Nederlandse Spoorwegen Reviews 

I had planned and booked my trip to Utrecht four months in advance. Everything seemed fine. But on the day of the trip itself, yesterday morning, I suddenly received a notification that my journey had been cancelled. There were multiple disruptions, including a power outage, which caused major problems with the train service. As a result, I was unable to go on my day trip.

I was extremely disappointed because we could no longer travel anywhere. My entire day was ruined. I had already purchased a ticket for the event at the Jaarbeurs, and I had also paid €49 for a two month unlimited train travel subscription, which I was unable to use for this trip.

I had checked for travel updates every day leading up to my trip, and there were no warnings or indications that anything was wrong. Then, on the day itself, everything suddenly broke down. You get no compensation whatsoever, no email, never heard someone say sorry, not one single explanation? What a terrible company.

Everytime I go with the train it breaks down. This will be the last time I will ever go with the train in this country. It's a disaster and I had no trip.

I constantly run into problems with this company. Train delays seem to be considered completely normal.

Recently, I forgot to check out. They claim you can request a refund within 24 hours, but in reality, the process makes that nearly impossible. You first have to wait for the app to determine whether it considers your journey a "regular trip." During this time, the refund option is unavailable. If the app decides you don't have regular journeys, they are supposed to send you a link where you can manually enter the station where you forgot to check in or out.

The problem is that they often don't send this link within the 24-hour refund window. By the time you receive it, it's too late to request a refund, and you're forced to pay the full fare. This feels less like a mistake and more like a system designed to prevent customers from getting their money back.

The company operates like a monopoly. With virtually no competition, fares are unreasonably high, customer support is poor, and there is little accountability for how they treat passengers.

IF YOU'VE EXPERIENCED SIMILAR ISSUES, CONSIDER REPORTING THEM TO THE DUTCH AUTHORITY FOR CONSUMERS & MARKETS (ACM). IF ENOUGH PEOPLE REPORT THESE UNFAIR PRACTICES, THE REGULATOR CAN INVESTIGATE, FORCE THE COMPANY TO CHANGE ITS POLICIES, AND POTENTIALLY IMPOSE SIGNIFICANT FINES.

#NS #NederlandseSpoorwegen #DutchRailways #TrainTravel #PublicTransport #CustomerService #ConsumerRights #Refund #Monopoly #TravelProblems #Netherlands #ACM #FairTreatment #PassengerRights #TrainDelays #OVChipkaart

I do not remember a day when every train would be on time.

The fact that you cannot use the 40% discount during peak hours and that you don’t get adviced right before paying for the ticket it’s truly sad. Feels like a scam. As a visitor it leaves a bad look over this company. Not transparent, and not fully honest. Also I can relate with what the other people say about the poor service. Lots of delays, sometimes dirty, super full sometimes,…

I’ve lived in the Netherlands for 8 years. Three weeks ago I sold my car and started relying on public transport. It has been one of the worst decisions I’ve ever made.

Since then I’ve experienced constant train cancellations, delays and changing schedules. Last week alone there were disruptions almost every day.

I travel from Etten-Leur to Rotterdam for work. My commute requires one bus and two trains. Recently I could only get as far as Dordrecht because there was simply no connection available.

One day I finished work at 5:00 PM and didn’t get home until 4:00 AM because of repeated disruptions.

There always seems to be another excuse: damaged overhead cables, someone hit by a train, signal failures, technical problems or unexpected disruptions. Whatever the reason, passengers are the ones left waiting for hours.

The worst part is that we can’t explain these excuses to our employers, clients, schools or universities. Saying “there was a signal failure” or “the overhead cables were damaged” doesn’t change the fact that we’re hours late, miss appointments, lose working time or even miss exams.

After weeks of this, I honestly believe that if you depend on public transport for work or school, owning a car in the Netherlands is almost a necessity.

At this point, I don’t even know whether to laugh or cry.

NS is one of the most unreliable train services I have ever been forced to use. Paying around €400 a month for a subscription while dealing with constant cancellations, delays, and chaos is completely unacceptable. Put better a red light out of the stations.

Even in 37°C they cancel trains before people's nose and let them cook for 40-60 minutes at the station. Worst part, the train was there but left empty, no one allowed to enter. Worst company of the entire country.

I've been traveling with NS for a while.
Incremental delays, train cancelations mid-trip, check-out glitches (causing the checkout not being registered), super unclean trains post-events,
very poorly handled forgotten items, I experienced them all...
Yet it's one of the most (if not the most) expensive public transportation in the world.
Trustpilot scores are terribly low, yet they don't nothing about it.

Nice trick.

A train scheduled to depart at 6:41 is already standing at the platform, but passengers are not allowed to board until :39. Then, at :41, the departure board suddenly shows a 1-minute delay. A moment later, an announcement says the train will leave “in a few minutes”. Then the delay jumps to 10 minutes and passengers are effectively pushed onto the next train at :51 instead.

Of course, that next train is completely packed.

The worst part is that this is not the first time. In fact, when I saw the train already waiting at the platform but boarding was blocked, I immediately knew what was going to happen because I have seen this exact scenario before.

What makes this truly unacceptable is the way passengers are misled. Instead of honestly announcing that the train will not depart, people are kept waiting with repeated promises of “just a few more minutes”. Passengers are treated as if they are too stupid to notice what is happening.

And the most absurd part? After everyone had been redirected to another train because this one supposedly could not leave, the original train eventually departed empty.

What makes this even worse is that this is a Direct IC service, for which passengers are required to pay an additional supplement on top of an already expensive ticket.

If you charge extra for a premium service, the least you can do is provide accurate information and treat passengers honestly. Instead, passengers are left standing on the platform while the departure time keeps changing, only to be pushed onto the next overcrowded train.

For one of the most expensive railway operators in Europe, this feels less like customer service and more like taking passengers’ money while knowingly providing something different from what was promised.

In general you pay a lot for train that are just dirty and always delayed. But it’s not only that, the don’t have costumer service at all. I had a problem which required a refund, they made wrong decision and there is no person to help. Email is only automatic replies, on the phone they said they can’t help and on the chat I waited for more than half an hour and nothing. Insane this company has nothing to offer. If there was another way to transport they would have no business

Take care of yourself and of your belongings, nobody will protect you. Back pack stolen, NS not responsible,
cameras cannot be looked at for privacy reasons, police useless.

The worst thing i have ever experienced. I come from Bosnia that has a combined GDP of 3€ and the trains and public transport is a million times better than this so called developed western county. Horrible horrible

Evil company

There hasn't been a day in the past two weeks where there hasn't been a cancellation, delay or missed connection. And of course the crowds that have gathered because of this. Of course, it's also expensive

They should stop selling more tickets than chairs available.

The web app is unusable, specially when you have to manage more subscriptions for other family members. It has been imposible to switch my child to the free plan.

Wanted to get a NS Flex Dal Voordeel. Nightmare process and not described what is involved to get it activated and use the first day. The co traveller option is also not described up front and requires everyone to have app and codes and heaps of electronic stuff that for example a child will not have
Spent 50 mins on their chat bot and with a human agent. Useless they don’t answer the simple questions directly.
Eventually asked for a refund which was yet another process

The savings is not worth it unless you are a regular traveller.

The NS is far worse than the German Bahn and could use some improvements in their process and customer support.

I am genuinely disappointed with NS.

NS charges some of the highest train fares in Europe, so naturally customers expect a reliable service and accessible customer support. Unfortunately, my recent experience was the complete opposite.

I spent 6.5 hours on NS live chat, from 11:00 in the morning until 17:30, trying to get help with a straightforward request. The experience followed the exact same pattern over and over again: an agent would join the chat, appear to help, say “I’ll check this for you,” and then disappear without any follow-up. Shortly after, another agent would enter, repeat the same process, and disappear again.

This cycle continued for hours.

In 6.5 hours, I was not able to have a single continuous, meaningful conversation with anyone who actually took ownership of my case. It felt like no one had taken the time to properly read my request or genuinely try to resolve it.

What makes this even more frustrating is that while NS continues to increase ticket prices year after year, customers are facing more delays, more disruptions, and a noticeably worse customer service experience.

Premium pricing should come with premium service. Sadly, that is no longer what NS is delivering.

NS disgusts me.
Every year, it gets worse. I have a subscription that I rarely use, but I don't mind keeping it since my work pays for it. However, whenever I want to use it for work, there are either big delays or I get stuck in some random city with no train available. I don't even care about the refund because my time is worth a lot.
It is such a shame for the Netherlands to have such a horrible train system. And stop saying, "Yes, we have better trains than Germany." Compared to Switzerland, it is horrible here.

Early morning, gates at Groningen Station refused me entry with ticket bought online, had to buy another ticket at the machine. Conductor told me to contact 'customer' services. These people are unpleasant and their only purpose seems to be to waste your time and insult you. They insult you by not answering questions, invent fake rules, blaming the punter, questioning a punter's mental ability, and the like. They are there to denigrate you and fob you off, the 'customer' service is pretence only. That said, I can see how making a punter pay twice for the same trip is good for the company's bottom line. But really, 'customer' service should be renamed 'victim' service because the company treats no passenger as a customer, more like an inconvenience at best. Anyway, the railway journey I paid twice for was delayed by 29 mins and then cancelled at the next station. Information how to get onto a next train was inadequate and in some cases just wrong. Passengers are left to their own devices how to proceed to their destination. Changed trains 2 more times, the final leg to my destination (the airport) was also suddenly cancelled halfway but luckily only the bit after my final destination. All in all I arrived about an hour later than planned (as per the official timetable), I probably should consider that a luck escape.