Can this be disputed?

[Rumje]

Hello,
First time posting so apologies if I'm not approaching this correctly!

I received a penalty fare about 20 minutes ago as I wasn't aware my rail card had lapsed on 02/05/2025 (I don't go to the centre very often). I was travelling from Sutton Coldfield (my local station) to Birmingham New Street.

What are the chances of a successful appeal?

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

**Edit**
I've attached a picture of the penalty fare I received.

 

[tatitiliti]

Virtually zero. Penalty fares are intended for honest mistakes that violate railway bylaws which is exactly what happened. Definitely appeal to stop the clock on it escalating to prosecution and, when it fails, pay up the £50 + anytime single fare.

 

[Starmill]

What was the expiry date of your old railcard again?

For any further information it's necessary to see what you are were given. Can you upload a photo of the penalty fare with any personally identifying information covered up please?

 

[Western Sunset]

I assume your railcard expired on 5th February?

 

[Rumje]

What was the expiry date of your old railcard again?

For any further information it's necessary to see what you are were given. Can you upload a photo of the penalty fare with any personally identifying information covered up please?

It expired 05/02/2025. I've attached the penalty notice I was given. Seems a bit harsh as I bought a ticket but appears to convey that I didn't from my point of view.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 29 Mar 2025 ==

I assume your railcard expired on 5th February?

Yes correct. I looked through my emails and the expiry notice went to a folder in my gmail called 'updates' which is exclusively emails from Rightmove and UberEats from the looks of it.
I would have hoped the email would have gone to my focused inbox, but hey ho.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 29 Mar 2025 ==

Virtually zero. Penalty fares are intended for honest mistakes that violate railway bylaws which is exactly what happened. Definitely appeal to stop the clock on it escalating to prosecution and, when it fails, pay up the £50 + anytime single fare.

I've made the appeal and will wait to hear what I get back; not holding out much hope.

Thanks for the replies!

 

[WesternLancer]

It expired 05/02/2025. I've attached the penalty notice I was given. Seems a bit harsh as I bought a ticket but appears to convey that I didn't from my point of view.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 29 Mar 2025 ==


Yes correct. I looked through my emails and the expiry notice went to a folder in my gmail called 'updates' which is exclusively emails from Rightmove and UberEats from the looks of it.
I would have hoped the email would have gone to my focused inbox, but hey ho.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 29 Mar 2025 ==


I've made the appeal and will wait to hear what I get back; not holding out much hope.

Thanks for the replies!

Little benefit from your point of view but a lot of expiredcrailcard instances get reported for revenue investigation (in order to see how much travel has been undertaken with the expired card and then charge full whack for it all plus a £150 ish admin charge.

So a penalty fare is actually a way less worse option (I hesitate to say better option). Just don’t miss the prompt payment deadline.

 

[styles]

Very unlikely to be successful.

If you buy tickets online it may prompt a check of your purchase history to see if there are any other journeys where the Railcard had expired but a discount had been applied.

Pay the penalty charge, learn the lesson unfortunately.

For what it's worth I hate these email services trying to categorise my emails into priority/important/updates/other and disable this feature wherever I can. It's annoying in my personal Gmail and annoying in my work Outlook. In future, I recommend setting up calendar appointments on something like Google Calendar a few days before your Railcard is due to expire (or your annual subscriptions are due for renewal, car is due MOT, etc). An extra safeguard against accidentally missing a reminder email/text/letter.

 

[enyoueffsea]

No different to trying to get out of a fine for expired road tax or MOT. It’s your responsibility to ensure you are compliant before any journey and “nobody told me” isn’t an excuse.

 

[Rumje]

Little benefit from your point of view but a lot of expiredcrailcard instances get reported for revenue investigation (in order to see how much travel has been undertaken with the expired card and then charge full whack for it all plus a £150 ish admin charge.

So a penalty fare is actually a way less worse option (I hesitate to say better option). Just don’t miss the prompt payment deadline.

Very unlikely to be successful.

If you buy tickets online it may prompt a check of your purchase history to see if there are any other journeys where the Railcard had expired but a discount had been applied.

Pay the penalty charge, learn the lesson unfortunately.

For what it's worth I hate these email services trying to categorise my emails into priority/important/updates/other and disable this feature wherever I can. It's annoying in my personal Gmail and annoying in my work Outlook. In future, I recommend setting up calendar appointments on something like Google Calendar a few days before your Railcard is due to expire (or your annual subscriptions are due for renewal, car is due MOT, etc). An extra safeguard against accidentally missing a reminder email/text/letter.

No different to trying to get out of a fine for expired road tax or MOT. It’s your responsibility to ensure you are compliant before any journey and “nobody told me” isn’t an excuse.

Thanks for the info guys. I'll await the rejected appeal and pay the fine. Guess I've learned the lesson from not putting a reminder in my calendar.

 

[Starmill]

I don't think there's any reason to believe the Penalty Fare isn't valid based on the information you've provided. A common reason they're not valid though is because there wasn't any signage displayed at the first station to warn about Penalty Fares. That can be a valid ground for an appeal. In this case it may not be relevant, unless you can clearly remember. Are you able to get to your origin station to check it? You have three stages of appeal although I wouldn't encourage you to just appeal for no reason other than to delay payment.

 

[Jim the Jim]

See it from the railway's point of view: for every person who genuinely forgets to renew their railcard, there's another person who deliberately tries to chance it by using an out-of-date one and calling it a "mistake" when they get caught.

 

[AlterEgo]

See it from the railway's point of view: for every person who genuinely forgets to renew their railcard, there's another person who deliberately tries to chance it by using an out-of-date one and calling it a "mistake" when they get caught.

The vast majority of people are paying what would otherwise be the correct fare, and the only thing evaded or avoided is about £35 of railcard renewal.

 

[Hadders]

It's unfortunate when something like this happens but a Penalty Fare is an appropriate remedy. Think of it as like getting a parking ticket - frustrating, a bit expensive but best to pay up and chalk it up to experience.

It's unusual these days for a Penalty Fare to be issued for an expired railcard. What normally happens is details are taken for investigation in the back-office. The train company researches your online ticket purchasing history and charges you for every journey made since the railcard expired. I suspect this inspector took a pragmatic approach here because the railcard had only recently expired and a back office investigation was unlikely to reveal a significant number of additional journeys.