Given an Mg11 today,

[tomatopotato]

I was coming from Sutton london to Bromley South, at the end of journey there was a whole team standing to check tickets, i was over 18 but travelling on a 16-17 saver as i was short of money. Not joking only had bare minimum to cover food. When they stop me they asked me to stay here and we'll ask some questions from you. Dumb me literally a dumbest person, i went towards gates to cross them unintentionally because i was getting late from my work, if i can't reach ontime i will not get paid. No money means no travel. One officer caught me and said stay here, they took my details and gave me MG11 .... and said wait till they send you a letter. What should i do know and what amount of fine should i need to expect ?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Mar 2025 ==

Nobody even bother to drop a single reply so a person can feel relief

 

[Fawkes Cat]

I was coming from Sutton london to Bromley South, at the end of journey there was a whole team standing to check tickets, i was over 18 but travelling on a 16-17 saver as i was short of money. Not joking only had bare minimum to cover food. When they stop me they asked me to stay here and we'll ask some questions from you. Dumb me literally a dumbest person, i went towards gates to cross them unintentionally because i was getting late from my work, if i can't reach ontime i will not get paid. No money means no travel. One officer caught me and said stay here, they took my details and gave me MG11 .... and said wait till they send you a letter. What should i do know and what amount of fine should i need to expect ?

Welcome to the forum. As the officer said at the barrier, you need to wait for the letter. The railway need to decide whether to
1) take you to court for fare dodging
2) offer you a chance to settle the matter out of court, or
3) take no action this time.

For any of these routes, they will probably write to you again to hear your side of the story (although they don't have to). It's really important that you reply to them when you get their letter as otherwise they will take you to court - and on the basis of what you have told us, they would win at court which will mean that you have to pay a fine, plus a surcharge, plus costs, plus compensation. That's likely to add up to something like £500. If you can persuade them to let you settle out of court, you will have to pay the train fare(s) that you dodged plus the railway's admin costs - probably something like £200 in total. Either way, this will probably be more than you have saved by fare dodging.

So wait for the letter, and when you have got it, come back to us. We can give what should be helpful advice on how to reply to get the best outcome.

Just having a quick Google, this does not seem to be an easy (or quick) journey by train. If money is tight, you might want to look at doing it by bus, which doesn't seem to be much slower, and would be cheaper.

 

[tomatopotato]

Welcome to the forum. As the officer said at the barrier, you need to wait for the letter. The railway need to decide whether to
1) take you to court for fare dodging
2) offer you a chance to settle the matter out of court, or
3) take no action this time.

For any of these routes, they will probably write to you again to hear your side of the story (although they don't have to). It's really important that you reply to them when you get their letter as otherwise they will take you to court - and on the basis of what you have told us, they would win at court which will mean that you have to pay a fine, plus a surcharge, plus costs, plus compensation. That's likely to add up to something like £500. If you can persuade them to let you settle out of court, you will have to pay the train fare(s) that you dodged plus the railway's admin costs - probably something like £200 in total. Either way, this will probably be more than you have saved by fare dodging.

So wait for the letter, and when you have got it, come back to us. We can give what should be helpful advice on how to reply to get the best outcome.

Just having a quick Google, this does not seem to be an easy (or quick) journey by train. If money is tight, you might want to look at doing it by bus, which doesn't seem to be much slower, and would be cheaper.

Thanks for your response I'll make sure I'll never do that again ever.

 

[Hadders]

Welcome to the forum!

I assume you're deaing with Southeastern as they operate Bromley South station. As noted above the train company has a choice of how to proceed but they will normally offer you an out of court settlement if you co-operate with them and haven't come to their attention before.

What happens next is Southeastern will write to you saying thatthey have received a repeort, are considering prosecuting but asking for your version of events before they decide how to proceed. When it arrives, post a redacted copy of the letter in this thread, along with your draft reply and forum mmebers will be happy to proof read it for you.

If you are offered a settlement then expect to have to pay the cost of the fare avoided at the full Anytime rate, with no credit given for the invalid ticket you purchased, along with an admin fee of around £150. They will also search your online ticket purchasing history and will factor in the cost of any other invalid tickets you've purchased so if money is tight you might want to start thinking how you're going to save up. They don't accept payment in installments.