Out of court settlements

[Tetchytyke]

But I suspect nobody ever seems to confuse them the other way, so as to accidentally pay too much.

You’d be surprised. I saw someone on Threads the other day complaining that they’d been charged more for using a railcard- I suspect they’d been charged the railcard minimum fare when the full fare would have been less than this.

But RPIs don’t hand out refund vouchers in these situations (not that they should), so…

The younger element are far more likely to fail the "attitude test" than the older generation.

My experience in customer service is very much the opposite. The biggest whingers and shouters I dealt with were the boomers (my role in immigration gave me access to their dates of birth as a matter of course, so I’m not being presumptive). And they were always the ones to try the old “oh I don’t understand this modern technology” line. Not able to fill in an online immigration form correctly, or indeed at all, but they could book an EasyJet flight without issue…hmm.

Unconscious bias or deliberately checking younger travellers because previous experience and outcomes show these are the market demographic to prioritise for checking

It’s a tough one to unpack. If you always assume the young ones are on the take and always assume the little old dear made an honest mistake, then your outcomes will reflect this. So it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The requests for assistance we get here are heavily biased towards the age group eligible for young persons railcards of one sort or another.

That was actually the main reason why I did the FOI, to settle a discussion as to whether number of and type of requests here was reflected in the TOC data. Turns out it is.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Dec 2023 ==

I'm surprised at the number of people who don't pay out of court settlements. They probably think it'll go away but we know it doesn't.

I both am and I’m not. I used to work in debt advice. It was not exactly uncommon for people to dump a bin bag of unopened mail on my desk. People don’t read their post.

A lot of the people I worked with had fines for skipping the Metro or for not paying the TV Tax. Sometimes we caught it at pre-prosecution stage and would contact Nexus.

Understandably Nexus wouldn’t accept a payment plan- their (not unreasonable) position was that if the settlement wasn’t paid immediately and in full they would prosecute.

And equally understandably someone on benefits or in low-paid employment couldn’t find the settlement figure in one go, so they got prosecuted.

 

[Tallguy]

From experience and observation there is also an "attitude problem" that varies with age. The younger element are far more likely to fail the "attitude test" than the older generation.

I disagree. I am in my mid 50’s and would fail the ‘attitude test’ given out by many who assume they hold some form of authority over me. I say ‘No’ a lot and don’t take cr@p off anyone.

 

[SuspectUsual]

I disagree. I am in my mid 50’s and would fail the ‘attitude test’ given out by many who assume they hold some form of authority over me. I say ‘No’ a lot and don’t take cr@p off anyone.

There are lots of ways of saying no. I’m a similar age to you, and whilst I also “don’t take cr@p off anyone” I’d be surprised and bitterly disappointed if someone thought I’d failed an attitude test

 

[Fawkes Cat]

I disagree. I am in my mid 50’s and would fail the ‘attitude test’ given out by many who assume they hold some form of authority over me. I say ‘No’ a lot and don’t take cr@p off anyone.

But the attitude test is irrelevant if you have a valid ticket. So the two proposed mitigations in what older customers do (valid ticket then attitude) stack on top of each other.

 

[Tallguy]

There are lots of ways of saying no. I’m a similar age to you, and whilst I also “don’t take cr@p off anyone” I’d be surprised and bitterly disappointed if someone thought I’d failed an attitude test

My failing of the attitude test is directed at those who think they hold some form of authority over me when they don’t, the best being security guards who think they can tell me what to do when walking down the street. I never travel without a valid ticket so never have to worry about failing an attitude test with a RPI etc as I will never be subjected to such a test.

 

[Sonic1234]

What would be interesting is to know what happens after accepting an out of court settlement or being taken to court. Are these people now travelling with the correct ticket? Given up on rail? Carrying on as they did before? Become better at avoiding detection?

 

[Krokodil]

It’s a tough one to unpack. If you always assume the young ones are on the take and always assume the little old dear made an honest mistake, then your outcomes will reflect this. So it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I did recently encounter a middle-aged woman trying it on. Had it been a twenty-something man you wouldn't have hesitated to chuck him off but you just don't expect this off of a middle-aged woman. Still, chuck her off I did...

Going by the number of students I'm catching with all sorts of fiddles though, I'd say that younger people are definitely more likely to fare evade. The reasons for this will include lower incomes, use of social media to swap tactics and naivety about the consequences.

 

[jamiearmley]

But I suspect nobody ever seems to confuse them the other way, so as to accidentally pay too much. Funny that…

I regularly have to sit down with passengers and explain that they are paying too much, and it's often because they have selected the wrong Railcard. Compared to the number who have made a mistake in their own favour, however, the number is vanishingly small.

With regard to the demographic distribution I encounter, the majority of passengers who have done something worthy of a travel incident report (altered date on Railcard, using saver return multiple times, etc) tend to be 17-35. Very rare to encounter an such an issue with someone older than that. Perhaps 1 in every 100.

Penalty fares are different, they are something I don't deal with, thankfully.

 

[jumble]

If we're moving on from the 'how many' to the 'why', I 'd add that now, in my fifties, I am a lot more risk-averse than I was when younger. I might tell myself that this is from an increased respect for the law but there's at least an element of wanting to avoid hassle. As it happens I have never intentionally fare dodged, but I am not going to start now and have the hassle of a difficult interview, even if I ultimately walk away without penalty.

Ok, I am working from a sample of one which isn't significant - but I suspect that I am fairly typical in this respect.

You can add me as another to your sample of one.
In my younger days I did tend to misbehave a bit more than I am inclined to do now
As with you I just cannot be bothered with any hassle and I believe that I need to pay for anything I use.
A recent example
I lost my over 60 pass and needed to use it for one day until I got replacement
I could easily have taken my partners and used it on the flawed justification that TFL would suffer no loss whatever and the chances of being caught would be absolutely minimal
( especially as it is usually easy to spot revenue even if they are in plain clothes)
However I paid as it as the right thing to do

 

[MrJeeves]

So, I've heard back from TPE with regards to my FOI: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/travel_incident_reports_settleme

These numbers are from the last 12 months, but might be slightly inaccurate as they are not related to reports issued in the last 12 months (i.e., a TIR from 13 months ago may be recorded in the info if it was withdrawn 11 months ago).

They did not have age breakdown in an extractable form.

Travel Irregularity Reports

Issued	12,418
Out of court settlement	2,695
Withdrawn/Closed (no further action)	7,038
Prosecuted	1

Penalty Fare Notices

Issued	12,828
Paid	10,091
Withdrawn/Closed	247
Prosecuted	126

PFN Appeals

Received	5,061
Upheld in full	111
Fare only	583
Rejected	4,225
Ongoing	253

 

[MadMarsupial]

So, I've heard back from TPE with regards to my FOI: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/travel_incident_reports_settleme

These numbers are from the last 12 months, but might be slightly inaccurate as they are not related to reports issued in the last 12 months (i.e., a TIR from 13 months ago may be recorded in the info if it was withdrawn 11 months ago).

They did not have age breakdown in an extractable form.

Travel Irregularity Reports

Issued	12,418
Out of court settlement	2,695
Withdrawn/Closed (no further action)	7,038
Prosecuted	1

Penalty Fare Notices

Issued	12,828
Paid	10,091
Withdrawn/Closed	247
Prosecuted	126

PFN Appeals

Received	5,061
Upheld in full	111
Fare only	583
Rejected	4,225
Ongoing	253

Good Morning Mr Jeeves. Is there an error/omission in your TIR table. The figures don't add up as they stand. 1 seems very very low for prosecutions.

 

[MrJeeves]

Good Morning Mr Jeeves. Is there an error/omission in your TIR table. The figures don't add up as they stand. 1 seems very very low for prosecutions.

Check the link at the top -- that's what TPE provided to me!

 

[fandroid]

Can we assume from the TIR stats that ca 2,700 are still being considered?

The PFN stats indicate that it's a system that works, for TPE at least! Perhaps TOCs in general could take that in and ensure that PFNs are the default, unless there's a really good reason. I don't count too few "authorised persons" as a good reason. Not enough of those just results in an unfair lottery for the punter.

 

[MadMarsupial]

Check the link at the top -- that's what TPE provided to me!

Their error then!

 

[Krokodil]

Their error then!

Or simply that there are still cases that are in progress

 

[MadMarsupial]

Or simply that there are still cases that are in progress

There could be many cases in progress but only one prosecution being completed for TIR cases infers that the whole process has come to a stop or that a rogue figure has been issued. Prosecutions have continued for Penalty Fare cases ( 126 of them from a similar number of original cases ).

 

[Egg Centric]

Check the link at the top -- that's what TPE provided to me!

Can you ask for clarification?

 

[MrJeeves]

Can you ask for clarification?

I've asked in case it was an error.

 

[John R]

What I find interesting is that over half the TIR’s were resolved with no further action. You could argue that this means over-zealous staff are reporting too many innocent people, or alternatively that TPE is being very fair when people explain what has happened, and they are trying not to punish genuine innocent mistakes.

 

[Egg Centric]

What I find interesting is that over half the TIR’s were resolved with no further action. You could argue that this means over-zealous staff are reporting too many innocent people, or alternatively that TPE is being very fair when people explain what has happened, and they are trying not to punish genuine innocent mistakes.

Or alternatively that they are shelving anything remotely difficult and only going after those who meekly roll over and grovel as advised here. I'm not saying that's the case just that there's no way to tell.

 

[John R]

Or alternatively that they are shelving anything remotely difficult and only going after those who meekly roll over and grovel as advised here. I'm not saying that's the case just that there's no way to tell.

I’m not sure that’s the case. I’d say that in the majority of cases it would be relatively simple to prove that a valid ticket was not held and to prosecute on that basis, without going into (say) any intent to avoid paying the correct fare.

 

[Hadders]

Interesting figures! I suspect quite a lot of the withdrawn TIRs relate to forgotten railcards or season tickets.

Quite surprised that so many Penalty Fares are paid in full. A significant number are appealed but the vast majority get rejected. Be interesting to know how many appeals are made at each stage and what the success rates are. I suspect most only appeal once but the most successful stage being stage 3.

 

[furlong]

Yes - try another FOI to get a breakdown of the appeals if you can.

There is a big problem here - we should not be seeing anything like 50% of PFs getting appeals with most of those appeals failing. There should be a vastly lower number of appeals but with a much higher percentage of that smaller number being successful. So there's still work to do in terms of the information given to passengers.

Anecdotally we keep hearing of staff recommending people appeal on spurious grounds which is completely wrong. If the person imposing the penalty thinks the person has a good case, then they shouldn't issue it in the first place! Otherwise they should be realistic about the prospects. So situations in which an appeal is recommended should be rare (putting aside technicalities such as signage). (I think there could be an argument for reviewing the regulations in this area.)