Southeastern mg11

[tomjay888]

Hi all,

I’ve been following these threads for a while as I was given an mg11 ticket by inspectors at St Pancras for shorting my fare. I’ve been waiting for a letter for over a month. (6 weeks).

I have seen some people say it takes 6 months for the letter to arrive. However, I’ve seen people since I have been given my ticket, been issued a ticket and sorted it out with southeastern. Making me think they’ve skipped ahead of me?

My question is, do I contact them as my fear is the prosecution letter has wrongfully gone to my neighbours house and they’ve binned it.

If I ignore the first letter, how soon would the second letter come with a court date?

Or should I sit and wait?


Many thanks,

 

[Gloster]

Why would you think that the letter has gone to your neighbours’ house?

 

[tomjay888]

Why would you think that the letter has gone to your neighbours’ house?

Only because it’s happened once or twice before. There are 3 of us with the same number house on one street…(blame the council)

 

[notmyrealname]

Are you in touch or co-operating with the neighbours at all? If they're getting your post, presumably you could be getting theirs. It seems a strange thing to do to just to bin it.

 

[tomjay888]

Yeah usually we’re pretty good so it’s unlikely. Just a bit confused why people seem to be jumping the queue ahead of me?

 

[AlterEgo]

Yeah usually we’re pretty good so it’s unlikely. Just a bit confused why people seem to be jumping the queue ahead of me?

It could be any number of reasons, including the company taking more time to audit your ticket purchasing accounts, as you have been short faring.

 

[tomjay888]

Hello all,

Really appreciate all the advice that’s been posted on here over the past few years regarding rail fares.

Read thread after thread about people getting their mg11 and then being threatened with prosecution only to write a letter and have it settled out of court.

My question is- has anyone ever written a reasonable response to being threatened with prosecution and asking to settle out of court and has anyone ever seen a train operator reject the letter and continue with prosecution?

In every thread I’ve seen the rail line has agreed to settle out of court?

Thanks all,

 

[Gloster]

As there are many, many cases that never come to this forum and some that do, but we don’t learn what happened, we just can’t say. It also depends on what you mean by ‘reasonable’: to the writer or to the recipient for example.

 

[NorthWestRover]

A reasonable rule of thumb from my observer status would be mainline TOCs generally settle out of court if one engages with them and that TfL explicitly do not, although they will very occasionally let one off with a warning. Exceptions obviously prove the rule.

 

[John R]

Hello all,

Really appreciate all the advice that’s been posted on here over the past few years regarding rail fares.

Read thread after thread about people getting their mg11 and then being threatened with prosecution only to write a letter and have it settled out of court.

My question is- has anyone ever written a reasonable response to being threatened with prosecution and asking to settle out of court and has anyone ever seen a train operator reject the letter and continue with prosecution?

In every thread I’ve seen the rail line has agreed to settle out of court?

Thanks all,

There have been a couple where a letter hasn't worked. In one case I recall the poster then engaged the help of one of the specialist solicitors which finally did the trick, albeit at the additional cost of the legal fees. We never worked out why GTR played hard ball on that case - maybe we weren't told the full story, which sometimes happens (and makes it very difficult for it to give the best advice).

 

[Fawkes Cat]

The success rate that we see from people who do write letters suggests that it's worth trying engaging in the process. Even if it doesn't work, I don't see that someone would be in a worse position than if they didn't engage.

I can imagine (and I am not aware of any evidence either way on this point) that someone who had been allowed an out of court settlement before might not be offered one if caught again, as that would suggest they hadn't learnt the lesson, so a tougher sanction might be needed. But again, what would there be to lose by engaging and responding appropriately for the repeat occasion?

 

[tomjay888]

Thanks all, much appreciated.