GTR fraudulent travel

[Ryderxx]

Dear all,

Seeking your good advice and judgement regarding my case with GTR. I have received a letter dated today 16th January asking for my full version of events in relation to a statement i gave to a revenue officer on the 19th September.

I paid for my full journey up to abbeywood with proof of trainline ticket. I then changed over onto the elizabeth line using my bank card to tap and tap back out at farringdon. I then proceeded to grab a coffee at farringdon and buy another ticket through trainline to continue my journey to st. Pancras. I have proof of payment for each and every step of the journey with timings. However upon challenging GTR with this information they habe in an email maintained the belief i 'sandwiched' my ticket on this date. They have also gone as far as to look into historical data on thr trainline app and found 22 instances historically where I admit I did through ill judgement and financial difficulty short pay/ sandwich journey's.

GTR have since offered the prospect of a settlement to put forth a proposal to avoid going through prosecutions.

Whilst I admit historically there would have been instances, it has been brought to light through the incident on the 19th. Under the circumstance is it best to continue to challenge the events of the 19th September and ask for the proposal based on the recorded dates.

I was in great financial difficulty at the time of these occurences it doesn't obsolve me of fault I admit. I would like to know how best to go about handling this situation and whether to mention my difficulties in response.

Many thanks.

 

[notmyrealname]

Hi, welcome to the forum.

Could you show us the letter please? It's best to cover up your name and address and any reference numbers so it's anonymous.

 

[Ryderxx]

Hello,

Thank you- I have attached the bulk of the wording/letter.

 

[Titfield]

I think you already know the situation you are in.

If you agree to the (out of court) settlement and pay it, then the matter is concluded.

If you do not agree then the matter will proceed to court, you will be found guilty and receive a conviction and be required to pay a fine, victim surcharge as well as the monies claimed by GTR (fares and admin cost).

If you are confident that your account of the 19th is correct and verifiable (ie you owe no moneys for that day) then you could contact GTR, agree to all the amounts due with the exception of the 19th and hope they agree to remove it from the calculation on the basis of your proof. The fact they have rejected your account of this makes me wonder if either they are at fault through a misunderstanding or the proof you have isnt as cast iron as you think it is.

How much extra is the 19th September going to cost you? It may just be worth paying it to avoid (the risk of) GTR withdrawing the offer and proceeding to court.

EDIT
Have they actually made an offer of a settlement amount?

 

[dciuk]

Hello,

Thank you- I have attached the bulk of the wording/letter.

From the extract you have included, they only seem to be specifically mentioning the incident on 19th September. Is this the one that you can prove you had tickets or had made contactless payments for each part of the journey and were all of these purchased prior to boarding? Have you already mentioned anything to them regarding any other journeys? Do they ask anything further regarding those further on in the letter or was anything brought up about them in at the time you gave the witness statement?

 

[Ryderxx]

I think you already know the situation you are in.

If you agree to the (out of court) settlement and pay it, then the matter is concluded.

If you do not agree then the matter will proceed to court, you will be found guilty and receive a conviction and be required to pay a fine, victim surcharge as well as the monies claimed by GTR (fares and admin cost).

If you are confident that your account of the 19th is correct and verifiable (ie you owe no moneys for that day) then you could contact GTR, agree to all the amounts due with the exception of the 19th and hope they agree to remove it from the calculation on the basis of your proof. The fact they have rejected your account of this makes me wonder if either they are at fault through a misunderstanding or the proof you have isnt as cast iron as you think it is.

How much extra is the 19th September going to cost you? It may just be worth paying it to avoid (the risk of) GTR withdrawing the offer and proceeding to court.

EDIT
Have they actually made an offer of a settlement amount?

They've mentioned in the latest correspondance if i would like to explore a potential settlement and they will put forth a proposal.

 

[Titfield]

They've mentioned in the latest correspondance if i would like to explore a potential settlement and they will put forth a proposal.

If I was in your position I would ask them to put forward their proposal as this is going to be the least worse option. I wouldnt delay in case they have a change of mind.

I would thank them for giving you the opportunity to resolve this out of court.

 

[Ryderxx]

From the extract you have included, they only seem to be specifically mentioning the incident on 19th September. Is this the one that you can prove you had tickets or had made contactless payments for each part of the journey and were all of these purchased prior to boarding? Have you already mentioned anything to them regarding any other journeys? Do they ask anything further regarding those further on in the letter or was anything brought up about them in at the time you gave the witness statement?

When I challenged the events on the 19th, my previous history was immediately brought into question. All of thr tickets of the 19th were bought prior to boarding. See attached correspondance.

 

[30907]

Unfortunately, unless you can evidence the contactless payment, the sequence of e-ticket plus ?? plus e-ticket looks remarkably like doughnutting.

Contactless would be the obvious choice from Farringdon to St Pancras, and you have repeatedly doughnutted on exactly this route using e-tickets.

Fortunately the tap-out at Farringdon should show up in your card history if you wish to pursue the argument with GTR, but frankly, is it worth it?

 

[Titfield]

Your ticket purchasing on the 19th may well be valid and therefore there is no case to answer but the other "events" do tell against you.

I can only repeat my advice you should apologise and ask to settle all the other occasions. If this went to court I think you would be found guilty with all that entails.

 

[Haywain]

I was in great financial difficulty at the time of these occurences

If that's true, why were you buying a ticket on Trainline for £3.90 rather than using contactless for £2.80 between Farringdon and St Pancras? Frankly, what you have explained doesn't stack up.

 

[Hadders]

This is quite an interesting case. if I understand it correctly:

- @Ryderxx made a journey from Chatham to St Pancras on 19th September
- They used a combination of tickets consisting of an e-ticket from Chatham to Abbey Wood, contactless from Abbeywood to Farrington and an e-ticket from Farringdon to St Pancras
- You were stopped at (St Pancras, I assume) and questioned as the inspector believed you were 'doughnutting' or 'sandwiching' as GTR call it. The inspector took your details for follow-up

Based on what you have told us your combination of tickets was perfectly valid, if more expensive than necessary, and ordinarily, if you can show that you paid between Abbey Wood and Farringdon using contactless then GTR should drop the matter.

Unfortunately, GTR researched your Trainline ticket purchasing history where they identified a significant number of journeys where you had doughnutted. Understandably, they are challenging you about these journeys and seeking a payment from you for these journeys.

If you co-operate with GTR then they will offer you an out of court settlement which will conclude the matter. If you don't co-operate then it's not 100% clear what GTR can do next. They are out of time to prosecute the incidents listed in the letter are more than six months old. They would try to prosecute you for the incident on 19th September but if you have evidence of that contactless journey (i.e. a journey history showing the times you touched in at Abbey Wood and touched out at Farringdon) then you should be able to defend the charge - but can you provide this level of evidence to defend yourself? In any case GTR would send further threatening letters and it is also possible they could pursue you for a civil debt.

 

[AlterEgo]

If that's true, why were you buying a ticket on Trainline for £3.90 rather than using contactless for £2.80 between Farringdon and St Pancras? Frankly, what you have explained doesn't stack up.

Well quite - these actions are more in line with someone who has been doughnutting rather than being hard up. I don't think it's reasonable to ask us or the company to blindly believe that without the ability to evidence the "missing" ticket/contactless payment.

 

[Iggy12a]

What just doesn't ring true to me, is breaking the journey at Farringdon to grab a coffee, one stop before the final destination of St Pancras.
Isn't there enough choice of providers at St Pancras?

 

[30907]

What just doesn't ring true to me, is breaking the journey at Farringdon to grab a coffee, one stop before the final destination of St Pancras.
Isn't there enough choice of providers at St Pancras?

Nevertheless, the OP may have had good reason - BOJ would have been permitted (ignoring gateline issues) on a through ticket, or they could have resumed with contactless.

 

[Surreytraveller]

Tell GTR to take you to court. Then produce your contactless evidence for that day. And invite the press along.
The other dates are irrelevant, as you weren't stopped.
GTR are on a fishing expedition.

 

[Haywain]

Tell GTR to take you to court. Then produce your contactless evidence for that day. And invite the press along.

And be deeply embarrassed after being convicted?

 

[Surreytraveller]

And be deeply embarrassed after being convicted?

Surely the other dates are irrelevant? Should only be the day in question that should be in court. And evidence would have to show they were on a train, without a valid ticket.
You can only be caught without a valid ticket if you are on a train.
Even if doughnutting, they would have to catch you whilst in the hole to prove anything?
Trouble with several different routes, with different methods of payment available, people will use a combination of different and unconnected methods of payment to make a journey?

As an example, as staff, I have boxes and a priv discounted Oystercard, plus a smartcard for the TOC I'm employed by. I could use a combination of all 3 to make a cross-London journey, plus a debit card to use a bus where none of the above are valid. To a computer, or someone looking for something that isn't there, that could look like doughnutting.

If I was being accused of not having a ticket, I would expect not to have a valid ticket at the point of inspection. Trawling through online accounts is laziness. In the old days, a suspected fraudulent traveller would be followed and approached at the relevant moment.
A download of Trainline proves nothing

 

[Adam Williams]

It's unclear to me: Did you present your evidence of tickets and the bank card to the staff on 19th September when you were spoken to, or were these only provided afterwards? If the account is true, the tickets were purchased before travel etc then I agree with @Hadders - the journey was ticketed - and I am not sure I understand why multiple forum members are in this thread suggesting that OP would be convicted or that they would certainly be found guilty if this proceeded to court.

Am I missing something here?

 

[AlterEgo]

Surely the other dates are irrelevant? Should only be the day in question that should be in court. And evidence would have to show they were on a train, without a valid ticket.
You can only be caught without a valid ticket if you are on a train.

That isn't correct at all; you can be caught immediately after the fact, having alighted. The passenger here was stopped and interviewed.

Even if doughnutting, they would have to catch you whilst in the hole to prove anything?

No, they would not.

This is really naive.

 

[Adam Williams]

Well, for a start, one would wonder why you have elected to purchase the cheapest possible gate-operating paper ticket from the very closest station, and why one wouldn't use contactless (which the OP confirms they aware of the existence of). It's also not likely to have been scanned on entry at Farringdon, which prompts the question as to where the passenger has come from and what tickets they hold to evidence their journey. That is quite reason enough to interview the passenger and capture their details.

Whilst this isn't wrong, I'd suggest that the TOC would have a much harder time of proving this beyond reasonable doubt without having actually caught a passenger "in the act" unless they panic and incriminate themselves. You and I know the lack of scanning means very little: passengers are let through gatelines all the time when they're incapable of holding their phone against a scanner / can't figure out how to increase their brightness / the glass is dirty etc. There is also no guarantee whatsoever that the scan record from a gateline would actually be visible to the RPI at the time of an interview on the same day, and I would hope that staff would be aware of this limitation (as ridiculous as it frankly is in 2025)!

It is not a crime to avoid using contactless, even if that comes at a higher price. Indeed, I can think of many reasons why it might be desirable to do this.

 

[AlterEgo]

Whilst this isn't wrong, I'd suggest that the TOC would have a much harder time of proving this beyond reasonable doubt without having actually caught a passenger "in the act" unless they panic and incriminate themselves. You and I know the lack of scanning means very little: passengers are let through gatelines all the time when they're incapable of holding their phone against a scanner / can't figure out how to increase their brightness / the glass is dirty etc. There is also no guarantee whatsoever that the scan record from a gateline would actually be visible to the RPI at the time of an interview on the same day, and I would hope that staff would be aware of this limitation (as ridiculous as it frankly is in 2025)!

It is not a crime to avoid using contactless, even if that comes at a higher price. Indeed, I can think of many reasons why it might be desirable to do this.

But I maintain it is entirely reasonable for the passenger to be stopped, and have their journey questioned. The passenger is unlikely to have been wise enough to go “no comment”, and a trawl of their ticket purchase history uncovers pretty hardcore evasion, which they admit to. This sort of doughnutting is just elementary to train companies and it’s like shooting fish in a barrel.