Help with Elizabeth Line penalty fare notice

[Scram99]

Hi all,
My son (17) received a penalty fare notice last month for a journey he made on the Elizabeth Line, starting at Maidenhead and travelling to Reading. He tapped in at Maidenhead using a contactless debit card, got on the train and was approached by a conductor who asked him for his ticket or proof of payment. Having used contactless, he couldn't do this and so was issued with the penalty.
I don't really understand how you can be asked for proof of payment on lines that use contactless tap in/out payment. He is sure that he was on an Elizabeth Line train and not on one of the other services that operate between Maidenhead and Reading (and the penalty notice is from TfL); I am also sure he did tap in as I can see two charges from TfL on our bank statement for that day.
I'm wondering whether I should appeal this and would be grateful for any advice.
Thanks!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Hi all,
My son (17) received a penalty fare notice last month for a journey he made on the Elizabeth Line, starting at Maidenhead and travelling to Reading. He tapped in at Maidenhead using a contactless debit card, got on the train and was approached by a conductor who asked him for his ticket or proof of payment. Having used contactless, he couldn't do this and so was issued with the penalty.
I don't really understand how you can be asked for proof of payment on lines that use contactless tap in/out payment. He is sure that he was on an Elizabeth Line train and not on one of the other services that operate between Maidenhead and Reading (and the penalty notice is from TfL); I am also sure he did tap in as I can see two charges from TfL on our bank statement for that day.
I'm wondering whether I should appeal this and would be grateful for any advice.
Thanks!

You produce the card you used to enter and tap it on their machine. Did he refuse? Why? What did the inspector say?

As always can you please post the notice (with name and any ID numbers etc redacted) and we can comment further.

 

[jfollows]

Contactless is valid Maidenhead-Reading (https://assets.nationalrail.co.uk/e...y_as_you_go_with_contactless_map_Feb_2025.pdf) so there is something else afoot here.
Proof of payment is the card used to tap in at the origin.

 

[AlterEgo]

What did he say when he was being penalty fared?

 

[Scram99]

I'm not sure how the interaction went but I will find out. My son would have been pretty mortified as he's quite shy and hates the thought of being 'in trouble'. He probably didn't know that the card is your proof of payment (I didn't!) and perhaps the ticketing person didn't make that clear. He wouldn't have had the physical card on him – it's in his Apple wallet on his phone. I know he paid for the journey as I've seen the bank statement.
Penalty notice attached.

 

[AlterEgo]

Has the Penalty Fare been paid? Has it been appealed?

Was he given a Penalty Fare Notice at the time? What date did this happen?

 

[Haywain]

I'm wondering whether I should appeal this and would be grateful for any advice.

As the time for paying the reduced amount of the Penalty Fare has passed, that also applies to the time for submitting an appeal, as set out in the letter posted above. It is likely that paying the amount requested is now the best option.

 

[WesternLancer]

Hi all,
My son (17) received a penalty fare notice last month for a journey he made on the Elizabeth Line, starting at Maidenhead and travelling to Reading. He tapped in at Maidenhead using a contactless debit card, got on the train and was approached by a conductor who asked him for his ticket or proof of payment. Having used contactless, he couldn't do this and so was issued with the penalty.
I don't really understand how you can be asked for proof of payment on lines that use contactless tap in/out payment. He is sure that he was on an Elizabeth Line train and not on one of the other services that operate between Maidenhead and Reading (and the penalty notice is from TfL); I am also sure he did tap in as I can see two charges from TfL on our bank statement for that day.
I'm wondering whether I should appeal this and would be grateful for any advice.
Thanks!

You have my sympathy here as things can be taken for granted that are not obvious to everyone.

So probably a good idea to learn a bit about how contactless works, and other parts of this forum can help with that. I don’t use it as don’t travel in London typically but iirc you can do things like register your contactless details with TfL I think so then you can log on and see journey history, if you have been correctly charged the fare etc, ensure any railcard discounts are correctly applied etc I suspect

 

[PeterC]

You have my sympathy here as things can be taken for granted that are not obvious to everyone.

So probably a good idea to learn a bit about how contactless works, and other parts of this forum can help with that. I don’t use it as don’t travel in London typically but iirc you can do things like register your contactless details with TfL I think so then you can log on and see journey history, if you have been correctly charged the fare etc, ensure any railcard discounts are correctly applied etc I suspect

Railcards can only be added to Oyster which isn't available between the stations mentioned. Once an account is created and the payment card or device added the journey history will become visible.

 

[WesternLancer]

Railcards can only be added to Oyster which isn't available between the stations mentioned. Once an account is created and the payment card or device added the journey history will become visible.

Thanks for clarifying as bound to be helpful to op.

As a regular on this forum just goes to show how easy it is not to know how all this stuff works

 

[Hadders]

Welcome to the forum!

This is quite an unusual case, if your son touched in at the start of the journey and touched out at the end then he will have paid. You could confirm this by checking the TfL website (you could still do this if you create an account) and his bank account would also show a payment for that day. Contactless can be used on any train between Maidenhead and Reading, whether TfL Eliabeth Line or GWR. When tickets are inspected the member of staff scand your card using their hand held terminal and that's it! The only legitimate reason I can think of for a ticket inspection failing is if the card was blocked because it had failed previous revenue inspections.

It's a shame we didn't know about this sooner because there's a good chance we could've given advice on how to successfully appeal the Penalty fare. The problem is the time to lodge an appeal has now passed and therefore, very reluctantly, I can see no other option but to pay the Penalty Fare to prevent the matter from escalating.

 

[fandroid]

It strikes me that whoever issued the Penalty Fare Notice didn't ask the right questions. If he/she asked to see a ticket then there's a possibility that an honest and inexperienced minor would say "I haven't got a ticket". The next question should be "how did you get through the ticket gate?"Then it's likely that the truth would emerge.

I can't offer any advice other than pay up but I would suggest also writing to TfL with the full facts in the hope of a sympathetic hearing and perhaps even a refund.

 

[PeterC]

It strikes me that whoever issued the Penalty Fare Notice didn't ask the right questions. If he/she asked to see a ticket then there's a possibility that an honest and inexperienced minor would say "I haven't got a ticket". The next question should be "how did you get through the ticket gate?"Then it's likely that the truth would emerge.

Just what I was wondering.

 

[jumble]

It strikes me that whoever issued the Penalty Fare Notice didn't ask the right questions. If he/she asked to see a ticket then there's a possibility that an honest and inexperienced minor would say "I haven't got a ticket". The next question should be "how did you get through the ticket gate?"Then it's likely that the truth would emerge.

I can't offer any advice other than pay up but I would suggest also writing to TfL with the full facts in the hope of a sympathetic hearing and perhaps even a refund.

I though that RPIs are supposed to ask "If I hadn't stopped you today would you have paid your fare"
I agree that the RPI appears on the face of it to be a bit of a buffoon who doesn't understand their job properly

 

[AlterEgo]

I though that RPIs are supposed to ask "If I hadn't stopped you today would you have paid your fare"
I agree that the RPI appears on the face of it to be a bit of a buffoon who doesn't understand their job properly

The RPI wasn’t conducting a report for prosecution so they wouldn’t have needed to ask that question.

 

[jumble]

The RPI wasn’t conducting a report for prosecution so they wouldn’t have needed to ask that question.

Ok so they didn't need to but it was a pretty asinine not to ask regardless
We must not lose sight of the fact that the OPs son is a paying customer and did not deserve to be treated like a fare dodger

 

[AlterEgo]

Ok so they didn't need to but it was a pretty asinine not to ask regardless
We must not lose sight of the fact that the OPs son is a paying customer and did not deserve to be treated like a fare dodger

We know nothing about the interaction or what was said though. It’s equally mysterious why someone would accept being penalty fared when they paid for their journey as is normal.

 

[dciuk]

It’s equally mysterious why someone would accept being penalty fared when they paid for their journey as is normal.

Sorry if I am missing something here, but what could he have done to not accept the penalty fare without making things worse?

 

[AlterEgo]

Sorry if I am missing something here, but what could he have done to not accept the penalty fare without making things worse?

Tell the inspector they tapped in.

 

[dciuk]

Tell the inspector they tapped in.

According to the original post, the op's son was asked for a ticket or proof of payment. They did not have a physical ticket as they had used contactless, and (as indicated by the OP in post 5) would probably thought they did not have any proof of payment. While they had the debit card with them, they would not have had any phyiscal proof it had been used, as it is not like the ticket barriers or contactless readers issue a receipt when you tap in. Perhaps they even thought they had done wrong when being questioned (for example they might have thought at that stage contactless could only be used in the London direction and they had made an error trying to use it to travel to Reading). Hopefully the OP will be able to find out information from their son which might help to paint a picture what what went wrong.

 

[island]

This all seems terribly confusing.

Surely you cannot get to the point of issuing a Penalty Fare without the passenger exclaiming "but I tapped in with my phone" and the RCI asking to inspect the phone with their RID.

There must be more to this.

 

[Falcon1200]

Yes, surely anyone able to use contactless knows that they do not get a physical ticket, equally any member of staff on a train on which contactless travel is available knows this too?

 

[AlterEgo]

There is obviously more to this; the penalty fare was concealed from the parent who found out when a letter chasing payment arrived. I was a 17 year old once, not a particularly honest one either!