penalty fines!

[princess73]

Hi, wondered if anyone could help? just been issued a £20 penalty fine on my train journey. I admit i didn't have a ticket. I was given a lift into work and total forgot to get a ticket. I must add i travel on the train 5 days a week and always buy a ticket. Today was just an honest mistake. However on my usual route you can purchase a ticket from the conductor, infact the gentleman who i was sat next to yesterday was able to buy a ticket, yet today i was not given the option. I am not disputing that i deserved the penalty fine,it's just London Midland want to make up it's mind whether you can or cannot purchase tickets onboard, not when it suits them. Does anyone think i stand a chance to appeal?

 

[ainsworth74]

If you were in a penalty fare (they're not fines) zone and were caught without a ticket then I don't think you would stand a chance on appeal.

Sorry

 

[transportphoto]

No - you don't have a leg to stand on unfortunately.

It all comes down to who is checking your ticket - if its the guard (or whatever LM want to call them today ) then it is unlikely that they are authorized to collect PF's... so they sell tickets. However if it is a RPI (Revenue Protection Inspector) or another PF authorized person (in some cases barrier staff) checking your ticket then they can issue a PF.

(Edit) They guard on a PF train ho is not PF authorized may also issue a Penalty Fare Warning - worded along the lines of:

Penalty Fare Warning
If travelling from a Penalty Fare Station, on a Penalty Fare train, you must buy your ticket (or get a Permit to Travel) before you board the train where ticket or permit issuing facilities are available. If an Authorised Penalty Fares Collector had been checking tickets then you may have been charged a £20 Penalty Fare or twice the full single fare to the next station stop, which ever is the greater. You must buy a valid ticket before boarding a train, if ticket issuing facilities are available.

HTH

 

[Ferret]

Hi, wondered if anyone could help? just been issued a £20 penalty fine on my train journey. I admit i didn't have a ticket. I was given a lift into work and total forgot to get a ticket. I must add i travel on the train 5 days a week and always buy a ticket. Today was just an honest mistake. However on my usual route you can purchase a ticket from the conductor, infact the gentleman who i was sat next to yesterday was able to buy a ticket, yet today i was not given the option. I am not disputing that i deserved the penalty fine,it's just London Midland want to make up it's mind whether you can or cannot purchase tickets onboard, not when it suits them. Does anyone think i stand a chance to appeal?

Where did you travel from and to? Did the gentleman join at an unstaffed station? If so, he would not be subject to a Penalty Fare. And also, it's only the RPI team who can issue PFs, so if it was the Guard, then that Gentleman could only be sold a ticket, and not PF'd.

 

[Solent&Wessex]

In many Penalty Fare areas you can often buy your ticket on the train, however, you run the risk of being charged a Penalty Fare. It is meant to keep you on your toes. The wording on the back of a ticket issued in a Penalty Fare area is generally as follows (in red).

Penalty Fare Warning

If travelling from a Penalty Fare station, on a Penalty Fare train, you must buy your ticket (or get a permit to travel) before you board the train where ticket or permit issuing facilities are available. If an Authorised Penalty Fares Collector had been checking tickets you may have been charged a £20 Penalty Fare or twice the full single fare to the next station stop, whichever is the greater. You must buy a valid ticket before boarding a train, if ticket issuing facilities are available

London Midland have made their minds up. You can generally buy tickets on board, but in this case you have been stopped by a Revenue Inspector and hence have been charged a Penalty Fare. By not buying your ticket before hand, sadly, you run that risk.

 

[rmt-driver]

Gee it seems every day on here there is someone complaining/asking advice about getting a PF..

Its simple if there is a machine / pertis / ticket office .. then you MUST buy your ticket before you board.

IMHO it doesn't matter if this is IN or OUT of a PF zone. If there is a way to buy a ticket you should use it. And turning up late doesn't count as an excuse in my book. I would always aim to arrive at least ten minutes early at a station for a train if I knew I had to purchase a ticket...

The only exceptions that should be acceptable is if you need a ticket not purchasable from the POM, with the TO closed and no PERTIS available (i.e. priv ticket). OR if the POM wasn't taking bank notes for example, or coins, and those were the only method of payment available to you. In that case I would personally take a photo of the machine screen on my cellphone to prove this was the case, just in case of any trouble further down the line.

There have been a couple of examples that I have arrived at Chiswick station (in the PF zone with a ticket office (95% of the time closed), no PERTIS and 2 x POM's (1 all methods, 1 cash only)) on a Sunday, say ten minutes before the train arrives (only 1tph on Sundays compared to 4thp every other day at all times- so very busy). The TO will be closed and everyone paying by cash to buy tickets into London, the queue for the only ONE machine taking cash very long (taking well over ten minutes to clear)..

In situations like this I'm afraid its catch 22, the station operator should be to blame.. but they aren't .

 

[jon0844]

Totally forgetting to get a ticket doesn't seem like a very good defence either.

I don't know how much the fare would normally be, but this brain fade cost £20 and that's the end of it. Why even bother to appeal?

 

[yorkie]

Hi, wondered if anyone could help? just been issued a £20 penalty fine on my train journey.

Penalty fare, not a fine.

I admit i didn't have a ticket.

In a Penalty area you "must" buy before you board and if you do not, you are issued with a penalty fare, that's the way the system works.

I was given a lift into work and total forgot to get a ticket. I must add i travel on the train 5 days a week and always buy a ticket. Today was just an honest mistake.

A penalty fare is a charge made to people who make honest mistakes, that is correct.

A fine is quite different, but you have not been fined.

However on my usual route you can purchase a ticket from the conductor, infact the gentleman who i was sat next to yesterday was able to buy a ticket, yet today i was not given the option. I am not disputing that i deserved the penalty fine,it's just London Midland want to make up it's mind whether you can or cannot purchase tickets onboard, not when it suits them.

On some routes it is confusing and some TOCs don't always adhere to good practice, however it's not enough to get you out of it.

As we don't know where the gentleman you describe yesterday boarded, and we don't know if he was checked by an RPI or a guard, we cannot possibly speculate on that!

Does anyone think i stand a chance to appeal?

Nope.

 

[bnm]

Gee it seems every day on here there is someone complaining/asking advice about getting a PF..

Its simple if there is a machine / pertis / ticket office .. then you MUST buy your ticket before you board.

IMHO it doesn't matter if this is IN or OUT of a PF zone. If there is a way to buy a ticket you should use it. And turning up late doesn't count as an excuse in my book. I would always aim to arrive at least ten minutes early at a station for a train if I knew I had to purchase a ticket...

The only exceptions that should be acceptable is if you need a ticket not purchasable from the POM, with the TO closed and no PERTIS available (i.e. priv ticket). OR if the POM wasn't taking bank notes for example, or coins, and those were the only method of payment available to you. In that case I would personally take a photo of the machine screen on my cellphone to prove this was the case, just in case of any trouble further down the line.

There have been a couple of examples that I have arrived at Chiswick station (in the PF zone with a ticket office (95% of the time closed), no PERTIS and 2 x POM's (1 all methods, 1 cash only)) on a Sunday, say ten minutes before the train arrives (only 1tph on Sundays compared to 4thp every other day at all times- so very busy). The TO will be closed and everyone paying by cash to buy tickets into London, the queue for the only ONE machine taking cash very long (taking well over ten minutes to clear)..

In situations like this I'm afraid its catch 22, the station operator should be to blame.. but they aren't .

How is a newbie like the OP supposed to get their head round all those acronyms? Even I struggled with 'POM'.

 

[Clip]

How is a newbie like the OP supposed to get their head round all those acronyms? Even I struggled with 'POM'.

but surely everyone outside the railway know what a pertis is!!

 

[rmt-driver]

Im sorry I really should have explained

TO - Ticket Office
POM - Passenger operated machine
PERTIS - Permit to travel machine (looks like car park pay & display machines - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permit_to_travel)
TPH - Trains per hour
PRIV - Type of ticket available to certain rail employee pass holders
PF - Penalty fare
IMHO - In my honest opinion

 

[bnm]

but surely everyone outside the railway know what a pertis is!!

Peter Pertis the acclaimed Hungarian pianist? Or Zsuzsa Pertis the equally acclaimed Hungarian harpsichordist?

 

[Mojo]

Im sorry I really should have explained

TO - Ticket Office
POM - Passenger operated machine
PERTIS - Permit to travel machine (looks like car park pay & display machines - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permit_to_travel)
TPH - Trains per hour
PRIV - Type of ticket available to certain rail employee pass holders
PF - Penalty fare
IMHO - In my honest opinion

Pom is a London Underground term, the Tocs use the acronym TVM (Ticket Vending Machine). To avoid confusion I always refer to it as a TVM unless talking about LU in which case it's a Pom.

 

[RJ]

Hi, wondered if anyone could help? just been issued a £20 penalty fine on my train journey. I admit i didn't have a ticket. I was given a lift into work and total forgot to get a ticket. I must add i travel on the train 5 days a week and always buy a ticket. Today was just an honest mistake. However on my usual route you can purchase a ticket from the conductor, infact the gentleman who i was sat next to yesterday was able to buy a ticket, yet today i was not given the option. I am not disputing that i deserved the penalty fine,it's just London Midland want to make up it's mind whether you can or cannot purchase tickets onboard, not when it suits them. Does anyone think i stand a chance to appeal?

Buying a ticket for other days doesn't count as a defence. What's a £30 day return not purchased here and there? Quite some lost revenue I would think.

London Midland is a Penalty Fares TOC. If you don't buy a ticket before boarding and are stopped by an RPI then you risk being penalised. The conductor is responsible for the safety of the train and doesn't do PFs, they don't even have to sell tickets. If you go to a station which has a revenue block on, barriers and/or an Excess Fares window then you can be Penalty Fared or reported for prosecution there too. Wouldn't say appealing would yield much success either, you were in breach of the Byelaw 18.2 and NRCoC condition 22, the appeals body is likely to quote these in their rejection letter.

 

[RPI]

It is always worth appealing if you feel that you have been hard done by, thats what the Independent (well it's not really independent) Penalty Fares Appeals service is for.

Like other posters have said, the PF areas are geberally well sign posted and I believe LM have PF signage on board their trains aswell, when a guard issues a ticket from a PF station they are meant to give you a verbal warning and point out the red writing on the reverse of the ticket.

 

[princess73]

I am in the wrong,I am not disputing that. I deserved to get the £20 penalty fare/fine. My main gripe is that it is not always black and white. You have to purchase a ticket before you board the train, if not you run the risk of getting a penalty fare.I actually agree with this. However in my experience you can buy tickets from the guard,when there is a guard available, checking tickets. That is the grey area i have a problem with! The gentleman in question got on the train at the same station as i did. Perhaps i'm annoyed that i wasn't given the same option that he was!
So many stories about people getting let off penalty fares and warned next time they'll get one. Wondering if they work on commission!

 

[Greenback]

It's not really a grey area. I'm not a fan of PF's by any means, but they work on the basis that you run the risk of receiving one if you do not buy before you board. They are meant to act as a deterrent.

There are several reasons why someone might be offered the chance to buy a ticket on board. If the TVM was not working properly, for example, or if the guard was not an authorised PF collector.

 

[BestWestern]

I am in the wrong,I am not disputing that. I deserved to get the £20 penalty fare/fine. My main gripe is that it is not always black and white. You have to purchase a ticket before you board the train, if not you run the risk of getting a penalty fare.I actually agree with this. However in my experience you can buy tickets from the guard,when there is a guard available, checking tickets. That is the grey area i have a problem with! The gentleman in question got on the train at the same station as i did. Perhaps i'm annoyed that i wasn't given the same option that he was!
So many stories about people getting let off penalty fares and warned next time they'll get one. Wondering if they work on commission!

I'd have to stick my neck out a bit here and say that I fully agree with this point, as much as I don't condone non-purchasing of tickets. I don't work or travel on LM but I know from experience with my TOC that there are too many occasions whereby people daily purchase Cheap Day tickets etc on-train as a matter of course, and then feel deeply aggreived when an RPI appears once in a blue moon and gives them a rollocking. If PF's are to be enforced then it really should be blanket coverage at all times, not hit and miss. Of course, there won't be an RPI on every train every day, but Guards should be under strict instruction not to offer discounted tickets on board and customers should always be given the speech etc etc, not just given a nasty and often genuinely unexpected suprise when an Inspector happens to be about. It also helps if TOCs maintain their TVMs etc as when half of them tend to be knackered it's difficult to fairly enforce a PF policy!

 

[island]

It does raise a relevant point though. Section 5.17 of the PF rules states that the TOC should either sell tickets on-board and give PF warnings with the ticket, or else on-train ticket sellers should be or be accompanied by authorised collectors, not a mix and match.

 

[BestWestern]

Indeed. Sadly this is often ignored it would seem, which tends to give the impression that a TOC is happy to collect ordinary ticket revenue when they don't have enough RPIs to go around, and then boost the coffers a bit by charging everyone 20 quid when there is one about!

 

[Greenback]

This is one of the reasons I don't agree with PF's. They are OK for barriered metro and suburban operations, but many of the PF areas are anything but!

This leads to genuine confusion amongst irregular travellers, who see people buying tickets (maybe from unstaffed stations) and think it is OK.

However, it does seem that TOC's cannot win! They get slated for issuing a PF, and they get slated for not issuing one!

 

[island]

Well, I think FGW is high on the list for confusion when it comes to PF schemes. Their map contains a similar amount of holes to Swiss cheese, including for example the Marlow branch line which has one PF station in the middle!

The problem is, as long as there are unstaffed or peak-only staffed stations where the TOC doesn't see fit to install ticket machines/PERTIS machines, they can't then include those stations in their PF scheme. The confusion caused by having some guards trained as authorized collectors and others not is just a further top-up.

 

[EM2]

The gentleman in question got on the train at the same station as i did. Perhaps i'm annoyed that i wasn't given the same option that he was!

That does seem more than a little odd. Any guards/RPIs want to comment on why that might be?

 

[yorkie]

It does raise a relevant point though. Section 5.17 of the PF rules states that the TOC should either sell tickets on-board and give PF warnings with the ticket, or else on-train ticket sellers should be or be accompanied by authorised collectors, not a mix and match.

The TOCs get away with not following best practice, though.

It's also considered bad practice to have PFs on long distance routes, yet EMT got away with it.

No-one effectively enforces that the TOCs adhere to good practice.

That does seem more than a little odd. Any guards/RPIs want to comment on why that might be?

The previous day there was a guard (not an authorised collector) and on the day the OP travelled there was an RPI. Probably.

 

[BestWestern]

Well, I think FGW is high on the list for confusion when it comes to PF schemes. Their map contains a similar amount of holes to Swiss cheese, including for example the Marlow branch line which has one PF station in the middle!

The problem is, as long as there are unstaffed or peak-only staffed stations where the TOC doesn't see fit to install ticket machines/PERTIS machines, they can't then include those stations in their PF scheme. The confusion caused by having some guards trained as authorized collectors and others not is just a further top-up.

I don't know a great deal about the LTV area scheme, although I believe it is enforced to some extent, but certainly the alleged PF zone in the Bristol area is little more than a window-dressing exercise. Passengers are still sold CD tickets on board as a normal occurence, and the sight of an RPI (there is one who appears sporadically) is both unexpected and ineffectual. It really isn't the ideal way to 'enforce' Penalty Fares.

For the record/lawyers/vultures this is my view as a private individual and I do not speak or claim to act as a spokesperson of any TOC or in any official capacity etc etc blah blah :-l

 

[blacknight]

If you were in a penalty fare (they're not fines) zone and were caught without a ticket then I don't think you would stand a chance on appeal.

Sorry

Worth a chance to put in an appeal on the grounds you are more out of pocket than a ticketless evader having first purchased an admittedly discounted ticket from TVM.
I know some will quote T&C of railcard but as you don't have a railcard would you expected to be aware of them? Also TOC is out of pocket by 34% which is what IMO such be recovered by excessing original ticket, are RPI's being employed not competent to do this simple task?
East Coast are at least one TOC which as chosen to override "treat as no valid ticket held" condition of holding railcard when dealing with misplaced railcard.

 

[ainsworth74]

Worth a chance to put in an appeal on the grounds you are more out of pocket than a ticketless evader having first purchased an admittedly discounted ticket from TVM.

I think you're getting threads mixed up, as the OP clearly said in their first post that they didn't have a ticket at all

I admit i didn't have a ticket.

 

[RPI]

I've certainly seen the West and East PF schemes enforced on FGW, I agree that some guards are the passengers worst enemy by actually selling CD tickets etc and not warning passengers as it creates inconcistency. if your a passenger who boards from a PF station and gets sold a CD ticket by the cheery conductor every day who doesn't warn you etc then that would be seen as good customer service and that it's ok to get on the train without a ticket, but it isn't, because then at the end of the week an RPI issues a PF to the said person and gets lamped because they think it's ok to buy on the train.

What would be good customer service on the conductors part is to politely sell the CD ticket but then warn them and circle the PF warning on the back of the ticket! It's an arguement us RPI's have all the time "but I was sold a ticket every day this week blah blah..."

 

[transmanche]

This is one of the reasons I don't agree with PF's. They are OK for barriered metro and suburban operations, but many of the PF areas are anything but!

Even then adherence to best practice can be patchy.

Take the Tyne & Wear Metro. Poor signage and the barriers (where they exist) are inactive - although new ones are planned. 30 year-old ticket machines which don't take notes, don't take credit cards and only accept certain combinations of coins.

Want to buy a ticket with ten 20p coins? No chance... but they still think it reasonable grounds for levying a penalty fare.

 

[BestWestern]

I've certainly seen the West and East PF schemes enforced on FGW, I agree that some guards are the passengers worst enemy by actually selling CD tickets etc and not warning passengers as it creates inconcistency. if your a passenger who boards from a PF station and gets sold a CD ticket by the cheery conductor every day who doesn't warn you etc then that would be seen as good customer service and that it's ok to get on the train without a ticket, but it isn't, because then at the end of the week an RPI issues a PF to the said person and gets lamped because they think it's ok to buy on the train.

What would be good customer service on the conductors part is to politely sell the CD ticket but then warn them and circle the PF warning on the back of the ticket! It's an arguement us RPI's have all the time "but I was sold a ticket every day this week blah blah..."

The issue in this situation though isn't with the Guards, as selling CD, Groupsave, Railcard discount etc on-train is standard practise and very few do anything other. The problem is with the confusion and enormous 'grey area' which is allowed to prevail. TVMs are not maintained, are often faulty and have been permanently removed from some locations after vandalism or attempted theft; ticket offices open and close 'ad-hoc' as they are quite often unstaffed; and there is precious little enforcement of the PF system by anybody who actually has the teeth to properly do so. The result is that no Guard, or ATE, can be certain that passengers have genuinely had a full opportunity to buy at many places, and it becomes standard practise to operate a 'buy on board' system regardless of any supposed PF zone being in place. It is far from ideal, but ultimately staff can only operate according to the attitude and actions of their TOC!