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I edited an old ticket i had bought and tried scanning through gate. Inspector at gate scanned with his phone and told me its a criminal offense to edit a ticket. He didn’t take my details but said he will be reporting it. It was my first time trying to dodge the fare. Will I receive a court summons?
I edited an old ticket i had bought and tried scanning through gate. Inspector at gate scanned with his phone and told me its a criminal offense to edit a ticket. He didn’t take my details but said he will be reporting it. It was my first time trying to dodge the fare. Will I receive a court summons?
Your details can be obtained from the retailer using your ticket scan. If the inspector does report you, you can expect to be contacted with some form of letter which will either offer to settle out of court for a sum of money, or you will be prosecuted.
Because you have edited your ticket, it adds an extra level of seriousness to your offence beyond ordinary fare evasion - fraud. In light of this, expect them to err on the harsher side throughout the process.
Other posters will no doubt post the usual full advice shortly, but I'd emphasise that you need to engage with the process.
Assuming you hadn't altered the barcode it will be possible for the train company to find out your details, and I would expect them to be in touch.
They won't normally issue a court summons straight away. What they'll do is write to you saying that they are considering prosecuting but asking for your version of events before they decide how to proceed. Most companies will offer an out of court settlement but as statted above altering a ticket is more serious than simply not paying the correct fare.
When it arrives, post a copy of the letter in this thread along with your draft reply and forum members will proof read it for you. Do redact any personal details before uploading.
I edited an old ticket i had bought and tried scanning through gate. Inspector at gate scanned with his phone and told me its a criminal offense to edit a ticket. He didn’t take my details but said he will be reporting it. It was my first time trying to dodge the fare. Will I receive a court summons?
Can you say where this happened/ what train company staffed the barrier? This may have an influence on the approach likely to be taken.
It’s vital you do not ignore anything they send you as that risks escalation to court prosecution (they almost certainly have the evidence they need for that). So keep an eye out for letters or e mails including spam over the coming weeks and months. Including any e mail accounts linked to on line ticket purchasing.
Also from this point make sure you have 100% valid tickets as you are on their radar so when they look into the forged ticket they will also look for anything else that they may think is suspicious so avoid giving them any grounds to find anything that might be.
Head back here when you need more advice.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Also it’s worth bearing in mind if you were caught on the first time you did this you should be able to negotiate a route out of prosecution so treat it as a ‘wake up call’ that you can get sorted out.
Can you say where this happened/ what train company staffed the barrier? This may have an influence on the approach likely to be taken.
It’s vital you do not ignore anything they send you as that risks escalation to court prosecution (they almost certainly have the evidence they need for that). So keep an eye out for letters or e mails including spam over the coming weeks and months. Including any e mail accounts linked to on line ticket purchasing.
Also from this point make sure you have 100% valid tickets as you are on their radar so when they look into the forged ticket they will also look for anything else that they may think is suspicious so avoid giving them any grounds to find anything that might be.
Head back here when you need more advice.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Also it’s worth bearing in mind if you were caught on the first time you did this you should be able to negotiate a route out of prosecution so treat it as a ‘wake up call’ that you can get sorted out.
Your original post said it happened at the gate. So which was it? At the ticket gates, or on the train? In order for people here to help you best, you will need to give clear, honest and accurate answers to the questions you are asked.
Your original post said it happened at the gate. So which was it? At the ticket gates, or on the train? In order for people here to help you best, you will need to give clear, honest and accurate answers to the questions you are asked.
If you have evidence that previous travel has been correctly paid for then yes that is likely to be helpful when / if they investigate you. Evidence of habitual evasion being unhelpful obviously.
Could take weeks before they contact you.
Strangely we don’t see many cases involving Avanti on here which given the number of services they run seems odd to me. So hard to know what stance they take going from typical previous cases on here.
But you will get good advice on here on how to handle this if/when they contact you and I think you should assume it’s very likely they will do in due course.
Doesn't anyone else find it extremely strange that they didn't ask the passenger for their details? I nearly always buy paper tickets but is there anything which prevents the purchaser of the ticket giving it to someone else to use? If so, the TOC has the purchaser's details and no evidence of the traveller who edited the ticket. They may have taken a description but surely asking for a name, address and date of birth is the minimum you should do when stopping someone.
Doesn't anyone else find it extremely strange that they didn't ask the passenger for their details? I nearly always buy paper tickets but is there anything which prevents the purchaser of the ticket giving it to someone else to use? If so, the TOC has the purchaser's details and no evidence of the traveller who edited the ticket. They may have taken a description but surely asking for a name, address and date of birth is the minimum you should do when stopping someone.
It’s just lazy by the member of staff. Getting the details you say really should be the minimum standard - you do actually need to prove who was travelling!
They'd also need a (physical) address to serve any court summons - I'm pretty sure Trainline etc don't ask for that. (Yes, it's theoretically linked to the card holder; I don't think the bank will give that out lightly though).
It’s just lazy by the member of staff. Getting the details you say really should be the minimum standard - you do actually need to prove who was travelling!
I don't think the gate line staff at New Staff have the training/app/pad to issue out TIRs/MG11s so they will probably just be flagging it on TTK or similar then reporting it to whichever department Avanti have for investigation.
Had it been a multi-TOC block it would have been an MG11 on the spot, likely a cautioned interview too.
I don't think the gate line staff at New Staff have the training/app/pad to issue out TIRs/MG11s so they will probably just be flagging it on TTK or similar then reporting it to whichever department Avanti have for investigation.
Had it been a multi-TOC block it would have been an MG11 on the spot, likely a cautioned interview too.
Yup the gateline staff can only scan the ticket and report it but either let them through or show them to the fares to pay window/kiosk depending on the gate.
Most are ex London Midland Revenue Protection Inspectors and were TUPE'd over to Virgin then Avanti.
They wish they could issue PFs but they cannot. They are very happy when a multi ToC revenue op is on. And I think WMR are at a certain gateline most of the morning/day scanning tickets.
They can ask for details but have no way to verify the information is correct so most if not all scan the tickets and send it to their Revenue Department.
Trust me they would love to be able to PF/MG.
Yup the gateline staff can only scan the ticket and report it but either let them through or show them to the fares to pay window/kiosk depending on the gate.
Most are ex London Midland Revenue Protection Inspectors and were TUPE'd over to Virgin then Avanti.
They wish they could issue PFs but they cannot. They are very happy when a multi ToC revenue op is on. And I think WMR are at a certain gateline most of the morning/day scanning tickets.
They can ask for details but have no way to verify the information is correct so most if not all scan the tickets and send it to their Revenue Department.
Trust me they would love to be able to PF/MG.
The only WMT staff that will be seen on New St gatelines are RPMs who will definitely be taking full details and issuing MG11s. The Birmingham revenue team are looking to assist regularly there so they say.
The only WMT staff that will be seen on New St gatelines are RPMs who will definitely be taking full details and issuing MG11s. The Birmingham revenue team are looking to assist regularly there so they say.
