Northern incident

[Greenlegged78]

CCTV footage is rarely stored for very long, sometimes it's stored for just a few days, and sometimes it's of too poor quality to determine a lot from anyway. Also, more importantly, how detailed of a description of what you look like could they have? Do a lot of other people look like you?

Do you think I'm like 95% abt this incident or just not enough to say and only time will tell ?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 Jul 2025 ==

Do you think I'm like 95% abt this incident or just not enough to say and only time will tell ?

95% ok *

 

[Starmill]

Will they look at the overtravelling to manchester Victoria? Does it rlly look that obvious ? Thanks

They will definitely be extremely suspicious of you because there are a significant number of people caught on Northern who meet all of the following criteria:

- have presented a Network Railcard during a ticket check
- have applied some other kind of railcard to their tickets
- aren't even entitled to the railcard type they've applied, so could never have been entitled to a railcard discount on the ticket they were using

That's the reason I suggested that you should purchase the correct railcard for the tickets you were using, keeping hold of some evidence of now of doing so, even if you don't actually need to use it immediately.

If you're not actually eligible for the railcard you were claiming that you had, you're at risk of being treated more severely than if you were. To put it another way, Northern are more motivated to recover money from people whom they judge were deliberately trying to get away without paying the correct fare, and a number of people have all been using the same way to do that recently by buying a Network Railcard. For example not long ago a tiktoker suggested buying a Network Railcard and then adding a different one to the ticket as a way to "hack" the system by getting a railcard discount that one is not entitled to use.

This is one of the possible motivations Northern may have for pulling the history of the ticket sales.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 Jul 2025 ==

Do you think I'm like 95% abt this incident or just not enough to say and only time will tell ?

In my opinion you should not worry about CCTV footage. However, if you aren't between the ages of 16 and 25 inclusive and also aren't a mature student, then you probably should be worried about how that will look.

 

[Greenlegged78]

They will definitely be extremely suspicious of you because there are a significant number of people caught on Northern who meet all of the following criteria:

- have presented a Network Railcard during a ticket check
- have applied some other kind of railcard to their tickets
- aren't even entitled to the railcard type they've applied, so could never have been entitled to a railcard discount on the ticket they were using

That's the reason I suggested that you should purchase the correct railcard for the tickets you were using, keeping hold of some evidence of now of doing so, even if you don't actually need to use it immediately.

If you're not actually eligible for the railcard you were claiming that you had, you're at risk of being treated more severely than if you were. To put it another way, Northern are more motivated to recover money from people whom they judge were deliberately trying to get away without paying the correct fare, and a number of people have all been using the same way to do that recently by buying a Network Railcard. For example not long ago a tiktoker suggested buying a Network Railcard and then adding a different one to the ticket as a way to "hack" the system by getting a railcard discount that one is not entitled to use.

This is one of the possible motivations Northern may have for pulling the history of the ticket sales.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 Jul 2025 ==


In my opinion you should not worry about CCTV footage. However, if you aren't between the ages of 16 and 25 inclusive and also aren't a mature student, then you probably should be worried about how that will look.

Is it enough to get criminally prosecuted withoit a settlement offer ? That's all I care abt

 

[Starmill]

Is it enough to get criminally prosecuted withoit a settlement offer ? That's all I care abt

I'm not sure I'm able to follow exactly what you're asking with a few of your questions I'm sorry. However on the general question of will you be offered a settlement, then the general answer here is yes absolutely.

 

[AlterEgo]

Given you have “78” in your username let’s clear this up really quickly, because it’s important:

Do you qualify for a 16-25 railcard, yes or no?

 

[Greenlegged78]

Given you have “78” in your username let’s clear this up really quickly, because it’s important:

Do you qualify for a 16-25 railcard, yes or no?

yes I do

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 Jul 2025 ==

yes I do

 

[furlong]

Well my starting point would be the original explanation.
That you don't live in the South East and consequently the Network Railcard is completely useless to you.
A 16-25 railcard offers better benefits than the Network Railcard for someone who qualifies.

Consequently this was clearly all a simple purchasing mistake and as the railway hasn't lost any money, you should apologise, say what you've done to fix it, and ask if they'll agree to take no further action - especially in the light of the recent ORR report. (We can pull up the relevant references - I quoted them on another thread recently.)

Should they not agree to let you off, then you should be prepared to escalate through the usual channels - Transport Focus, the ORR (which wrote the report) and your M.P. - and kick up a fuss about them choosing to disregard the report (which was only saying what any sensible person would have said should already have been happening and shouldn't have needed a report to tell them).

It is a scandal that the "Network Railcard" has still not been renamed. We regularly see confusion caused by its use of a name relating to branding that ceased to exist in 1994! That's over 30 years ago now! Today we have "Network Rail" and people assume "Network" relates to the entire railway network. Had it been called the "South East Railcard" (for example) surely your mum would never have made this mistake? So I think it is fair for the railway to accept an element of culpability as it is certainly within its power to have taken measures that ought to have eliminated this category of mistake.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Jul 2025 ==

Can you please also tell us if it is a digital railcard on your phone or a paper railcard posted to you.
(Is there anything displayed prominently on either format of railcard nowadays that explains its limited geographical area?)

 

[Cantab26]

Ok so
When I caught the train from mcr oxf rd to Salford central it was x:27 to x:46
And the train from mcr victoria to bradford interchange
Was x:57 to (x+1): 53
So basically I had stayed on the train for one more stop and left at mcr victoria to catch the next train rather than booking a separate train from Salford central
It takes about 6-15 minutes to get there and I wanted to know if it looked suspicious
Mcr Victoria is the next stop after Salford central
I guess I was trying to save money and see how wrong that was of me I was also going through a lot which doesn't excuse anything but yeah
The x's represent numbers of the first two digits of the time (24 hours) and the x+1 is an hour after if that makes sense

How did you get from Manchester Oxford Road to Salford Central?

 

[Starmill]

Consequently this was clearly all a simple purchasing mistake and as the railway hasn't lost any money, you should apologise, say what you've done to fix it, and ask if they'll agree to take no further action - especially in the light of the recent ORR report. (We can pull up the relevant references - I quoted them on another thread recently.)

This is partly why I made the suggestion above to purchase a 16-25 railcard now even if not travelling on it again immediately. I still think that this would be a good idea...