Sigh… China’s train ticket site just threw up yet another obstacle for passengers

Image source: Sanfamedia.com

China’s official train ticket site 12306 has long since passed into so-bad-it’s-funny territory for those of you lucky enough to not have to use it. But since the government-run site is the only legal source for train tickets of any sort online in China, its missteps are a constant source of frustration for the hundreds of millions of Chinese web users who just want to buy a damn ticket so they can get home for Spring Festival.

This year has already seen 12306 making that harder with a faulty mobile authentication system that left some users unable to authenticate themselves and an image CAPTCHA system so difficult that only eight percent of users can pass on their first try. Now, the site has reportedly erected yet another obstacle: IP blocks.

As usual, the government’s intentions were good: all of these crazy security measures are designed to cut down on ticket scalpers. And the site’s blocks of suspected scalper IPs probably have prevented a lot of scammers and scalpers from getting their hands on precious Spring Festival tickets. But they’re also likely to catch a lot of innocent users in the crossfire, preventing them from buying tickets.

The IP blocks work exactly like their name implies: the system blocks users from a certain IP address from accessing the site. However, IP addresses aren’t always unique to a single computer; locally-networked computers (for example at an office or school) often share the same IP. That means that if one person in your office tried to scalp tickets and triggered a block, your entire office might well lose access to the site. And according to Sina Tech, when innocent users contacted 12306 about the issue, they were told it’s unclear when false-positive blocks might be resolved. Customer service representatives suggested innocent users who got blocked should just have their friends buy a ticket for them, or make the purchase using their phones.

Missing the train

These kinds of workarounds are possible, of course – the problem is that users likely won’t know they need a workaround until they actually visit the site to try to buy a ticket. In the time it takes them to realize they need to use some other method of buying tickets, the tickets for the train they wanted could well be sold out. During Spring Festival, the most popular train routes on the most popular days can sell out pretty fast, so if your office IP is blocked and you don’t realize that until your desired tickets go on sale, you could miss them completely and end up having to take a different train home, or figure out a different route altogether.

For that reason, I urge China-based readers planning to use the site to visit it and log into their accounts ASAP to test whether their IP could be blocked so that they can figure out alternative plans in advance if it is. Most users probably won’t be affected, but on the off chance that you are, it’s definitely not the kind of thing you want to wait until the last minute to figure out.