Poundland owns Thameslink on Twitter

Poundland has hit out at Thameslink on social media, after the rail firm compared its poor service to cooking chocolate sold by the retailer.

Thameslink had responded to a tweet from a passenger, who posted a picture of a departure board showing train cancellations. It replied: "Very sorry Kevin. Appreciate at the moment the service is less Ferrero Rocher and more Poundland cooking chocolate."

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It prompted the retailer to tweet Charles Horton, Chief Executive of Thameslink's parent firm Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), stating that Poundland served eight million shoppers last week and has a "pretty good idea about what great customer service is, but if we ever fall short, perhaps we’ll describe ourselves as a bit Thameslink”. It added: “If you don’t want to hear from our extremely twitchy legal team, we suggest you remove your tweet.”

GTR later apologised and deleted its message.

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