And it bears reiterating that a RoRA prosecution is out of the question because the fare was paid before travel. Hence the only available offence is the non-recordable byelaw offence.
But OP had permission from the ticket office staff to ask the guard (train manager), which kind of necessarily entails boarding the train to speak to them.
But how, then, do you answer the obvious question in response: “If at the moment of boarding you didn't intend to travel on that train, why did you enter it in order to ask the train manager whether you might do so?”
I too would certainly hope that boarding to speak to the train manager would not be regarded as a Byelaw 18.1 offence, but if the intended conversation was to put to the TM the question of whether he would allow travel on the train, I find it hard to see how the questioner could deny that such travel was one of the purposes for which he had entered it.
To be clear, I intended to raise the issuing of the excess ticket only in regard to its probative value for the purpose of establishing a Bylaw 18.3(3) defence. I entirely agree that the test to be applied for an 18.1 offence is the traveller's purpose at the moment of boarding. But if the traveller can establish on a balance of probabilities that he was given permission to travel by an authorised person, 18.3 provides that he will not be in breach of 18.1, irrespective of the purpose for which he boarded the train, and with the consequence that the intention at the moment of boarding ceases to be relevant. The issue of the excess ticket seemed to me to be indicative that such permission had been given, and might suffice to show that it was more likely than not that such was the case.
Exactly so.
Because the ticket office advised him to do so.
It is not at all clear that the OP has proof that they received permission from the booking office to travel on the train.
It might be worth being explicit that a) you booked through a retailer that requires you to collect the booking with the same card as you paid with, b) that the retailer was unable to change the flag to permit you to pick up the tickets with another card at the time of travel due to [published customer support opening hours on website]
The setting can be changed on the TVM but the confirmation makes it clear that the retailer has chosen not to require 'same card collection'.
Bookings can be either "any card collection" or fixed to the card used. This flag is set in the database by the retailer; some retailers set all bookings to ACC, others set all to fixed card, some vary it depending on how much of a booking history you have with them.
OK thanks for that. It was a Southern ticket bought on Southerns site which is what I normally use but this is the first time I noticed the credit card comment had changed as previously it was clearly stated it should be the card used for the purchase. I assume having card and code provided two levels of security but presumably now the chances of anyone randomly guessing a booking code and receiving free tickets is so low that the need was deemed superfluous. Or indeed as Watershed just posted, maybe I am now seen as a good customer and they trust me !
It's more of a fraud prevention measure. If you have made previous bookings, they may have decided you are 'safe' and changed to allow any card collection. A new customer would likely still be required to use the card they paid with to collect their tickets.
It also means the retailer is accepting the fraud risk. If the setting was on the TVM it would be the TVM operator accepting the risk.
I'm not sure what you are thinking of, but this is taken straight from Knowledgebase:
as is this:
See DM
Noted. For other readers, Adam's post that I took issue with is a change to how Transplit are dealing with things going forward, which I overlooked.
The railway had three chances to request you to buy a new ticket (booking office, ticket barrier & catering staff). On each occasion they declined to do so.
James, I waited until I got the tickets before answering. Looked for tickets on National Rail journey planner, that then opened the Southern site and I paid for my tickets on that using Amex. Went to the machine today, screen asked me to insert the card I had used for the booking. I actually tried a very old bank card that had a mag stripe but not chip and it didnt like that. I then inserted a more modern card, not the Amex card I had used and it was quite happy to proceed with printing the tickets after I entered the booking code
That’s standard messaging. It can’t be varied as at that stage nothing is known about the booking. The RDG specification for ToD collection requires a card prior to asking for the collection reference, I believe.
Glad you got an (almost) satisfactory result, but I would say even a warning is harsh! But at least that will be the end of it now.
That is my thinking too, rather than a warning or whatever, it's basically a NFA (no further action).
