THE London Underground could face a hefty bill in compensation after a frustrated commuter found a neat way to circumvent the cumbersome claims system.

The idea occurred to Paul Hatcher as he, along with 600,000 other people, was forced to take long diver- sions during this year’s three-month closure of the Central Line.

Tube passengers are entitled to a full refund of the cost of their journey if their train is delayed by 15 minutes or more because of a fault within London Underground’s control.

At present, London Underground receives only one compensation form for every 1,700 passengers it carries.

Thousands of people each week do not bother to claim, mainly because of the inconvenience of obtaining and filling out a two-page form. The individual ticket values are also small, though the amounts could add up to into a three-figure sum over a year.

Mr Hatcher, a software designer, realised that his fellow commuters were more likely to claim if someone else filled out the form on their behalf.

Yesterday he introduced a text message service linked to a website that will allow passengers to spend some of their time stuck in tunnels tapping in the details of their journey.

They can then send the message once they finally reach the surface and, by the time they are at their desks, a completed form will have been e-mailed to them. They simply sign the form and send it to London Underground’s freepost address.

Mr Hatcher, 38, said: “People are usually so pleased that their awful journey is over that they can’t be bothered to think about having to fill in the form. The beauty of this system is that it allows you to act immediately at the time of the problem when you are really annoyed and want to do something about it.

“Hopefully it will also help you cope with the frustration of delays by using the time to log the details. If enough people claim and cost London Underground enough money it may give them the incentive to improve the service.”

Once passengers have registered at www.tuberefund.co.uk, they simply need to text their journey details. Their address and season-ticket details will be stored by the website. The service is free until November, when a charge of £5 for every 25 claims will be made.

Mr Hatcher estimated that passengers were losing £50 million in unclaimed compensation each year.

There were 3,278 incidents causing trains to be delayed by 15 minutes or more last year. London Underground paid out £2.66 million in compensation last year, but could not tell how many people had failed to make claims. Passengers could claim only for problems for which it was responsible, a spokesman said.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Fern Britton: 'I still can't see that I was wrong'
• Extreme cooking
• Easy French: Tarte Tatin