Ernest
Stupid IDIOT
You might be right but I think it's a fine line. The service is totally unacceptable as things stand, but the terms required to permit refunds often seem frustratingly out of reach:
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/dec/18/how-claim-train-delayed
"As a general rule, companies will refund 50% of your ticket for a delay of 30 minutes or more, and will double that if the delay is for an hour or longer."
So that means if my train is persistently 20 mins late, I'll get bugger all. How is that reasonable? It isn't is it? So some people probably feel encouraged and justified to bend these rules.
It won't be long until the new franchisee for the the new Southern/FCC massive combo is announced and whether things will be different who knows ?