Advice on daughters (unfair?) Penalty Fair Notice

[lodgrief]

Hi,
I wonder if someone can help me. My daughter (aged 15) decided to get the train home from school yesterday (East Worthing to West Worthing station), but when she got to the station the only machine was a Permit to Travel machine which she tried to use but it was broken. She got on the next train and tried to find the conductor, but the train was so packed she couldn't get to them before she had to get off at West Worthing.

When she got to West Worthing she tried to pay the person at the exit for the fare but they said they were only an authorised inspector and so couldnt take the money, they then gave her a Penalty Fare notice for £20.

She's actually worried herself sick about this since it says on the notice that she could go to jail (despite my reassurances that it would never happen).
My questions are:
1) Who are the firm that is running this?
2) Can I contact them online to complain? (they only give a postal address on the notice)
3) should I pay the £20 and then appeal or appeal without paying (I was told by Worthing Railway staff not to pay, but was then told by Southern Rail over the phonoe that I had to pay first).

Any advice is welcome, I am pretty disgusted by them.

Thanks

 

[island]

1. Southen Railway Ltd. trading as Southern of 41-51 Grey Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 6EE.
2. No. Appeals against penalty fares need to be made in writing.
3. Appeal first. Quote the section on page 3 of the Southern Penalty Fares leaflet at http://www.southernrailway.com/tickets-and-fares/penalty-fares/ about how you will not be charged a Penalty Fare if the ticket selling facilities were out of order. However, you should enclose a cheque for £1.25, being the fare due, assuming that your daughter has not paid this somehow.

It is rare to the point of being unheard of that someone will go to prison for non-payment of a rail fare, so your daughter can rest easy on that point. And it is not on for an Authorized Collector to say they can't take payment for a ticket — unless your daughter did not make it clear that the ticketing facilities were out of order at her starting station or did something similarly irregular.

 

[lodgrief]

Thanks for your very quick response - I'll get onto it now.
thanks!

 

[island]

You're welcome. Please let us know how you get on.

 

[soil]

As there are no ticket machines or office at East Worthing, then if the Permit To Travel machine was broken, no penalty fare should have been charged.

You need to contact Southern Railways about this.

As I understand it there shouldn't be any criminal liability for non-payment.

 

[lodgrief]

Will do - one further question. The Penalty Fare Notice says payment should be sent to
RPSS, PO Box 89 , Portsmouth, PO1 1EG
but then gives the address you provided as the Registered Office. Should I send cheque and appeal to the same place? and should that be the Portsmouth or Newcastle address?
thanks.

 

[maniacmartin]

Southern contract out their appeals to RPSS.

RPSS is a trading name of London & South Eastern Railway Limited (who run Southeastern). The office that deals with the appeals is based in Portsmouth, but the registered office is the same as Southern's as they're part of the same overarching group of companies.

I'd appeal to RPSS at the Portsmouth address in the first instance

 

[island]

Send the lot to Portsmouth.

 

[lodgrief]

thanks again for all your help

 

[DaveNewcastle]

I confirm that there are NO Southern Railways staff at the Grey Street address in Newcastle - that is merely the registered address, from which any correspondence will be redirected back to London. Slowly.

There is no real prospect of a custodial sentence (i.e. jail) to worry about where that threat is merely the worst that could happen if someone failed to pay the Penalty Fare (and if an Appeal was refused), there might be some reason to be concerned if she had no intention of paying the £20 Penalty and made no attempt to contact the Collection Agency, but even that would be a long slow process.

Many people would just pay up. Others will Appeal and accept the outcome (which would be to pay the £20 or have the matter quashed). I doubt there is any benefit in complaining.

 

[rdwarr]

Having got the "legalities" out of the way the important thing to concentrate on is cheering your daughter up. This would be a traumatic experience for many children so it's important that she understands that they made a mistake, not her, and that it is all being sorted out.

 

[tony6499]

As there are no ticket machines or office at East Worthing, then if the Permit To Travel machine was broken, no penalty fare should have been charged.

You need to contact Southern Railways about this.

As I understand it there shouldn't be any criminal liability for non-payment.

There is a TVM at East Worthing so a penalty fare is in order and it is an ongoing problem with the girls from the school at East Worthing not buying tickets for their journey as impossible for a conductor to get through in the 3 minutes or so between East and West. That is why regular blocks are held and the offenders charged a penalty fare.

Of course someone may ask why they didn't buy a return ticket or a season ticket from West Worthing to East Worthing on that day.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Having got the "legalities" out of the way the important thing to concentrate on is cheering your daughter up. This would be a traumatic experience for many children so it's important that she understands that they made a mistake, not her, and that it is all being sorted out.

See my reply, the only mistake was not buying a ticket and expecting a free ride

 

[bb21]

There is a TVM at East Worthing so a penalty fare is in order and it is an ongoing problem with the girls from the school at East Worthing not buying tickets for their journey as impossible for a conductor to get through in the 3 minutes or so between East and West. That is why regular blocks are held and the offenders charged a penalty fare.

Of course someone may ask why they didn't buy a return ticket or a season ticket from West Worthing to East Worthing on that day.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


See my reply, the only mistake was not buying a ticket and expecting a free ride

Presuming much?

Anyway NRE appears to suggest that there is no TVM at East Worthing.

 

[tony6499]

Presuming much?

Anyway NRE appears to suggest that there is no TVM at East Worthing.

It's been there a while, was put in alongside the ones at Aldrington and Fishersgate to the Conductors on that line annoyance as the ticket sales went down.

As I said ticketless travel between East and West Worthing is a particular problem and if the OP's daughter had bought a ticket or a return in the morning they wouldn't have been penalty fared so the only option is to pay up as can't see any appeal working.

 

[455driver]

Presuming much?

Anyway NRE appears to suggest that there is no TVM at East Worthing.

I wouldnt trust what NRE says as some of the info on there is years out of date, Effingham jn isnt wheelchair accessible at all according to NRE but is on down trains as they put a long winding slope in about 2 years ago.

 

[maniacmartin]

East Worthing is, however, listed as being ToD-enabled on Southern's site, which implies it has a TVM that can sell tickets.

 

[bb21]

If it had a working TVM then there is no way this appeal will be upheld. I think the OP may need to ask her daughter more questions.

 

[RPM]

If it had a working TVM then there is no way this appeal will be upheld. I think the OP may need to ask her daughter more questions.

That's assuming the TVM takes cash. Elsewhere in the Govia empire a number of machines have had the cash facility isolated to deter theft. Not reasonable to expect a 15 year old to have electronic means of payment.

 

[tony6499]

That's assuming the TVM takes cash. Elsewhere in the Govia empire a number of machines have had the cash facility isolated to deter theft. Not reasonable to expect a 15 year old to have electronic means of payment.

If there was anything wrong with the TVM ,if it was broken as they all take cash then the RPO's at West Worthing would have been notified.

 

[bb21]

Elsewhere in the Govia empire a number of machines have had the cash facility isolated to deter theft.

Did they? I wasn't aware of that. I thought only Northern and ScotRail did that.

 

[island]

Did they? I wasn't aware of that. I thought only Northern and ScotRail did that.

Definitely some LM machines are card-only.

 

[DarloRich]

It's been there a while, was put in alongside the ones at Aldrington and Fishersgate to the Conductors on that line annoyance as the ticket sales went down.

As I said ticketless travel between East and West Worthing is a particular problem and if the OP's daughter had bought a ticket or a return in the morning they wouldn't have been penalty fared so the only option is to pay up as can't see any appeal working.

The OP does say his daughter got the train home, therefore is an assumption to far to suggest she might have had a lift to school but been unable to get a lift home so got the train back, therefore meaning she only needed a single?

Also if there are no facilities to buy a ticket there is a good chance of an appeal succeeding. If the machine cant take cash and you only have cash i would suggest you have a case! The ticket machine at Bletchley (an LM station) is card only which is problem if the ticket office is shut!

Again is it an assumption to far to consider whether, or not, a 15 year old might have "plastic" of some sort rather than cash?

I am, of course, sure that the gate staff checked the functionality of the ticket machines before issuing a penalty notice.

 

[tony6499]

The OP does say his daughter got the train home, therefore is an assumption to far to suggest she might have had a lift to school but been unable to get a lift home so got the train back, therefore meaning she only needed a single?

Also if there are no facilities to buy a ticket there is a good chance of an appeal succeeding. If the machine cant take cash and you only have cash i would suggest you have a case! The ticket machine at Bletchley (an LM station) is card only which is problem if the ticket office is shut!

Again is it an assumption to far to consider whether, or not, a 15 year old might have "plastic" of some sort rather than cash?

I am, of course, sure that the gate staff checked the functionality of the ticket machines before issuing a penalty notice.

We can all assume all we like but the facts are that the OP's daughter boarded without buying a ticket when facilities were available and thus penalty fared by the RNO's/RPO's doing the block and should pay it.

 

[DarloRich]

We can all assume all we like but the facts are that the OP's daughter boarded without buying a ticket when facilities were available and thus penalty fared by the RNO's/RPO's doing the block and should pay it.

but you dont know that do you - unless you issued the pf notice and checked out her story.

 

[RPM]

Did they? I wasn't aware of that. I thought only Northern and ScotRail did that.

Several LM ones on the West Coast have had this done to them.

 

[yorkie]

We can all assume all we like but the facts are that the OP's daughter boarded without buying a ticket when facilities were available and thus penalty fared by the RNO's/RPO's doing the block and should pay it.

Presumably you were at the station today, to determine these facts?

 

[tony6499]

but you dont know that do you - unless you issued the pf notice and checked out her story.

Having seen the blocks many a time there I can understand what has happened. There is a particular problem with fare evasion with the schoolchildren travelling West - East - West Worthing and so the RPI's/RPO's do the blocks for that reason and a £20 penalty fare recoups the losses of the £1.25 on the other times they don't buy tickets.

There is no reason for her not to have a ticket which is what a penalty fare is for, boarding a train without a ticket when the opportunity arose.

Maybe she was lucky not to have got an MG11

 

[transportphoto]

Tony, as you seem to have local knowledge and travel in this area often; are you able to back up your claims that there is a TVM at East Worthing? Perhaps a picture?

TP

 

[tony6499]

Presumably you were at the station today, to determine these facts?

What reason would she have received a penalty fare for then ? If it wasn't boarding when she could have bought a ticker

 

[transportphoto]

What reason would she have received a penalty fare for then ? If it wasn't boarding when she could have bought a ticker

It is not, in anyway, unknown for Penalty Fares to be issued incorrectly. Hence the existence of the appeal process and many previous successful appeals - saying that just because a PF has been issued doesn't mean, in anyway, that the OP's daughter is in the wrong IMO.

TP