Letter from Debt collection team at Northern rail. Advice needed Please

[DelayRepay]

It depends. The bank may decline it for other reasons, not that the customer has no money.

 

[Flamingo]

It depends. The bank may decline it for other reasons, not that the customer has no money.

Would'nt that be between the passenger and their bank? Bottom line as far as the railway is concerned is no ticket & no means to pay for a ticket.

 

[michael769]

Would'nt that be between the passenger and their bank? Bottom line as far as the railway is concerned is no ticket & no means to pay for a ticket.

Indeed it would. It is the customer's responsibility to ensure that they have the means to pay the fare.

 

[Nick W]

How about if a card is offered and declined by the passengers bank? That would be on open and shut Bylaw 18 (regardless of where the passenger boarded) in my opinion, anybody else think otherwise?

Give that almost all of what you post is reasonable, even if I don't always disagree, I am shocked that you would post this. Are you telling me that if I board an unstaffed station without a ticket machine and try and use card and it doesn't work because someone's tried made fraudulent purchases with a cloned version of the card, I should be taken to court and fined?

Would'nt that be between the passenger and their bank? Bottom line as far as the railway is concerned is no ticket & no means to pay for a ticket.

I'm sure the railway has a facility for offering an invoice for the fare to be paid at a later date.

Indeed it would. It is the customer's responsibility to ensure that they have the means to pay the fare.

So if the customer intends to pay for a £200 ticket, they should have £200 on them in cash?

 

[Flamingo]

Give that almost all of what you post is reasonable, even if I don't always disagree, I am shocked that you would post this. Are you telling me that if I board an unstaffed station without a ticket machine and try and use card and it doesn't work because someone's tried made fraudulent purchases with a cloned version of the card, I should be taken to court and fined?


I'm sure the railway has a facility for offering an invoice for the fare to be paid at a later date.

The railway does have a facility to issue a UFN, but we are not obliged to do so, they are not interchangeable between TOC's, and they are only to be issued to the next manned station unless in exceptional circumstances.

The guard or RPI has no idea why the bank has declined payment. IMHO It would be up to the passenger to furnish the reason the card was declined when they get the letter from the TOC asking for their side of the story, if it was an exceptional circumstance like you described. Then the TOC would have to make the decision as to whether a prosecution would be justified, and the court would ultimately have to decide if this was reasonable. Personally ( and I am in no way involved in that end) I would consider the situation you describe as a good case for NFA, but I would want to see proof from the bank before making that decision.

I've yet to have a card declined by a bank where the reaction of the passenger was anything more than annoyance at being caught out.
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So if the customer intends to pay for a £200 ticket, they should have £200 on them in cash?

No, but they should have £200 credit on their account if they are offering a card to pay.

 

[Nick W]

I suspect you are right that most of the times a card is declined in an on-line transaction (as opposed to offline transactions where the card will decided it wants to call home every now and then), it is lack of money as chip. Why can't the railway offer an UFN and see if the customer pays before taking further action?

I appreciate that it's an entirely different circumstance if the card did not work at the origin station and the OP boarded anyway.

 

[island]

I suspect you are right that most of the times a card is declined in an on-line transaction (as opposed to offline transactions where the card will decided it wants to call home every now and then), it is lack of money as chip. Why can't the railway offer an UFN and see if the customer pays before taking further action?

A UPFN is not a very good way of ensuring you obtain payment from someone who is intent on avoiding the fare.

 

[jb]

Give that almost all of what you post is reasonable, even if I don't always disagree, I am shocked that you would post this. Are you telling me that if I board an unstaffed station without a ticket machine and try and use card and it doesn't work because someone's tried made fraudulent purchases with a cloned version of the card, I should be taken to court and fined?

Sigh. Yet again, elaborately manufactured what-iffery and "shock" are the last resorts to an unanswerably perfectly reasonable expectation that people should (have the means to) pay their fare.

This, and the follow-up posts to it, is really saying "don't have to pay unless challenged and then UFN". That is a tenable position if one accepts the substantial hike in fares that would be necessary to pay for effectively perfect on-board revenue protection. Funnily enough, those of us who actually pay our fare aren't terribly thrilled with the idea.