Not having a valid ticket upon my person...and yet I did.

[big_dirt]

I would suggest that they use their discretion if they find someone without a ticket but with a believable reason, adopt an honour system as seen in Germany and not treat every passenger as a potential criminal.

 

[Flamingo]

I have to say, in my experience, an honour system would not work in the UK. The number of ticketless passengers who have said "You don't need tickets if the gates are open / at this hour of the night", not to mention the number who ask for a ticket from the last stop, not where they started from, is proof of it.

 

[big_dirt]

Maybe the honour system does not work because the TOCs are so strict that people will try to take advantage wherever possible because of the draconian system imposed on them.

I have lived in Germany and seen absolute winos and lunatics have tickets inspected on board and they all have them.

What is it that makes the German lunatic get a ticket that would prevent a British lunatic doing the same on a different system?

The crazy thing is that Deutsche Bahn and Abellio are buying more British public transport up and they are governing a system that their passengers at home would riot if they tried to implement.

 

[Flamingo]

Maybe the honour system would not work as there is a different standard of public morality.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

Maybe the honour system would not work as there is a different standard of public morality.

Very true.

And, sadly and regrettably, unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.

 

[RJ]

I do think though that if more people were encouraged to appeal their penalty fares, the TOCs might not be so quick to hand them out.

So the TOCs are bad for trying to protect their revenue? It's a byelaw offence to not produce a valid ticket when asked to do so without a valid and honest reason. If there weren't people trying to justify not having a valid ticket without just cause, there wouldn't be any need for them would there?

 

[WestCoast]

I have lived in Germany and seen absolute winos and lunatics have tickets inspected on board and they all have them.

What is it that makes the German lunatic get a ticket that would prevent a British lunatic doing the same on a different system?

I wouldn't be so sure, there is a fair bit of "Schwarzfahren" going on there! On the DB double deckers, fare evasion often happens because the guard can't inspect the train all that often - and you can buy on board with no penalty in certain states.

 

[phillipsalan09]

You must admit that in an instance where you have bought a ticket in good faith, encounter a difficulty and your explanation is not accepted then taking it on the chin is not the easiest thing to do.

The bottom line is that it is the original poster's right to submit an appeal, regardless of why he sees fit to do that and if getting one over on the train company makes him feel better then at least he will get something from it.

And you are probably not giving out full fares when you don't have to because you are a normal decent guy, trying to help people out in the course of his work. Not unlike most people in most jobs.

I think that although the inspector was technically correct in issuing the pf for failing to provide a valid ticket - it is worth appealing after all it was an honest error / mistake, backed up with as much evidence (as quickly as possible) with a letter to the TOC should show them this fact although no guarantees! )
How many fare dodgers submit any kind of evidence. At all? (Genuine question for anyone in the know)
all the best with your appeal

 

[185]

From the point of view of FGW prosecutions / revenue protection the question they will ask is 'was the ticket produced later, being used by another traveller while you were travelling', as this happens a lot. The company will be able to determine whether the ticket offered at a later date has been used in the barriers from the magnetic strip on the back. Also, as the ticket is an 'open' type, they could insist on the penalty as you can still technically use that half of the ticket again for 4 weeks.

You have nothing to lose by writing to them, but I do agree it is unlikely they will relent.

 

[big_dirt]

I wouldn't be so sure, there is a fair bit of "Schwarzfahren" going on there! On the DB double deckers, fare evasion often happens because the guard can't inspect the train all that often - and you can buy on board with no penalty in certain states.

Of course there is schwarzfahren but the German railway seems to make the assumption that the default position of rail users is to pay their way, unlike in the UK where the TOCs appear to be of the opinion that every single rail user is trying it on with them.

The whole British system is to automate as much as possible, removing staff where possible and then come down as hard as possible on those who fall foul of their terms and conditions.

As I stated before, I do not think German people would accept the practises of Arriva, Cross Country, Chiltern etc. even though they are owned by the same people (i.e. the German state) who run their trains. I have explained UK ticketing and penalties to some German friends and colleagues and they can barely believe it.

 

[Solent&Wessex]

I would suggest that they use their discretion if they find someone without a ticket but with a believable reason, adopt an honour system as seen in Germany and not treat every passenger as a potential criminal.

Byelaw offences aside, for on train staff this is always a very difficult situation.

I must have heard, hundreds of times, the excuse "I did have a ticket, look, here is the receipt / outward portion, that shows I brought one". Well, yes it does. Many of the times it may be perfectly believable. However, how do you know who is taking the p*ss?.

Having a receipt, or the outward portion of a ticket, does not show whether the return portion has been used in the past, is being used by somebody else on the same train, has been given to somebody else to use later, or the passenger doesn't want it stamping so they can use it again another time. A receipt shows that something has been purchased. It does not show what has been purchased, where or when it was for.

I will normally always charge the extra fare, but will always say to people that if they manage to find it before I or they get off the train I will refund the one I have sold them.

 

[Ferret]

As I stated before, I do not think German people would accept the practises of Arriva, Cross Country, Chiltern etc. even though they are owned by the same people (i.e. the German state) who run their trains. I have explained UK ticketing and penalties to some German friends and colleagues and they can barely believe it.

But if the German system was applied here, it would be a faredodger's charter! Different cultures unfortunately....

 

[Solent&Wessex]

unlike in the UK where the TOCs appear to be of the opinion that every single rail user is trying it on with them.

The whole British system is to automate as much as possible, removing staff where possible and then come down as hard as possible on those who fall foul of their terms and conditions.

I don't think TOCs have the opinion that everyone is trying it on.

But, sadly, there are a very sizeable minority that do. Yes it is a minority of rail passengers that try it on, but it is a sizeable minority.

I work on trains, and the vast majority of people have perfectly valid tickets and manage quite happily. However, there are a lot of people trying it on.

Railcards, for example. There are a lot of students around who manage to leave their railcards in their other bag at home. Now, they may all be telling the truth, but the fact that in nearly all cases the tickets they have have been purchased from an SSTM or on the internet, and hence no-one has seen the railcard already is purely by coincidence. On a weekend I can have a couple of people per 3 car train tell me this tale.

Return tickets. Yesterday I worked an evening commuter train between two major cities. Aside from season tickets the next most popular ticket is the Anytime Return. Why? Because lots (and I mean lots) of people think they can get away with not showing the return portion and using it again and again and again. I jumped into the front set and did a full examination - the look of horror on everyone's faces as I asked for the tickets to be removed from the wallets then promptly wrote the words "used 1xxx 28/02" all over the front was a classic.

I do not know what happens abroad, and to be honest I do not care. Until such time that so many people stop trying to take the p*ss, then I believe the penalty awarded to those that do is fair.

In the case of the OP the penalty is not that severe. It is quite simple - They didn't have a ticket at the time of travel, therefore they need to pay for one (or, in this case as it is a PF area, twice the fare).

 

[big_dirt]

You are entirely right in everything you say kwvr. I'm veering off topic and am discussing railway utopia. I just think that our system is unnecessarily aggressive. I also think that it is set up to minimise investment in personnel on the railway. Tickets can't be checked on board like in Germany because there is nobody there to check them. Or because they can't get through the train as the loading is so full, again another negative. The answer is check everyone by a barrier and leave one guy at the gate to deal with anomalies. Why not just let someone pay their fare if they have got on a train with no ticket? Chances are it is a decent person and they couldn't get the machine to work or the queue was too long due to, you guessed it, understaffing of stations.
I would gladly see fare dodgers dealt with appropriately but we should have innocent until proven guilty. And there are numerous holes in railway legislation to allow people to travel for next to nothing. Permits to travel for 5p and the like. But while they might not be within the spirit of the rules they are within the letter and so the person who does the decent thing but makes a small mistake is punished.

 

[Flamingo]

Unless you actually walk through a train for a few weeks, asking to see tickets and railcards, it's hard to imagine the number of people who are behaving in a "suspicious" manner, either missing railcards, or attempting not to show the return portion (or offering a return portion that is weeks old. Not that many people get lifts back from London to Reading, or have spent weeks away but carrying NO luggage).

And don't start me on ADVANCE tickets that were "bought by the firm and no-one told them they were restricted".

Sorry, folks who look at the railway through rose=coloured glasses and say "If only" or "People only do it because the fares are so expensive". Go to South Wales, the fares are dirt cheap when compared to the mile/cost, and a significant still try to avoid paying the difference between a PTA-CDF and BGN-CDF.

There are a lot of dishonest people out there. The make it harder for the genuine cases, because a lot of them are very good liars, so somebody giving a good story may or may not be genuine - the easier option is to assume they are not, as nine times out of ten it is the correct assumption.

Good point, that the OP's return ticket can be used for another journey. So it's not wasted money.

 

[Solent&Wessex]

(or offering a return portion that is weeks old. Not that many people get lifts back from London to Reading, or have spent weeks away but carrying NO luggage).

Ah ha, that old "I got a lift" chestnut. That'll be the same as the bloke who, the other morning, presented me with an apparently unused outward portion of an Anytime Return 2 days previously. He tried to convince me that had brought the ticket from the SSTM 4 minutes before the train was due to depart at about 0630 2 days previously, but then "got a lift to work after all". Luckily he was unable to produce the unused return portion, so he got charged again, but I'm sorry, people just DO NOT go to a major station in the middle of a city centre at 0626, buy a ticket from an SSTM when there is a train going at 0630, then as if by magic get a lift all the way from Manchester to Leeds in someone's car.

Or, even better, when they present an Avantix issued ticket, which has my Depot's NLC code on it, and then try to convince me that they purchased it at the station but then got a lift and didn't use it - despite the fact that we only work on trains, do not sell tickets at stations, and the ticket must have been purchased on the train- and hence has been used.

 

[island]

Or, even better, when they present an Avantix issued ticket, which has my Depot's NLC code on it, and then try to convince me that they purchased it at the station but then got a lift and didn't use it - despite the fact that we only work on trains, do not sell tickets at stations, and the ticket must have been purchased on the train- and hence has been used.

Hopefully that went straight to a TIR/prosecution.

 

[Jonny]

That doesn't give any indication as to who used the ticket.

You are quite entitled to purchase a ticket for anyone.

That's enough to make a Regulation of Railways Act prosecution a probable non-starter (no proof of intent to evade a fare).

 

[Flamingo]

My favourite was the idiot who gave me a ticket I had stamped the night before and tried to convince me that it had been stamped in error on his outward journey - with my stamper number and headcode on it, legible!

He was bounced at the next stop as he had no money (as usual - known scumbag, and I remembered him!)

 

[Jonny]

Yes. Again, their presumption will be that you handed one or both parts of the ticket off to someone else who used it and managed to get out of Reading station without having the ticket swallowed by the gates somehow and then handed it back to you.

That sounds like a presumption of guilt to me; under English law; it is presumed that someone is innocent until proven guilty. If I were the OP I would use the reasonable threat of a judicial review into the legitimacy of the railway bylaws. After all, the most serious breaches are covered by other offences - with stiffer penalties.

 

[Flamingo]

Railway bylaws have been around a long time.

Are you going to assist the OP to fund the review, or act for her pro bono (or is it just idle talk)?

 

[island]

The Penalty Fares Rules are specifically expressed as reversing the burden of proof from the TOC to the passenger.

And to add to what Flamingo said, if you've got enough money to fund a JR, you may as well pay the £39 and save yourself the hassle.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

My favourite was the idiot who gave me a ticket I had stamped the night before and tried to convince me that it had been stamped in error on his outward journey - with my stamper number and headcode on it, legible!

He was bounced at the next stop as he had no money (as usual - known scumbag, and I remembered him!)

Would you have considered reporting for prosecution?

 

[ralphchadkirk]

Railway bylaws have been around a long time.

Are you going to assist the OP to fund the review, or act for her pro bono (or is it just idle talk)?

It would be a waste of money just like Peter Boddington, the last person to try and challenge a railway bylaw.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

That sounds like a presumption of guilt to me; under English law; it is presumed that someone is innocent until proven guilty. If I were the OP I would use the reasonable threat of a judicial review into the legitimacy of the railway bylaws. After all, the most serious breaches are covered by other offences - with stiffer penalties.

Hardly a presumtion of guilt, it's suspicion which happens day in day out everywhere in our legal system.

 

[Flamingo]

The Penalty Fares Rules are specifically expressed as reversing the burden of proof from the TOC to the passenger.

And to add to what Flamingo said, if you've got enough money to fund a JR, you may as well pay the £39 and save yourself the hassle.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


Would you have considered reporting for prosecution?

Difficult to do at 1 am in the middle of nowhere, but if police on-board - at station, I would have. But he has been marked up, I have had police to him on different occasions (as I said, well known), and when he sees me now when the train pulls in, he sits back down. "They don't have to like you, they just have to fear you"

 

[RJ]

That sounds like a presumption of guilt to me; under English law; it is presumed that someone is innocent until proven guilty. If I were the OP I would use the reasonable threat of a judicial review into the legitimacy of the railway bylaws. After all, the most serious breaches are covered by other offences - with stiffer penalties.

Nope, not where the railways are concerned. To be honest I think the current system in place has been implemented by people with slightly more knowledge of the legal system than you have and that your grievance with the way it works is not going to make any significant impact on the way that things are done. The term "empty threat" springs to mind.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

My favourite was the idiot who gave me a ticket I had stamped the night before and tried to convince me that it had been stamped in error on his outward journey - with my stamper number and headcode on it, legible!

He was bounced at the next stop as he had no money (as usual - known scumbag, and I remembered him!)

I had one, three days I was on revenue protection duties and each of those days I found he had not touched in his Oyster Card. He had no money to buy a ticket and insuffcient funds to even have an Entry Charge deducted. Upon being told that a prosecution was a possible course of action, he said he'd happily go to court and use "my Oyster doesn't work properly" and that "nobody informed him of the rules" as a defence. Obviously Penalty Fares aren't enough of a deterrent for some people!

 

[jon0844]

People don't seem to see fare evasion as a serious crime, or even a crime. They seem to think that it's a game, and if they get away with it then they've done well. If they are caught, they continue to play the battle of the wills.

Some have, sadly, worked out that if they're loud enough or threatening enough, they will get away with it. We know that rail staff can't call BTP every time they deal with fare evaders.

When I was on the DLR last year, someone who was caught without having touched in on his Oyster simply got off and started to wind up the guard by saying 'come off the train and do me then'. The doors closed and the train proceeded, leaving the offender to run alongside goading the staff member who had remained on the train.

 

[missinggun]

From the point of view of FGW prosecutions / revenue protection the question they will ask is 'was the ticket produced later, being used by another traveller while you were travelling', as this happens a lot. The company will be able to determine whether the ticket offered at a later date has been used in the barriers from the magnetic strip on the back. Also, as the ticket is an 'open' type, they could insist on the penalty as you can still technically use that half of the ticket again for 4 weeks.

You have nothing to lose by writing to them, but I do agree it is unlikely they will relent.

Surely then they will be able to see that this ticket in my possession has never been used, despite the 4 week standing?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

While two wrongs don't make a right, it is good that a passenger is being a bit childish and silly instead of an RPI.

Part of the reason this whole fiasco ensued is because my friend and I were woken up on the train and accused of having invalid/no tickets. Even when my friend displayed his, they accused him of having an invalid ticket. When I couldn't locate mine, they tried to escort him off the train still!
The staff in question had no desire to locate my ticket but to gain a penalty fare out of me under duress, with 4/5 staff towering over me.

Nobody spoke rationally, as you would to someone who'd been on a night out, who wasn't being aggressive or rude (like the staff were). Nobody thought to ask me to check my bag or railcard - where my ticket was with, alongside a wad of other tickets I have purchased in the past.

It really was a guilty until proven innocent policy, and now, even when I can prove my innocence, it is apparently not going to be good enough.

 

[jon0844]

Why introduce more information now? 4-5 people towering over you? Threatening your friend who had (and produced) a valid ticket?

That, sorry to say, sounds like a little bit of an exaggeration now.

In my experience, rail staff are surprisingly patient when waiting for someone to search and find their ticket. I have to say that I find it surprising to hear that they all crowded around you and refused to let you check your bag. And, given that they couldn't literally hold you, you could have been searching while they were doing the paperwork.

I've seen PFs issued and a mistake realised (in my case, me pointing out after that first class was declassified) and the PF was retracted and an apology given. I am not sure why you're saying you weren't able to search for the ticket. Are you also saying you were badly treaten or abused by the staff?

On that basis, it wouldn't just be an appeal but an official complaint. Your friend, who you say was treated badly even with a ticket, should complain too.

I am just concerned how the story has changed slightly. I am also wondering how your new ticket got mixed up with a load of old ones - and why you'd even travel around with a load of old tickets.

 

[MikeWh]

I tend to stuff tickets in my railcard wallet until such time as the pockets will take no more, then I'll go through them and chuck them out. Security threats mean that there are precious few bins at stations these days and as you can't dispose of a ticket until it cannot possibly be required you have to keep it until you've walked out of your unstaffed home station. I could then litter the street outside, but by the time I get home sorting out my ticket wallet doesn't rank that highly among important things to do.

BTW. Would you say that your 'friendly' RPI treated you courteously during your run-ins with him over the ticket you couldn't purchase at Old Street? And did he ever apologise?

 

[missinggun]

Why introduce more information now? 4-5 people towering over you? Threatening your friend who had (and produced) a valid ticket?

That, sorry to say, sounds like a little bit of an exaggeration now.

In my experience, rail staff are surprisingly patient when waiting for someone to search and find their ticket. I have to say that I find it surprising to hear that they all crowded around you and refused to let you check your bag. And, given that they couldn't literally hold you, you could have been searching while they were doing the paperwork.

I've seen PFs issued and a mistake realised (in my case, me pointing out after that first class was declassified) and the PF was retracted and an apology given. I am not sure why you're saying you weren't able to search for the ticket. Are you also saying you were badly treaten or abused by the staff?

On that basis, it wouldn't just be an appeal but an official complaint. Your friend, who you say was treated badly even with a ticket, should complain too.

I am just concerned how the story has changed slightly. I am also wondering how your new ticket got mixed up with a load of old ones - and why you'd even travel around with a load of old tickets.

The story has not changed - I have been under the impression that the way they treat you is not relevant. I have conversed with my friend.
There were 4/5 people by the end of it all at excess fares standing over me telling me this, and telling me that.
Perhaps it is not quite clear to you how stressful the situation was.
They didn't say I cannot check my bag: it wasn't suggested to me at any point to look for it. The crux of the situation was that I was guilty and that was that. Trying to reason with all of them at once did not work - they didn't want to listen to me. I was on the constant defence with them, tired, and sobering up.

A complaint HAS been made. My new ticket did not get 'mixed up'.
And as a previous post said, it is not uncommon for people to have loads of old tickets. I do not see why that is relevant.