Ukrzaliznytsia Tightens Control Measures: Over 270 Accounts Blocked for Ticket Hoarding
Over the past week, Ukrainian railway authorities have intensified their monitoring and control procedures within the online ticket booking system, leading to the blocking of 271 suspicious user accounts.
The state rail company, Ukrzaliznytsia, announced that since early August, these preventive measures have been actively employed to combat speculators and malicious actors attempting to manipulate the system for unearned profit.
During inspections, it was discovered that such individuals created numerous related accounts to purchase more tickets than permitted or held reserved tickets without immediate payment, waiting for an opportunity to resell or secure them unlawfully.
Additionally, cases of mass searches and repeated reservations under different names were registered, placing extra load on the booking platform.
In total, 271 accounts were blocked just last week, adding to over 3,800 accounts identified and restricted since March for systemic abuse.
Ukrzaliznytsia emphasized that the ban does not impact genuine travelers arranging family or group trips but targets those abusing the system.
The scale of this issue is evident from the statistics in August, where demand for tickets from Kyiv to Lviv from July 28 to August 3 increased nearly eightfold, while available seats were three times fewer than the number of travelers seeking to book.
These developments prompted the company to implement additional control mechanisms and provisions for ticket purchase processes to prevent further abuse and ensure fair access for legitimate passengers.