that Greater Anglia seems to hold a total monopoly on the Stansted route, combined with poor integration and an aggressive penalty system, creates a situation where passengers feel trapped. There is no choice, no competition, and apparently no incentive for Greater Anglia to modernise or treat customers fairly.

Until this route is updated — and brought in line with every other London airport connection — I cannot recommend Greater Anglia to anyone. The experience is frustrating, costly, misleading, and completely avoidable. A company with an exclusive hold over an essential airport route should be held to higher standards, not allowed to operate like this.

A lot of staff come across as righteous and are just outright rude. They have utter distrust in their customers and seem to some kind of satisfaction from catching customers out. Hopefully now this train line is under public ownership it starts working for the people who spend have to thousands of pounds on travel a year, and not some money grabbing private owners.

The system is exploiting passenger honestly,the contactless is not accepted when you arrive at Stansted airport.Yet no signs at all ,the guy said it's on the floor when you come out of the train .so how will I read a sign on the floor from Stansted from london.Whats the point of not making it contactless if you're not exploiting the passengers .I felt scammed .

Repeated payment failures for weeks – zero accountability, no compensation, no sense of urgency

I’ve spent weeks trying to buy tickets from Greater Anglia and have repeatedly been blocked by their system. Every attempt failed, wasting much of my time across multiple days.

Despite raising the issue all we received where vague explanations about “security checks”, and absolutely no accountability for why their system repeatedly prevented a legitimate customer from making a simple purchase.

What makes the experience even worse is that after all the inconvenience, lost time, and repeated failed attempts, Greater Anglia made it clear they do not offer any compensation or goodwill gesture of any kind. Not even account credit. Nothing.

Their response essentially amounted to:
“We stopped you buying tickets for weeks. We’ve corrected our poor it. That’s it.”

For a company that expects customers to rely on them for time-sensitive travel, this level of service is unacceptable. Robust security is important, of course — but hiding behind “security checks” doesn’t excuse the complete lack of transparency, the slow customer service, or the refusal to make good on the inconvenience caused.

If you value reliability, responsiveness, and a company that takes responsibility for its own system failures, this has been a deeply disappointing experience.

Had an open ticket paid for but got on a train 30mins too early. Was then charged £71 for an “upgrade”. Terrible service, terrible trains and laughable pricing. I look forward to you going out of business.

Guys ... your train drivers are ok at brain ??!!!!
Is 18 Nov, very cold outside and inside of train is blowing cold air on our heads giving us a bad headache. Or those who want to rule the world did a deal with you to kill us slowly slowly ??!!!!!
Please advice your drivers to turn off this bloody cold air 🤦🤕😡
Thank you !

Greater Anglia has one of the most insensitive employees ever to exist honestly. People genuinely make mistake in purchasing tickets whether it be the time that’s wrong or train different company at the bottom of the ticket and sometimes people miss it. Genuinely the terrible service is appalling. One of the employees told “get on your phone and purchase another ticket” because I had and emergency and didn’t use my ticket, like be quiet I was hoping for you to understand and show empathy but no. These people act like we are meant to be robots and be perfect and it’s not always easy to just purchase a ticket like that with extortion amount. Honestly they don’t care! There isn’t zero star, I won’t even give a 1 start this is worst.

One of the worst customer experiences I’ve ever had.
Greater Anglia clearly cares more about collecting penalty fares than treating passengers fairly. I was fined for a genuine mistake as a first-time visitor, even though I followed the inspectors’ advice and appealed twice — both rejected with copy-paste replies.
No understanding, no flexibility, no customer service. The system feels rigged against honest travellers. I’ll avoid Greater Anglia completely in the future and suggest others do the same.

Thank you very much to staff member Jane who retrieved my lost phone and handed back to me at Wickford Station. Its really nice to know there are good people out there! Thank you Jane, you deserve much praise for your commitment to customer care and your criticsl and logistical thinking. Big thank you!

First time in many years we decided to try a train journey. Looked on line, found a great offer, too good to be true. So went to our local station ( Clacton on sea ) to check and and ask about this deal. The 2 gentlemen there could not have been more helpful. Spent time searching my request and explains the great on line deal, golden ticket 🎫 he called it. Thank you so much, will definitely use again .

0 stars for sure.

The two Great Anglia workers working at the info desk on the 3rd of November at London Liverpool Street were aggressive and rude to me, just because I enquired about my ticket conditions. I can’t believe why they think it’s ok to treat people with complete disrespect and aggression. Please train your staff to at least have some minimum manners.

Reminiscent of the worst soviet rail services of the 1970's. A joke from start to finish. They take money for first class travel and then don't provide any such accommodation time and time again. It's an absolute joke. They say you can claim money back which I tried to do on the train but guess what? the wifi doesn't work. I can not remember the last time that it did. Still, the trolley came around and I thought I would have a gin and tonic - they had Gin but no tonic. These people can not even do the basics

Most pathetic train service I’ve ever used in my life; sat there laughing and joking around on the speaker meanwhile we’re sat in the station for 10 minutes. Every single train driver is greedy and pathetic and if you’re one of those partaking in the strikes, take a long hard look at yourself you absolute loser.

Every time I use the train instead of driving, there’s always a delay or a cancellation. On this occasion I paid double my fare for first class, as I had work to do on my laptop.
The Norwich to London Liv St train arrived on time and after walking past about 6 carriages I realised there was no first class carriage. The warden said sorry there’s no first class carriage today. Excellent 👍🏼 Then the second leg of my journey from London to Aylesbury was without a first class carriage. On my return, both my London Liv St to Norwich and then following service 45 mins after were cancelled. So I was asked to get the train to Cambridge and change there. On that train to Cambridge, was there a first class seat? Absolutely not! So now I’m told to go through the gruelling process of filing out refund claim forms online for each of my outbound and return journeys. I’ve not known a country like it. Absolute circus

The worst service I have ever experienced in my entire life.

first of all the train was cancelled because some retard got hit by a train and then we had to go backwards and then wait for a bus which took hours while people waited in the rain.

terrible communication

Absolutely scammers. They run a sting (The Scamsted Airport Routine) whereby they deliberately fail to provide clear information on how to pay for a ticket.
You tap your card, go through the barriers thinking you paid, then at the other end they fine you for 'not having the correct ticket'. Don't bother appealing to their friends at the supposedly neutral 'Independent Appeal
Service', they're obviously in bed with
them and will just waste more of your time. Yet another classic bit of disgusting English spivvery.

Ipswich Station is possibly the worst Station i ever use. Ticket office is outside of station, toilets are the furthest away on platform only. Only positive is the new coop that has opened on site

Bad service. Over charges passengers. Deliberately misleads customers and lies to the Ombudsman.

Only cares about profits not customers.

Probably the worst train company I’ve ever dealt with.
Delay repay is a scam. I’ve given them screenshot of my e-tickets, including reference code and they have the audacity to tell methat I haven’t sent them a copy of the ticket.
I’d rather walk or take my car than use you. Despicable.