GA Fraud Email

[faser]

Revived this yesterday from GA:

We are emailing from the Greater Anglia fraud department. We have been investigating industry data and have been led to believe you are potentially not paying full fares on Greater Anglia services. There appear to be a number of incorrectly purchased tickets showing on your account that are a breach of our terms and conditions and considered fraudulent activity. Please refer to our Revenue Protection and Prosecutions Policy: Revenue Protection & Prosecutions Policy .
Attached is a letter for you to read.
Please respond within 7 days to potentially settle this case.

I was just wanting to seek any advice of what the outcome will most likely be.

 

[BRX]

You need to provide a copy of the letter before anyone can give you useful comment.

 

[Puffing Devil]

Also, have you even been stopped for a ticketing problem? Have you had a penalty fare or been reported for investigation? Let us know about anytime your name and address have been taken by GA.

 

[faser]

@Puffing Devil I have never been stopped for a ticketing problem and never had a penalty fare or been reported for investigation. My name and address has never been taken by GA

 

[Hadders]

At this stage DO NOT REPLY or even aknowledge the email in any way until we have established the facts.

 

[faser]

You need to provide a copy of the letter before anyone can give you useful comment.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Jun 2025 ==

At this stage DO NOT REPLY or even aknowledge the email in any way until we have established the facts.

What facts are we wanting to establish?

 

[Fawkes Cat]

At this stage DO NOT REPLY or even aknowledge the email in any way until we have established the facts.

The one thing to add for immediate action is that if you have been doing anything that could be interpreted as fare dodging (n.b. I am most definitely not saying that you have been doing anything like this - I don't want to make an accusation with no evidence!) then you need to stop it at once. That's not any sort of moral judgement: it's just that you are now on GA's radar, and it's not impossible that they will be looking out for you. If they were to catch you in the act of fare dodging, that would make it much, much easier for them to pursue you.

(And thanks for showing us the letter, posted while I was writing this - it might be better to conceal the reference as you don't really want the whole internet (or GA) to know quite who is asking for our help.)

 

[Hadders]

@Puffing Devil I have never been stopped for a ticketing problem and never had a penalty fare or been reported for investigation. My name and address has never been taken by GA

Thanks for confirming this, it is extremely important to establish this as what we say depends on this.

Greater Anglia clearly believe there are some iregularities with your ticket purchases. This could be several things, for example:

Buying short distance tickets at either end of a longer journey, leaving a big gap in the middle (known as doughnutting)
Purchasing railcard discounted tickets that you aren't entitled to (Job Centre Plus is the favourite but there are others)
Buying child discounted tickets
Purchasing tickets onboard (identifed by comparing the ticket purchase time with the barrier scan out data)
High volume of refunds
Excessive volume of delay repay claims

To clarify the position and your options, you basically have two choices:

1. Do nothing. Greater Anglia will continue to write to you threatening police involvement, prosecution for fraud etc. The important principle here is that purchasing tickets is not illegal but using invalid tickets is illegal. In order to successfully prosecute you Greater Anglia has to demonstrate to a court that you used the tickets and they are unlikely to be able to do this unless they caught you red handed. It's possible (but highly unlikley) that Greater Anglia does have evidence to link you to the use of the tickets such as CCTV.

2. Engage with Greater Anglia. They will offer you an out of court settlement costing the fare for the journeys you've made using invalid tickets. They will charge you the full Anytime rate plus an admin fee, typically £150. If you pay what they ask that will be the end of the matter.

If you decide to go with option 1 then do not ever reply or even aknowledge the letters - if you do so you could be incriminating yourself.

Only you can decide what to do. Essentially it comes down to your appetite for risk...

 

[faser]

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Jun 2025 ==


What facts are we wanting to establish?

The one thing to add for immediate action is that if you have been doing anything that could be interpreted as fare dodging (n.b. I am most definitely not saying that you have been doing anything like this - I don't want to make an accusation with no evidence!) then you need to stop it at once. That's not any sort of moral judgement: it's just that you are now on GA's radar, and it's not impossible that they will be looking out for you. If they were to catch you in the act of fare dodging, that would make it much, much easier for them to pursue you.

(And thanks for showing us the letter, posted while I was writing this - it might be better to conceal the reference as you don't really want the whole internet (or GA) to know quite who is asking for our help.)

@Fawkes Cat how do I delete the picture?

 

[Fawkes Cat]

@Fawkes Cat how do I delete the picture?

I think that if you hit the 'edit' button on that post, it should allow you to do so.

 

[faser]

Thanks for confirming this, it is extremely important to establish this as what we say depends on this.

Greater Anglia clearly believe there are some iregularities with your ticket purchases. This could be several things, for example:

Buying short distance tickets at either end of a longer journey, leaving a big gap in the middle (known as doughnutting)
Purchasing railcard discounted tickets that you aren't entitled to (Job Centre Plus is the favourite but there are others)
Buying child discounted tickets
Purchasing tickets onboard (identifed by comparing the ticket purchase time with the barrier scan out data)
High volume of refunds
Excessive volume of delay repay claims

To clarify the position and your options, you basically have two choices:

1. Do nothing. Greater Anglia will continue to write to you threatening police involvement, prosecution for fraud etc. The important principle here is that purchasing tickets is not illegal but using invalid tickets is illegal. In order to successfully prosecute you Greater Anglia has to demonstrate to a court that you used the tickets and they are unlikely to be able to do this unless they caught you red handed. It's possible (but highly unlikley) that Greater Anglia does have evidence to link you to the use of the tickets such as CCTV.

2. Engage with Greater Anglia. They will offer you an out of court settlement costing if you pay them the fare for the journeys you've made using invalid tickets. They will charge you the full Anytime rate pus ad admin fee, typically £150. If you pay what they ask that will be the end of the matter.

If you decide to go with option 1 then do not ever reply or even aknowledge the letters - if you do so you could be incriminating yourself.

Only you can decide what to do. Essentially it comes down to your appetite for risk...

So if I do respond then what will the likely out come be @Hadders

 

[AlterEgo]

So if I do respond then what will the likely out come be @Hadders

We don't know, because we don't know what you've been up to for a start. We have no information at all.

 

[faser]

We don't know, because we don't know what you've been up to

 

[Hadders]

So if I do respond then what will the likely out come be @Hadders

Read point 2 of my earlier response.

 

[AlterEgo]

I’ve been doing a kind of doughnutting, done this 7/8 times

Why would you want to respond? What do you hope to achieve?

 

[Haywain]

I’ve been doing a kind of doughnutting, done this 7/8 times

Above all else, stop doing this immediately. Always buy the correct ticket in future.

 

[faser]

Above all else, stop doing this immediately. Always buy the correct ticket in future.

Yess will do

 

[Haywain]

Yess will do

That will at least mean that GA's email has achieved one of its objectives.

 

[faser]

That will at least mean that GA's email has achieved one of its objectives.

@Haywain will I just receive a fine and nothing more then

 

[Haywain]

@Haywain will I just receive a fine and nothing more then

That depends entirely on what you do next. See post #8 above.

 

[Hadders]

Only a court can impose a fine as a punishment upon conviction. As I explained earlier, it is highly unlikely that GA can prosecute you, unless you incriminate yourself.

You might decide to engage with GA, and pay them a sum of money to make the matter go away (this will feel like paying a fine but technically it isn’t a fine).

 

[faser]

Thanks for confirming this, it is extremely important to establish this as what we say depends on this.

Greater Anglia clearly believe there are some iregularities with your ticket purchases. This could be several things, for example:

Buying short distance tickets at either end of a longer journey, leaving a big gap in the middle (known as doughnutting)
Purchasing railcard discounted tickets that you aren't entitled to (Job Centre Plus is the favourite but there are others)
Buying child discounted tickets
Purchasing tickets onboard (identifed by comparing the ticket purchase time with the barrier scan out data)
High volume of refunds
Excessive volume of delay repay claims

To clarify the position and your options, you basically have two choices:

1. Do nothing. Greater Anglia will continue to write to you threatening police involvement, prosecution for fraud etc. The important principle here is that purchasing tickets is not illegal but using invalid tickets is illegal. In order to successfully prosecute you Greater Anglia has to demonstrate to a court that you used the tickets and they are unlikely to be able to do this unless they caught you red handed. It's possible (but highly unlikley) that Greater Anglia does have evidence to link you to the use of the tickets such as CCTV.

2. Engage with Greater Anglia. They will offer you an out of court settlement costing the fare for the journeys you've made using invalid tickets. They will charge you the full Anytime rate plus an admin fee, typically £150. If you pay what they ask that will be the end of the matter.

If you decide to go with option 1 then do not ever reply or even aknowledge the letters - if you do so you could be incriminating yourself.

Only you can decide what to do. Essentially it comes down to your appetite for risk...

So what your saying is the worst that will happen to me is I will have to pay a fine

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Jun 2025 ==

How can I not incriminate myself ?

 

[Hadders]

So what your saying is the worst that will happen to me is I will have to pay a fine

Read what I said in post#8 and post #21.

I can't really add anything more to what I've said there.

 

[Bungle158]

Courts do fines, the railway companies seek to recoup evaded fares and expenses. It's impossible to say 100% what will happen, that's for the operator to decide.

You will certainly get the chance to have your say before a decision is made, but best post any responses you intend to make. The forum specialists will make sure they don't contain anything which would bring further trouble upon you.

 

[jfollows]

So what your saying is the worst that will happen to me is I will have to pay a fine

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Jun 2025 ==

How can I not incriminate myself ?

Do not reply, do not engage with GA in any way, is the general advice. You can’t incriminate yourself if you say nothing to them. They are fishing in the hope that you “confess” and pay up. Knowing you’re now on their radar, the best advice is not to contact them but stop doing whatever you were doing, because if they catch you “in the act” you’ll be in trouble.

If you decide you want to engage, then please run anything you propose past this forum first.

It’s all in Post #8 above.

 

[Puffing Devil]

To add to the excellent advice above, now that you are going to change your ticket buying behaviour, it would be good to change platforms from the one you've been using to doughnut. If GA see a sudden behaviour change, then that's another piece of evidence.

Please let us know how and where you buy your tickets, and the forum experts will be able to advise on an alternative platform to use, possibly with a different email address to sever the link further.

 

[faser]

To add to the excellent advice above, now that you are going to change your ticket buying behaviour, it would be good to change platforms from the one you've been using to doughnut. If GA see a sudden behaviour change, then that's another piece of evidence.

Please let us know how and where you buy your tickets, and the forum experts will be able to advise on an alternative platform to use, possibly with a different email address to sever the link further.

I use the trainline app on my phone to buy my tickets

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Jun 2025 ==

@Puffing Devil what’s an alternative train app to buy your tickets

 

[Mrmt]

I use the uber app. If you have a gmail account then put ‘+uber’ after address but before the @. Then it is seen as a new email address but goes into your gmail account

 

[Puffing Devil]

I use the trainline app on my phone to buy my tickets

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Jun 2025 ==

@Puffing Devil what’s an alternative train app to buy your tickets

To get away from Trainline, you can use the forum's own ticketing site, which earns a little commission to keep this forum running.

RailUK Tickets, powered by Trainsplit

TrainSplit is a free service that makes it easy to find the cheapest train tickets for your journey.

tickets-beta.railforums.co.uk

There is also an app you can download from that link.

I use the uber app. If you have a gmail account then put ‘+uber’ after address but before the @. Then it is seen as a new email address but goes into your gmail account

Whilst that can trigger a new account, many systems are now aware of the "trick". It's safest to get a new Gmail account if you want a clean break. You can run more than one email address from a single Gmail sign-on.

 

[BRX]

It's amazing how many people seem to believe that trainline is the only place you can buy tickets online.