Short-faring Govia

[Maria28]

Hi everyone,

Hope you're well. For a couple of months I have travelled with buying only partial tickets and saved a few hundred pounds (I'm an idiot, I know) until I got caught and admitted to this. Anyway, I received the email below from them:

"I am writing to you to regarding the statement you gave on 08/06/2023 to a Govia Thameslink Railway Fraud Control Officer at London St Pancras railway station.
You were found not to be in possession of a valid rail ticket for your journey between Three Bridges and London St Pancras and were subsequently interviewed under caution. An investigation undertaken by GTR’s Fraud Department has established that you avoided rail fares on multiple dates over several months.
I would like to discuss the matter further with you and would therefore request that you respond to this letter within 7 days using the email address above. Failure to respond to this letter will result in your case being referred to the Prosecutions Department."
After browsing the forums I came up with this draft reply below:

"Thank you for your letter regarding the incident on 08/06/2023 at London St Pancras Station. I am writing to acknowledge the incident and the fact that I have only partially paid rail fares on multiple dates over several months.
I made a stupid decision (to save some money on transport as things are more financially difficult) and regret my lapse in judgement. I understand the severity of the offence that I have committed and the implications that it has on the rail industry.
I accept I need to respect and abide by the fare regulations. I am committed to this and have made sure to have paid in full for my journeys from that day forward.
I would like to settle the matter without the need for court action and want to cooperate with you to cover the costs associated with my mistakes."

Can anyone help with my response as haven't been in this situation before and don't know what to do and expect after this?

 

[Danberto]

Hello and welcome to the forum!

Your draft reply looks fine to me. I assume that you travel to St Pancras regularly; if so have you considered a season ticket as this would work out cheaper than paying daily. I believe that Thameslink also do a 'flexible' season ticket that allows something like 8 return journeys a month which may be an option if you didn't travel each day.
If you did purchase any type of season ticket this could be mentioned in support of you going by the 'fare regulations'.
Otherwise, depending on when you need to respond to Govia, you may wish to wait for a short period of time to see what suggestions other forum members may make.

Once GTR have received your reply, they will make a decision to either offer an out of court settlement to you or proceed to prosecution at court. The good news is that GTR have shown a tendency to settle matters out of court so you should get this although of course there is no guarantee.

If they offer to settle out of court, they will look to recover the anytime single fare for each journey that you have made plus an administration fee of about £100-200 that will cover their costs in this matter. I note that in the correspondence you received and in your draft it was stated rail fares were avoided over several months. You should be aware that the train operating company (TOC) will be able to get hold of your online ticket account if you used something like 'Trainline'. They will use this to identify each journey that you made that they suspect you only held 'partial' tickets for. If you get an out of court settlement, this matter will be closed, there will be no court action.

Should you opt not to pay the out of court settlement or if it is not offered (unlikely IMO), you will be prosecuted. Should you plead guilty or be found guilty you will be fined by the magistrate using the guidelines they are given (a % of your weekly wage); a surcharge of 40% of the fine will be levied; the TOC will ask for the value of the fare avoided to be paid to them and also for their court costs. On top of this, you will receive a criminal conviction.

 

[furlong]

That reply reads fine to me. GTR usually settles if you cooperate. If the travel pattern is complicated they might invite you to an interview to try to work it out but more usually they make an intelligent guess at what is owed and leave you to refute it if you think they've got it significantly wrong.

 

[Camsus]

You mentioned you received the correspondence from GTR by email. As far as I'm aware, this means it's likely to be from the fraud department. From what I've seen previously, the prosecutions department send a letter out via post.
Someone I know was caught by GTR avoiding fares a few months ago and received an email from the fraud department.They already knew everything about their ticket purchases and basically said a settlement would be offered as long as they cooperated. This was made up of the avoided fares, as well as additional costs. My friend used a solicitor, but with hindsight said they could have done it themselves

 

[jp4712]

One thing you should bear in mind is that if they offer a settlement, the (short) fares that you paid will be ignored - as far as GTR are concerned, you didn’t have a valid ticket so as Danberto says, they’ll probably ask you to pay the full anytime fare for every journey plus their admin costs. So my advice is to start saving.

 

[Camsus]

One thing you should bear in mind is that if they offer a settlement, the (short) fares that you paid will be ignored - as far as GTR are concerned, you didn’t have a valid ticket so as Danberto says, they’ll probably ask you to pay the full anytime fare for every journey plus their admin costs. So my advice is to start saving.

I can only comment on the settlement my friend agreed with GTR, but they deducted they fares that were paid from the full fares, so effectively the settlement was the difference in fares plus a fee for the investigation