Excessing Railcard Discounted Tickets Used at an Invalid Time

[KirkstallOne]

Just to update anyone who isn’t following the socials. This issue has been on the bbc, the guardian and the daily mail plus presumably others. Gill Furniss, a Sheffield MP, has written to Northern’s MD about the ‘vexatious and vindictive prosecutions’ that they pursue, and a DfT spokesman says they ‘have instructed the operator to review the details of these cases urgently’.

 

[BongoStar]

Hmm. How many people read T&Cs before clicking "accept"?

But that's not the ToCs problem. There is no obligation to use a railcard or trains. It's a choice, and the choice is offered with terms and conditions.

 

[Krokodil]

Well, this is interesting, so you consider you have discretion to apply or not apply NRCoT 9.5.1?

Surely it either applies in cases like this or it doesn't?

Or are you saying it doesn't apply, but you have a general discretion to charge an excess instead of a new ticket (or PF, or irregularity report, or whatever else)?

There's no guidance on the issue. Much as the question of whether the condition applies to the railcard minimum fare has been found on this thread to be unclear.

A new ticket for these cases is never going to exceed £12 anyway, and will usually be in the region of £7. I don't issue penalty fares.

 

[AlterEgo]

However, given there are various types of railcards and when purchasing them, the user would have weighed the pros and cons of some of them before selecting the most beneficial to them

Well no, I am only eligible for one Railcard, as are many people. To say that I got my Disabled Railcard because the Two Together one would be useless to me is daft. Really clutching at straws here I'm afraid.

 

[Krokodil]

But that's not the ToCs problem. There is no obligation to use a railcard or trains. It's a choice, and the choice is offered with terms and conditions.

It's not ultimately in the railway's long-term interest for things to be complicated and obscure. Bad experiences don't lead to repeat customers and it's worse when it get splashed all over the media.

As a member of staff, I'd rather that the opportunities to get thumped were restricted to the real scumbags rather than aggravating every Tom, Dick and Harry over petty rules.

 

[AlterEgo]

But that's not the ToCs problem. There is no obligation to use a railcard or trains. It's a choice, and the choice is offered with terms and conditions.

Oh that's very public service oriented. "Use it or piss off, take it or leave it". Hope you don't work in the industry.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Oct 2024 ==

It's not ultimately in the railway's long-term interest for things to be complicated and obscure. Bad experiences don't lead to repeat customers and it's worse when it get splashed all over the media.

As a member of staff, I'd rather that the opportunities to get thumped were restricted to the real scumbags rather than aggravating every Tom, Dick and Harry over petty rules.

Quite.

 

[John R]

Just to update anyone who isn’t following the socials. This issue has been on the bbc, the guardian and the daily mail plus presumably others. Gill Furniss, a Sheffield MP, has written to Northern’s MD about the ‘vexatious and vindictive prosecutions’ that they pursue, and a DfT spokesman says they ‘have instructed the operator to review the details of these cases urgently’.

It's all over X, formerly Twitter too. I notice that "Seat61" has weighed in and said he thinks the current situation is unfair.

One thing I find interesting though. We know from experience here that if, when written to, you write an apologetic letter, you almost invariably get offered a settlement. So the cases being cited on SM would appear to be ones where the passenger ignored the initial letter, presumably in the hope it would go away, and ended up with a conviction.

 

[AlterEgo]

It's all over X, formerly Twitter too. I notice that "Seat61" has weighed in and said he thinks the current situation is unfair.

One thing I find interesting though. We know from experience here that if, when written to, you write an apologetic letter, you almost invariably get offered a settlement. So the cases being cited on SM would appear to be ones where the passenger ignored the initial letter, presumably in the hope it would go away, and ended up with a conviction.

That is almost certainly the case, yes. But we shouldn't even be getting to the situation where people are having to pay £150 for this sort of thing. It is mad.

 

[BongoStar]

Hope you don't work in the industry.

Not at all.

But neither am I a big fan of a few scumbags trying to get sympathy because they didn't engage with railways when caught and pay up.

What this could potentially result in is removal of a lot of discount opportunities for those 99% who genuinely followed the rules, in interest of "simplification".

The 1% who failed to understand T&Cs now will unlikely become geniuses overnight and understand them tomorrow. Unless the T&Cs are watered down to a level of least intelligent person, social media will keep on escalating it. And we very well know what the ToCs would do to simplify - something along the lines of blanket 10% for all railcard users with no restrictions. Overall loss to most of us.

We know what happened when FCA tried to regulate deep discount in year1 in the insurance sector for someone switching the insurance providers. The overall cost of insurance went up for everyone

 

[Pushpit]

Just to update anyone who isn’t following the socials. This issue has been on the bbc, the guardian and the daily mail plus presumably others. Gill Furniss, a Sheffield MP, has written to Northern’s MD about the ‘vexatious and vindictive prosecutions’ that they pursue, and a DfT spokesman says they ‘have instructed the operator to review the details of these cases urgently’.

There is a customer-sympathetic piece in The Daily Telegraph too. It show signs of research by the DT, it's not just a scrape from the PA wire feed. One extract from that story (which highlights he is an Oxford engineering graduate, ergo not unintelligent).

The graduate (Mr. Williamson) said: “The fee feels completely and wildly disproportionate in my books, particularly when I don’t think railcards do a good job of clarifying this.” He said another passenger on his train who was also challenged about not being able to use their railcard had simply walked away from the inspector and got off the train at the next stop."

Passenger fined £462 for wrong use of railcard discount

Travellers are being criminalised because of ‘byzantine’ railcard rules

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[redreni]

Not at all.

But neither am I a big fan of a few scumbags trying to get sympathy because they didn't engage with railways when caught and pay up.

What this could potentially result in is removal of a lot of discount opportunities for those 99% who genuinely followed the rules, in interest of "simplification".

The 1% who failed to understand T&Cs now will unlikely become geniuses overnight and understand them tomorrow. Unless the T&Cs are watered down to a level of least intelligent person, social media will keep on escalating it. And we very well know what the ToCs would do to simplify - something along the lines of blanket 10% for all railcard users with no restrictions. Overall loss to most of us.

We know what happened when FCA tried to regulate deep discount in year1 in the insurance sector for someone switching the insurance providers. The overall cost of insurance went up for everyone

I certainly hope that won't happen.

All that needs to happen is that retailers need to work out how to sell flexible tickets. Requiring use of a journey planner and then failing to explain the limitations on the use of the ticket is causing this issue, to the extent it is a legitimate issue.

I understand why simplification, while desirable in an ideal world, is not necessarily desirable in reality. But you can't expect people who are prosecuted in circumstances where it is manifestly absurd to do so not to complain in case fares go up.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Oct 2024 ==

There's no guidance on the issue. Much as the question of whether the condition applies to the railcard minimum fare has been found on this thread to be unclear.

A new ticket for these cases is never going to exceed £12 anyway, and will usually be in the region of £7. I don't issue penalty fares.

Thanks for explaining!

(Btw I think discretion is a good thing, as long as it's only exercised in the consumer's favour, and if people realised how much discretion guards rightly have then they might be a little nicer to them!)

 

[AlterEgo]

Not at all.

But neither am I a big fan of a few scumbags trying to get sympathy because they didn't engage with railways when caught and pay up.

But they aren't scumbags.

What this could potentially result in is removal of a lot of discount opportunities for those 99% who genuinely followed the rules, in interest of "simplification".

The 1% who failed to understand T&Cs now will unlikely become geniuses overnight and understand them tomorrow. Unless the T&Cs are watered down to a level of least intelligent person, social media will keep on escalating it. And we very well know what the ToCs would do to simplify - something along the lines of blanket 10% for all railcard users with no restrictions. Overall loss to most of us.

"You can't complain about anything because it will only make things worse" is peak Britbrain and one of the reasons we live in a self-immiserating country where ordinary citizens happily and blindly row in behind government and big business against their fellow citizen. We are so badly addicted to criminalising people. Very little ever changes because of the embedded misanthropy here.

The customer in fact is the scumbag, screw them...in fact, no, take them to court, and no not civil court, use some Victorian legislation to really screw them with a criminal record. What a great country.

 

[KirkstallOne]

On a related note, ITV Calendar are keen to do a piece on this and are looking for anyone impacted by this or similar issues in Yorkshire. If anyone knows any cases that would like to be featured please PM me and I can give you the journalist’s contact details.

 

[Snex]

Not at all.

But neither am I a big fan of a few scumbags trying to get sympathy because they didn't engage with railways when caught and pay up.

What this could potentially result in is removal of a lot of discount opportunities for those 99% who genuinely followed the rules, in interest of "simplification".

The 1% who failed to understand T&Cs now will unlikely become geniuses overnight and understand them tomorrow. Unless the T&Cs are watered down to a level of least intelligent person, social media will keep on escalating it. And we very well know what the ToCs would do to simplify - something along the lines of blanket 10% for all railcard users with no restrictions. Overall loss to most of us.

We know what happened when FCA tried to regulate deep discount in year1 in the insurance sector for someone switching the insurance providers. The overall cost of insurance went up for everyone

You could just rename the 'anytime' ticket or add a clause that is clearly visible that they're not valid before 10am instead...

It's not exactly asking much... At that point then it's a different discussion ie. using an off peak ticket on a peak train which little will have sympathy for and rightly so.

 

[KirkstallOne]

Oxford engineering graduate

Funnily enough, so am I

 

[Haywain]

an Oxford engineering graduate, ergo not unintelligent

I've encountered some very intelligent people over the years who do very stupid things. Having a degree is no guarantee of being able to deal with day to day life.

 

[jthjth]

The simple fact is the railway should not be able to call a ticket Anytime when it isn’t. It’s straightforwards mis representation of the reality. I’d be willing to entertain all the arguments about railcard T&Cs, people deliberately trying it on etc, but only once the product is a) properly named and b) restrictions are clearly marked on the ticket. The rest of commerce has to abide by these simple rules.

 

[Haywain]

b) restrictions are clearly marked on the ticket.

This doesn't happen with other tickets.

 

[Bletchleyite]

You could just rename the 'anytime' ticket or add a clause that is clearly visible that they're not valid before 10am instead...

It would be very easy for Trainline (for it is they) to change the wording of "Valid at any time" to instead say "Valid at any time, subject to the additional restrictions of your Railcard if you used one to purchase this ticket". That's just a string in a string table somewhere, 5 seconds plus testing time.

I think Flex would have been a better name than Anytime, but obviously stuff like renaming ticket types is a bigger project. Whereas editing a string table on an app to remove wording that is actively misleading is dead easy.

 

[jthjth]

This doesn't happen with other tickets.

Two wrongs don’t make a right.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Oct 2024 ==

It would be very easy for Trainline (for it is they) to change the wording of "Valid at any time" to instead say "Valid at any time, subject to the additional restrictions of your Railcard if you used one to purchase this ticket". That's just a string in a string table somewhere, 5 seconds plus testing time.

I think Flex would have been a better name than Anytime, but obviously stuff like renaming ticket types is a bigger project. Whereas editing a string table on an app to remove wording that is actively misleading is dead easy.

Well then no prosecutions or punitive penalties until the product is correctly named. That‘s even easier than editing a string table.

 

[AdamWW]

It would be very easy for Trainline (for it is they) to change the wording of "Valid at any time" to instead say "Valid at any time, subject to the additional restrictions of your Railcard if you used one to purchase this ticket". That's just a string in a string table somewhere, 5 seconds plus testing time.

I think Flex would have been a better name than Anytime, but obviously stuff like renaming ticket types is a bigger project. Whereas editing a string table on an app to remove wording that is actively misleading is dead easy.

I have no idea why anybody is defending the idea that somone deserves a criminal record for failing to remember that the T&Cs they might have read years ago are in conflict with a plain English statement made when they bought the ticket.

(And if consumer law doesn't given them a cast iron defence then perhaps it needs improvement).

We're probably stuck with the Anytime name and I would still have some sympathy for someone taking the name literally even if the ticket was sold with a warning. But if the penalties weren't so wildly incommensurate with the "crime" being committed this wouldn't be so much of a problem.

Maybe someone on the railway's side can explain why this should be treated so much more seriously than getting an off peak rule wrong? I've seen the argument that there's no excuse because a time restriction is black and white. But it's not, because it depends on the name of the month and the ticket cost and isn't even overtly described as a restriction in the T&Cs. They just say that a discount will only by applied to fares above the minimum fare at certain times leaving the user to work through the implications.

Meanwhile with a Network railcard where it is black and white, it specifically isn't a criminal offence to use it at the wrong time.

 

[Snex]

It would be very easy for Trainline (for it is they) to change the wording of "Valid at any time" to instead say "Valid at any time, subject to the additional restrictions of your Railcard if you used one to purchase this ticket". That's just a string in a string table somewhere, 5 seconds plus testing time.

I think Flex would have been a better name than Anytime, but obviously stuff like renaming ticket types is a bigger project. Whereas editing a string table on an app to remove wording that is actively misleading is dead easy.

Yeah honestly totally agreed. Just simple.

On the naming personally I'd just call them a single ticket. Does there need to be any word before it? It's just the basic ticket and pretty much every other transport industry offers one. If there's off peak tickets etc then it still wouldn't make it any more confusing imo. You could make a case for naming the operator specific tickets using the flex name though so you don't have the issue of 3 single tickets which one do I need problem.

Railcards are not valid on single tickets until 10am reads perfectly to me.

 

[Haywain]

Railcards are not valid on single tickets until 10am reads perfectly to me.

But (most, including the 16-25) railcards are valid on single tickets before 10am.

 

[jthjth]

I have no idea why anybody is defending the idea that somone deserves a criminal record for failing to remember that the T&Cs they might have read years ago are in conflict with a plain English statement made when they bought the ticket.

(And if consumer law doesn't given them a cast iron defence then perhaps it needs improvement).

We're probably stuck with the Anytime name and I would still have some sympathy for someone taking the name literally even if the ticket was sold with a warning. But if the penalties weren't so wildly incommensurate with the "crime" being committed this wouldn't be so much of a problem.

Maybe someone on the railway's side can explain why this should be treated so much more seriously than getting an off peak rule wrong? I've seen the argument that there's no excuse because a time restriction is black and white. But it's not, because it depends on the name of the month and the ticket cost and isn't even overtly described as a restriction in the T&Cs. They just say that a discount will only by applied to fares above the minimum fare at certain times leaving the user to work through the implications.

Meanwhile with a Network railcard where it is black and white, it specifically isn't a criminal offence to use it at the wrong time.

I don’t see why we are stuck with the name. It didn’t even exist as a name before an earlier round of “simplification “.

 

[Cdd89]

Thinking about why the volume of these seems to have increased – is it possible that, now TOCs pass on all fares to the DfT, with controlling fare evasion being the TOCs’ contractual responsibility rather than a commercial decision, some discretion about when to pursue cases has been lost?

 

[Snex]

But (most, including the 16-25) railcards are valid on single tickets before 10am.

Apologies meant to add the type of Railcard there. Mistake from me.

 

[LJA]

maybe just get rid of the minimum price

The proliferation of cheap advances which are valid with the railcard just adds further inconsistency.

E.g looking at tickets for Leeds to Bradford tomorrow morning, yes it gives you specific train times but you are given a list of various different prices, some discounted advances, some discounted anytimes (after 10am ofc), some full priced anytimes….

 

[BongoStar]

No, I dont think simplication is needed. Those railcards which are generally available to anyone without a pre-requisite are very simple and have a defined cut-off. There is no confusion on timing there at all to have. These include Network, Friend and Family, Two-Together etc.

Simplification already exists in the sense that a Network card exists and (based on what the posts in this thread say) the sanction for mis-use is just an excess apparently.

The ToCs have (and I know I will get a lot of flak for this) in their generosity given additional discount to some groups but those additional discounts have come with additional restrictions. If one doesnt want to get tied up with additional restriction, then feel free to use a railcard that has fewer.

Even if you go through the Disputes forum, most of the railcard issues are those with 16-17 ,18-25 or 26-30. The incidences of those with veteran card, senior card or network card are very few. Even then, most of the disputes are deliberate attempts to save a few quids and then complain when caught. Maybe its a generational thing that under 30s can't accept that one has to read T&Cs. If one cant take the extra effort to acknowledge that if tickets are sold at different prices, there must be something different in them, then there is nothing ToCs can do which will change the behaviour of the user.

What next, demanding to use Advance on a peak train and expect to pay just the difference in fare, because the ticket didnt specify the time zone!

 

[Snex]

No, I dont think simplication is needed. Those railcards which are generally available to anyone without a pre-requisite are very simple and have a defined cut-off. There is no confusion on timing there at all to have. These include Network, Friend and Family, Two-Together etc.

Simplification already exists in the sense that a Network card exists and (based on what the posts in this thread say) the sanction for mis-use is just an excess apparently.

The ToCs have (and I know I will get a lot of flak for this) in their generosity given additional discount to some groups but those additional discounts have come with additional restrictions. If one doesnt want to get tied up with additional restriction, then feel free to use a railcard that has fewer.

Even if you go through the Disputes forum, most of the railcard issues are those with 16-17 ,18-25 or 26-30. The incidences of those with veteran card, senior card or network card are very few. Even then, most of the disputes are deliberate attempts to save a few quids and then complain when caught. Maybe its a generational thing that under 30s can't accept that one has to read T&Cs. If one cant take the extra effort to acknowledge that if tickets are sold at different prices, there must be something different in them, then there is nothing ToCs can do which will change the behaviour of the user.

What next, demanding to use Advance on a peak train and expect to pay just the difference in fare, because the ticket didnt specify the time zone!

Must say this is a bizarre argument. So your advice is for a single male using a train is to buy a two together card and use it with whom exactly...?

Senior tickets etc don't have these problems because the restriction doesn't exist bar being outright banned in the SE and London before 10am.

To claim that it's intentional is an outrageous claim and has no fact and the advance on a peak train just isn't comparable at all.

In an ideal world some railcards just wouldn't exist and everyone would have cheaper fares because it's silly how many different types there are lately, especially adults aged 27 - 31 in full time work.

 

[jthjth]

No, I dont think simplication is needed. Those railcards which are generally available to anyone without a pre-requisite are very simple and have a defined cut-off. There is no confusion on timing there at all to have. These include Network, Friend and Family, Two-Together etc.

Simplification already exists in the sense that a Network card exists and (based on what the posts in this thread say) the sanction for mis-use is just an excess apparently.

The ToCs have (and I know I will get a lot of flak for this) in their generosity given additional discount to some groups but those additional discounts have come with additional restrictions. If one doesnt want to get tied up with additional restriction, then feel free to use a railcard that has fewer.

Even if you go through the Disputes forum, most of the railcard issues are those with 16-17 ,18-25 or 26-30. The incidences of those with veteran card, senior card or network card are very few. Even then, most of the disputes are deliberate attempts to save a few quids and then complain when caught. Maybe its a generational thing that under 30s can't accept that one has to read T&Cs. If one cant take the extra effort to acknowledge that if tickets are sold at different prices, there must be something different in them, then there is nothing ToCs can do which will change the behaviour of the user.

What next, demanding to use Advance on a peak train and expect to pay just the difference in fare, because the ticket didnt specify the time zone!

Sorry, but no. It’s straightforward misrepresentation naming a ticket Anytime when it isn’t. Remove that from the railway’s side and we can start to discuss those deliberately defrauding the system. Advance tickets are actually much clearer. They have their validity marked on them.