WT

[furlong]

The key sentence here says that between Sept 2020 and March 2023 the data suggests short ticket, sandwich ticket, expired railcard.

You should be able to get that same ticket purchase history data out of the system yourself and look at it to see why they might think this.
If you used any e-tickets, they'll also have timestamps showing when and where those tickets were presented.
Similarly if tickets were collected from machines, they'll be able to check when and where they were collected.

Do you have a continuous railcard purchase history over this period?
It is not unusual for them to provide no details and to encourage you to incriminate yourself voluntarily.

They may also make simplifying assumptions such as that every journey listed as Wembley was really Bicester North.
I wouldn't provide details at this stage but if it goes further and they send you details of specific trips, evidence of a work meeting at Wembley would be helpful in undermining that assumption.

"Sandwich" - two journeys with a ticketless gap between them would be the most interesting for you to explain.

As AlterEgo says, the burden of proof lies with them, and if they want to proceed with any allegations they'll have to be specific.

From what you've said though for the occasion you were stopped, I think they could have a good shot at a RORA 5(3)(a) offence.
Your problem is that to persuade them to offer you a settlement in lieu of prosecution for that one offence, you might have to be able to satisfy them over your travel history.

 

[island]

Its possible I have done this by mistake before, but nothing that I can remember.

May I suggest you look at your journey history on whatever ticket purchasing apps/websites you use in order to jog your memory?

 

[Hadders]

I agree with what @AlterEgo @furlong and @island have said.

It seems to me that Chiltern/TIL will probably be prepared to settle but they clearly have a copy of your purchase history so you need to be think ver carefully about whether there is anything that is going to be incriminating. Points to consider making in your reply:

- That you previously held an annual season ticket - say where it was from and to. Did you ever purchase 'extension' tickets to make a journey beyone the validity of your season? The additional tickets could look suspicious on their own but would not be when comnined with a season.
- Have a look at your online purchase history. Have you purchased multiple tickets on the same day which could look like doughnutting? If so can you explain what you've done?
- Are there any tickets from places that could look suspicious like Wembley Stadium?
- Lack of railcard is mentioned - are you entitled to a railcard? Was your annual season a Gold Card and did you purchase Gold Card discounted tickets?
- Can you piece together your journey history, manbe by cross referencing the tickets purchased with your diary?

You've got 21 days to reply and although I wouldn't want to too tight to the deadline you've got a couple of weeks to have a good think about what you can come up with and draft something up.

 

[fandroid]

The key sentence here says that between Sept 2020 and March 2023 the data suggests short ticket, sandwich ticket, expired railcard.

That paragraph in the letter listing possible offences looks like a generic one to me, with the possible dates typed in. A list of the three most common "dodges" that they come across. Unless the OP really has a bad conscience I would advise that it isn't taken seriously. They have one instance of short faring to chew on. The rest is probably, as the OP says, a fishing expedition.


That's not to say that the short faring shouldn't be taken seriously. It's going to be costly to resolve, and the OP needs to follow the advice on here to minimise the process and the cost.

 

[Hadders]

That paragraph in the letter listing possible offences looks like a generic one to me, with the possible dates typed in. A list of the three most common "dodges" that they come across. Unless the OP really has a bad conscience I would advise that it isn't taken seriously. They have one instance of short faring to chew on. The rest is probably, as the OP says, a fishing expedition.


That's not to say that the short faring shouldn't be taken seriously. It's going to be costly to resolve, and the OP needs to follow the advice on here to minimise the process and the cost.

The danger is not engaging could see them prosecute for the single offence they have cast iron evidence for.

 

[furlong]

That paragraph in the letter listing possible offences looks like a generic one to me, with the possible dates typed in. A list of the three most common "dodges" that they come across. t.

This is a criminal investigation - they don't have the option of misrepresenting their evidence. This has to be taken at face value.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Jul 2023 ==

No, accidentally buying an off-peak ticket at peak times.

But that was not the problem here. If you had presented that ticket at Marylebone, you would have just been asked to pay the difference in fare to upgrade it to a peak ticket, as you were entitled to do under the terms of the contract. But what you described doing instead could be portrayed as an attempt to get away with paying less than the correct fare for the journey you actually made.

 

[Fusli]

Morning all,

Many thanks for your responses, I have audited my rail history briefly, and note 203 tickets purchased since September 2020 so a lot to work through.

There are a few tickets I’m unsure about:

1. High Wycombe - London Marylebone (open return) back in 2021. Cannot remember the reason for this but can only assume I stayed in Wycombe that night with friends, or I attempted to short the fare. So long ago I have no idea!

2. Leamington Spa - Birmingham Moor Street (open return) - again, cannot remember the reason for this. Was back in 2021. I used to travel from haddenham during this time.

3. High Wycombe - Haddenham and Thame Parkway (single) - this looks suspicious as anything and cannot figure out why I did this. Again, back in 2021.
It looks worse as there is a refunded ticket from West Ruislip to Wembley Stadium on the same day.

There are many other that may look slightly suspicious however easily justified in my eyes.

Given the sheer amount of data available, and gravity of a potential criminal record, I am considering appointing a lawyer who specialises in this field. I have found one online who has a proven track record.

 

[fandroid]

On my phone, (Android), Google Maps keeps a record of my movements and I can easily go back to 2021 to to check it. It's within my own account under Timeline. I don't know if there is the same or equivalent on iPhones. It's not always complete, but has helped me several times to retrieve information on what I have been up to. If you have it, check it out for those mystery journeys

 

[AlterEgo]

Yes, a lot. I have a project in Wembley that I travel to fairly regularly. Easily justified expect for those examples mentioned above.

But surely you've not been buying paper tickets solely between London and Wembley Stadium?

 

[Fusli]

But surely you've not been buying paper tickets solely between London and Wembley Stadium?

Hmm paper, maybe not. But a lot of e tickets between Marylebone and Wembley.

Can I not simply request for the journeys they are accusing me of here?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Jul 2023 ==

On my phone, (Android), Google Maps keeps a record of my movements and I can easily go back to 2021 to to check it. It's within my own account under Timeline. I don't know if there is the same or equivalent on iPhones. It's not always complete, but has helped me several times to retrieve information on what I have been up to. If you have it, check it out for those mystery journeys

Thanks mate, I’ll look into that.

Ultimately the burden of proof is with them.

 

[AlterEgo]

Hmm paper, maybe not. But a lot of e tickets between Marylebone and Wembley.

E-tickets aren't available between London and Wembley Stadium. Can you clarify what you mean here by an e-ticket? A contactless card, or have you been buying these online?

 

[Fusli]

E-tickets aren't available between London and Wembley Stadium. Can you clarify what you mean here by an e-ticket? A contactless card, or have you been buying these online?

I have a heap of them from Trainline. Wembley stadium to Marlebone and vice versa.

I used to get a return from haddenham - Marylebone and then buy another ticket to return back Wembley as the normal trains don’t often stop there.

I sometimes use the tube from Wembley Park but it depends on timings.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Trainline will not sell an e-ticket for that journey. What exactly have you got? Can you post a picture with personal details redacted?

 

[Fusli]

Trainline will not sell an e-ticket for that journey. What exactly have you got? Can you post a picture with personal details redacted?

Here is an example

 

[AlterEgo]

Here is an example

This ticket is one to be collected from the machine, isn't it? It's a paper ticket. You can't have an e-ticket for that journey.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

If you have a bona-fide, provable reason for having travelled between Wembley Stadium and London Marylebone, that might possibly help your argument. You'll appreciate that buying tickets to/from the penultimate station to a London terminus station is an often-used dodge by persons (fare-evaders?) living further afield but wanting to pay the least possible amount to try to get through the barriers at the station.

 

[Fusli]

Ahh yes, sorry I see what you mean!

Brought from Trainline, collect from station.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Ahh yes, sorry I see what you mean!

Brought from Trainline, collect from station.

Did you collect it before travel?

 

[AlterEgo]

Ahh yes, sorry I see what you mean!

Brought from Trainline, collect from station.

Uh oh. Huge red flag for Chiltern. The paper fare is much more expensive than the Contactless/Oyster fare of £4.40/3.20 peak/offpeak.

This ticket is almost exclusively used by people who simply want to work the barrier without the risk of encountering a Contactless maximum fare because of course, they aren't leaving at Wembley Stadium - but rather staying on a train for much longer.

I have a heap of them from Trainline. Wembley stadium to Marlebone and vice versa.

I used to get a return from haddenham - Marylebone and then buy another ticket to return back Wembley as the normal trains don’t often stop there.

Doesn't make sense. Trainline will tell you - and even split your ticket - at High Wycombe or Gerrards Cross. It's almost always faster to do this, as well as cheaper.

In the example you gave your single ticket was from Wembley Stadium to London, at 0808. How did you collect that ticket? At the machine at Wembley Stadium on the day of travel? Be mindful Chiltern will know where those tickets were collected.

I think we've found why Chiltern are very unimpressed. I recommend that if you want to keep things out of court you either:

1) Evidence those journeys, and explain why you have been paying significantly more for your alleged travel history, and show evidence of your travel to and from Wembley.

2) Include those journeys in the form - every single one - and ask them to be taken into consideration.



I recommend you think hard about your next steps.

 

[Fusli]

If you have a bona-fide, provable reason for having travelled between Wembley Stadium and London Marylebone, that might possibly help your argument. You'll appreciate that buying tickets to/from the penultimate station to a London terminus station is an often-used dodge by persons (fare-evaders?) living further afield but wanting to pay the least possible amount to try to get through the barriers at the station.

Yes I appreciate that completely. In my instance I had a lot of reasons to be in Wembley. Lots of sites and site visits.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Yes I appreciate that completely. In my instance I had a lot of reasons to be in Wembley. Lots of sites and site visits.

I'm sure you've already thought of this, but if you have evidence of your need to work in Wembley that you are able to share with the railway, then that will support your story.

 

[Fusli]

Yes I appreciate that completely. In my instance I had a lot of reasons to be in Wembley. Lots of sites and site visits.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Jul 2023 ==



What do you mean contactless? How can I pay for that via contactless? And why is it cheaper?

I collect from the station, otherwise it won’t let me get through the barriers surely?

Also on my Wembley days I also have a open return from Bicester to Marylebone so it’s just a ticket between Marylebone and Wembley. I’m struggling to see how that would be a red flag?

 

[AlterEgo]

Yes I appreciate that completely. In my instance I had a lot of reasons to be in Wembley. Lots of sites and site visits.

And at least one overnight stay, it seems?

What do you mean contactless? How can I pay for that via contactless? And why is it cheaper?

All travel in the contactless area of London is cheaper, including the tube. Nobody with any sense buys a paper ticket because it's so expensive in comparison.

I collect from the station, otherwise it won’t let me get through the barriers surely?

From Wembley Stadium station? At 8am?

This ticket and travel pattern is highly unusual and I can see why Chiltern are suspicious of so many transactions.

Also on my Wembley days I also have a open return from Bicester to Marylebone so it’s just a ticket between Marylebone and Wembley. I’m struggling to see how that would be a red flag?

Yeah but why would you do this? Why not just get a ticket from Bicester to Wembley Stadium? If that's where you need to be, Trainline will not only sell you a ticket, but also split your ticket, saving you money, and tell you to change enroute, and not need to go via London at all. You've been buying tickets, which, for the use case you've stated, is not only slower, but more expensive.

Sometimes it works out better with meeting times to go to bicester - Marylebone - Wembley (via mainline or tube). Basically means I don’t have to wake up as early!

Can you give an example where it would be faster to go via London in the way that you suggest, instead of changing at somewhere along the route like high Wycombe? It's between 55 and 71 minutes to change along the route for most of the day, and at least 79-86 minutes if you go via London. If you've been booking on Trainline you can't have missed this.

 

[WesternLancer]

Uh oh. Huge red flag for Chiltern. The paper fare is much more expensive than the Contactless/Oyster fare of £4.40/3.20 peak/offpeak.

In the OP's defence if work is paying (or claiming back from work / expenses etc) you might not care.

I had a friend who at the time (not that long ago albeit pre covid...) always needed a paper ticket as employers expenses would only refund against a hard copy ticket for travel undertaken for work purposes - as I found out when I asked her why she was buying tickets that cost more as the transport operator was trying to disincentive the use of paper tickets and cash payments. Her employer? None other than the Houses of Parliament (technically IIRC the Fees Office of the Palace of Westminster)

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Jul 2023 ==

Yeah but why would you do this? Why not just get a ticket from Bicester to Wembley Stadium? If that's where you need to be, Trainline will not only sell you a ticket, but also split your ticket, saving you money, and tell you to change enroute, and not need to go via London at all. You've been buying tickets, which, for the use case you've stated, is not only slower, but more expensive.

Another one where ppl who are not ticketing and fares savvy like on this forum do this sort of thing. Work colleagues last week paid £200 more in fares than they needed to pay because they booked 4 of them using Advance Singles one way and Anytime singles back and the member of staff booking it did not see that a Rtn was just £1 more than the Anytime Single (they were travelling off peak too...) when I asked why they did this they said the ticketing site they used to book it wasn't clear to them. It's off topic but I'll wager the railway benefits from these sorts of poor decisions from people all the time....

But bad luck in this case that it happens to fit a pattern used by many of Chiltern's active fare evaders obv.

 

[AlterEgo]

In the OP's defence if work is paying (or claiming back from work / expenses etc) you might not care.

I had a friend who at the time (not that long ago albeit pre covid...) always needed a paper ticket as employers expenses would only refund against a hard copy ticket for travel undertaken for work purposes - as I found out when I asked her why she was buying tickets that cost more as the transport operator was trying to disincentive the use of paper tickets and cash payments. Her employer? None other than the Houses of Parliament (technically IIRC the Fees Office of the Palace of Westminster)

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Jul 2023 ==


Another one where ppl who are not ticketing and fares savvy like on this forum do this sort of thing. Work colleagues last week paid £200 more in fares than they needed to pay because they booked 4 of them using Advance Singles one way and Anytime singles back and the member of staff booking it did not see that a Rtn was just £1 more than the Anytime Single (they were travelling off peak too...) when I asked why they did this they said the ticketing site they used to book it wasn't clear to them. It's off topic but I'll wager the railway benefits from these sorts of poor decisions from people all the time....

But bad luck in this case that it happens to fit a pattern used by many of Chiltern's active fare evaders obv.

But those are not the explanations the OP has given. They have claimed other reasons for doing so, such as saving time, which has been shown not to be true. It’s not our job to suggest defences or circumstances that OPs don’t advance.

It’s going to be important for the OP to think carefully about how they approach the matter. Chiltern will not settle out of court for the single, “red handed” offence where so many very suspicious fares are on the books, and they will probably need to evidence why they have been purchasing tickets in this way. In the example the OP gave, they must have either had an overnight stay or a super early site visit to have a Wembley-London ticket at 8am.

I know what the travel and fares pattern suggest to me if I’m putting myself in Chiltern’s shoes, and that’s the situation we have to confront.

 

[JBuchananGB]

It does appear that you were unaware that in the London area it is possible to tap a contactless debit or credit card on what you might suppose to be an Oyster card reader. This action opens the barriers onto the platform and off at the other end, and your bank account or credit card account is charged for the fare. The fares using this method are lower than the ones bought on Trainline, which need you to collect a ticket from a machine.
So there are at least two factors causing Chiltern to be suspicious. (1) Tickets bought by Trainline which are more expensive than using the contactless method. (2) Tickets bought to/from Wembley Stadium (which is the commonest ticket bought by fare dodgers), while making journeys from e.g. Bicester to Wembley via Marylebone, which takes longer and is more expensive than changing at High Wycombe.
Fortunately you have got some records of your various site visits in the Wembley area, and you may need to do some work to produce a list of as many of the journeys as you can account for.
Other members here have picked up on the example ticket from 8 March, with an itinerary for the 8.08 train. Of course the ticket would have been valid on many other trains that day, I do not assume that you travelled on that train. Probably you just had to pick a train when you ordered the ticket. But to complete the example, maybe you could let us know all your travel on that particular date.

 

[fandroid]

The OP is not the first person we've had on here who was seemingly clueless about fares and payment methods, including on Chiltern. I'm an experienced train traveller and I wasn't previously aware of of the scope of contactless because I have a Railcard and contactless seemed to be of little use to me.

I agree that Chiltern's suspicions would have been raised by what looks like inexplicable travel patterns. But give them some focussed evidence to back that up and they ought to realise the reality of what they're dealing with.

 

[JBuchananGB]

My feeling is that the OP should respond to them to the effect "I have carefully reviewed my travel for the period mentioned and am unable to identify any occasion, other than that when I was stopped by your staff, when I travelled without being in possession of appropriate tickets for the journey." Prepare carefully the necessary lists etc., but keep the powder dry.

 

[Hadders]

My feeling is that the OP should respond to them to the effect "I have carefully reviewed my travel for the period mentioned and am unable to identify any occasion, other than that when I was stopped by your staff, when I travelled without being in possession of appropriate tickets for the journey." Prepare carefully the necessary lists etc., but keep the powder dry.

The danger with such a reply is Chiltern might then decide to prosecute for the single offence where the OP has caught.

If I was the OP I would probably consider getting a solicitor involved given that the stakes are relatively high.

 

[AlterEgo]

The danger with such a reply is Chiltern might then decide to prosecute for the single offence where the OP has caught.

If I was the OP I would probably consider getting a solicitor involved given that the stakes are relatively high.

I agree with this.