Wrong railcard used for months

[Wtaiga]

Hello all,

Today on the train I've had such a humiliating experience and I'd like to know what will happen to me and if it's something that can be appealed.

Today I was travelling on the West Midlands Railway from Walsall to Birmingham New Street at 8:00. I buy my tickets on Trainline and I have a 16-25 railcard. Normally nothing happens when there's a ticket inspector, they scan my ticket, sometimes ask for my railcard and move on. But today I got stopped when they scanned my railcard.
They mentioned I used the wrong railcard for my ticket. I accidently used a 16-17. They asked to see my ticket history, and sure enough the prices on the tickets matched 16-17 for the last 2-3 months.

The ticket inspector wasn't having any of it when I tried explaining that it was a misclick or something and that I didnt purposefully try to get a ticket for cheap.
I must have accidently selected the 16-17 railcard when buying a ticket. And then I never double checked what railcard was selected when buying new tickets for the next few months because I'm in a rush most of the time.

I'm worried that I'm going to have to pay the train ticket fees for all the tickets bought in the last 2-3 months. As well, if its possible to appeal some of the cost because train inspectors never commented on the fact I was using the wrong railcard for the last 3 months. I genuinely didn't try to get a cheaper cost like the train inspector thought I did, I'm just stupid and blind haha.

 

[TheJester]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

Other members will be along soon to advise further but you can expect West Midlands to investigate your ticket buying history.
They will most likely ask you to pay the full fare for every journey you made with the wrong railcard.
The 16-17 railcard provides a greater discount than the 16-25 and is often misused by people who are not entitled to one.

Did you receive any paperwork from the inspector in the train?

 

[jfollows]

Welcome to the forum!
It’s likely that your travel will be treated as having no valid ticket, because the railcard discount claimed is incorrect.
In turn, this opens you up to a possibility of prosecution because it’s a criminal offence.
However, it’s likely that WMR will agree to settle out of court, for payment of invalid travel plus their investigation costs. They will examine your Trainline purchase history.
Your ability to appeal is limited. Come back here for advice when they next contact you.

 

[Wtaiga]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

Other members will be along soon to advise further but you can expect West Midlands to investigate your ticket buying history.
They will most likely ask you to pay the full fare for every journey you made with the wrong railcard.
The 16-17 railcard provides a greater discount than the 16-25 and is often misused by people who are not entitled to one.

Did you receive any paperwork from the inspector in the train?

Hello, thank you for the welcome!

They just gave me a receipt with a notice number, and text saying that the slip entitles me to complete my journey within 90 min.

I'm fine with paying the fee too (although it will suck), I'm just more annoyed at the fact that previous ticket inspectors never commented on the fact and could have made my fine smaller much earlier aha

 

[Fawkes Cat]

They just gave me a receipt with a notice number, and text saying that the slip entitles me to complete my journey within 90 min.

We find it is a good idea to hang on to everything you are given or sent, so it would make sense to keep the receipt you got to finish your journey.

 

[z444z]

I'm fine with paying the fee too (although it will suck), I'm just more annoyed at the fact that previous ticket inspectors never commented on the fact and could have made my fine smaller much earlier aha

As frustrating as this is, it’s not going to help you at this stage, they will simply say that it’s your responsibility to ensure you have a valid ticket, not theirs.

It would be a good idea at this stage to add up the undiscounted Anytime Single fares for each journey you’ve made with the expired railcard - a return will be charged as 2x singles - and then add on £250 to cover the admin fee - which is more likely to be around £150 but it’s best to plan for worst case scenario. This might be quite expensive. If you have the amount you calculate it would be sensible to set it aside, and if you don’t you should start saving as well as thinking about how you could get this money at short notice, for example borrowing from family or taking out a loan.

 

[WesternLancer]

Hello all,

Today on the train I've had such a humiliating experience and I'd like to know what will happen to me and if it's something that can be appealed.

I am afraid there is no right of Appeal about what has happened. If someone is issued with a Penalty Fare (£100 + train fare reduced to £50 if paid promptly) that does have a right of appeal but I am assuming they did not issue a Penalty Fare (they have to be issued on the spot - they are never sent to people afterwards), but that instead your name and address details were taken so that they can write to you about the incident later. Is that correct?

If they gave you any paperwork at all it is important to keep that safe now.

Today I was travelling on the West Midlands Railway from Walsall to Birmingham New Street at 8:00. I buy my tickets on Trainline and I have a 16-25 railcard. Normally nothing happens when there's a ticket inspector, they scan my ticket, sometimes ask for my railcard and move on. But today I got stopped when they scanned my railcard.
They mentioned I used the wrong railcard for my ticket. I accidently used a 16-17. They asked to see my ticket history, and sure enough the prices on the tickets matched 16-17 for the last 2-3 months.

Unfortunately if you did not hold that Railcard they regard this as you not holding a valid ticket at all - unfortunately travel without a valid ticket in England is a criminal offence which means if they wish to do so they can prosecute you in magistrates court for this - the result of that would be a fine from the court, costs, and a criminal record against your name.

To avoid this you will have to ask them if they would be prepared to let you settle the matter out of court by paying them the fares that they deem you owe. They usually do not make any allowance for the fares you have paid albeit with the wrong railcard discount.

The ticket inspector wasn't having any of it when I tried explaining that it was a misclick or something and that I didnt purposefully try to get a ticket for cheap.
I must have accidently selected the 16-17 railcard when buying a ticket. And then I never double checked what railcard was selected when buying new tickets for the next few months because I'm in a rush most of the time.

Lots of people do this deliberately because the discount 50% not 34%. people also do it by accident I am sure. There is no way the staff can tell if it was a genuine mistake or a deliberate evasion of paying the correct fare.
The railway takes the view it is the passengers job to make sure they have a valid ticket and apply the correct Railcard discount.

If Trainline don't offer suitable safeguards against this mistake then you might want to switch to another ticket selling site that is better.

I'm worried that I'm going to have to pay the train ticket fees for all the tickets bought in the last 2-3 months.

Unfortunately this is exactly what they will seek - they will be able to access your Trainline account (even if you delete the account so do not delete it because that makes it more difficult to check things yourself) and check for any other tickets bought with the wrong railcard - they will seek payment from you for new tickets for all of those journeys, probably at the full priced adult Anytime single fare. You need to look at your account and calculate what this totals to make sure you have the money to pay it - if you can't pay it they will most likely take you to court. This happens to lost of people, so they have a regular system to do this.

As well, if its possible to appeal some of the cost because train inspectors never commented on the fact I was using the wrong railcard for the last 3 months.

It won't be possible to do this from what we see on here

I genuinely didn't try to get a cheaper cost like the train inspector thought I did,

You can explain that to them when they contact you, as it important they do not think you have been deliberately evading the fares.


What will happen is they will write or e-mail you in the coming weeks or months - it could be some time - it's vital that you receive that so keep an eye on hard copy post / email and spam. It's vital you respond to any communication from them about this or it will just end up escalating to court.

When you hear from them head back here and people can help you reply to them in the best way.

 

[Iggy12a]

Assuming your journey was at 8am on a weekday, then I don't believe that your 16-25 Railcard would have given you any discount on your ticket due to the £12 minimum fare applying before 10am.
You are meant to know the conditions applicable to your Railcard. So to the railway, claiming that you accidentally selected the wrong Railcard is going to sound less plausible.

 

[AlterEgo]

Assuming your journey was at 8am on a weekday, then I don't believe that your 16-25 Railcard would have given you any discount on your ticket due to the £12 minimum fare applying before 10am.
You are meant to know the conditions applicable to your Railcard. So to the railway, claiming that you accidentally selected the wrong Railcard is going to sound less plausible.

Yep, no minimum fare on the 16-17 Saver.

WMT will ask for the full anytime fares for each time it's been misused.

 

[furlong]

Are we right to assume you are not aged 16 or 17?

 

[RPI]

This is a common method of people avoiding their correct fare by either obtaining the 50% discount (rather than 34%) or by circumnavigating the £12 minimum fare for a 16-25 Railcard, some people will do this hoping that whoever checks the ticket just sees that there a Railcard discount as opposed to the correct Railcard.

Strangely enough, no-one ever seems to accidentally put the 16-25 Railcard instead of the 16-17 saver.

I will add, I'm not saying that this is what the OP has done, simply applying context as to why the matter was reported.

 

[WesternLancer]

Strangely enough, no-one ever seems to accidentally put the 16-25 Railcard instead of the 16-17

You’d think there would be back office teams working out refunds that needed to be paid back to 16-17 railcard holders who mistakenly selected 16-25 railcards persistently, and were owed sums to be refunded having overpaid their fares.

 

[Wtaiga]

I am afraid there is no right of Appeal about what has happened. If someone is issued with a Penalty Fare (£100 + train fare reduced to £50 if paid promptly) that does have a right of appeal but I am assuming they did not issue a Penalty Fare (they have to be issued on the spot - they are never sent to people afterwards), but that instead your name and address details were taken so that they can write to you about the incident later. Is that correct?

If they gave you any paperwork at all it is important to keep that safe now.


Unfortunately if you did not hold that Railcard they regard this as you not holding a valid ticket at all - unfortunately travel without a valid ticket in England is a criminal offence which means if they wish to do so they can prosecute you in magistrates court for this - the result of that would be a fine from the court, costs, and a criminal record against your name.

To avoid this you will have to ask them if they would be prepared to let you settle the matter out of court by paying them the fares that they deem you owe. They usually do not make any allowance for the fares you have paid albeit with the wrong railcard discount.


Lots of people do this deliberately because the discount 50% not 34%. people also do it by accident I am sure. There is no way the staff can tell if it was a genuine mistake or a deliberate evasion of paying the correct fare.
The railway takes the view it is the passengers job to make sure they have a valid ticket and apply the correct Railcard discount.

If Trainline don't offer suitable safeguards against this mistake then you might want to switch to another ticket selling site that is better.



Unfortunately this is exactly what they will seek - they will be able to access your Trainline account (even if you delete the account so do not delete it because that makes it more difficult to check things yourself) and check for any other tickets bought with the wrong railcard - they will seek payment from you for new tickets for all of those journeys, probably at the full priced adult Anytime single fare. You need to look at your account and calculate what this totals to make sure you have the money to pay it - if you can't pay it they will most likely take you to court. This happens to lost of people, so they have a regular system to do this.



It won't be possible to do this from what we see on here

You can explain that to them when they contact you, as it important they do not think you have been deliberately evading the fares.


What will happen is they will write or e-mail you in the coming weeks or months - it could be some time - it's vital that you receive that so keep an eye on hard copy post / email and spam. It's vital you respond to any communication from them about this or it will just end up escalating to court.

When you hear from them head back here and people can help you reply to them in the best way.

Wow, thank you so much for the detailed reply. In general thank you everyone for all the replies too!
I'll for sure come back here when I get their response, and I'll start calculating the costs...

Ngl you kind of made me scared now with the criminal record part, as I do not want to have one espcially if it was caused because of a careless mistake on my part haha
I hope it all goes smoothly...

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Apr 2026 ==

Assuming your journey was at 8am on a weekday, then I don't believe that your 16-25 Railcard would have given you any discount on your ticket due to the £12 minimum fare applying before 10am.
You are meant to know the conditions applicable to your Railcard. So to the railway, claiming that you accidentally selected the wrong Railcard is going to sound less plausible.

I did not know that at the time. The ticket inspector mentioned it to me as well, and I genuinely was shocked to find that out. I should have read it, but I usually skip terms and conditions like most people do.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Apr 2026 ==

Are we right to assume you are not aged 16 or 17?

Correct, I am 21

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Apr 2026 ==

This is a common method of people avoiding their correct fare by either obtaining the 50% discount (rather than 34%) or by circumnavigating the £12 minimum fare for a 16-25 Railcard, some people will do this hoping that whoever checks the ticket just sees that there a Railcard discount as opposed to the correct Railcard.

Strangely enough, no-one ever seems to accidentally put the 16-25 Railcard instead of the 16-17 saver.

I will add, I'm not saying that this is what the OP has done, simply applying context as to why the matter was reported.

Yeah, I understand their reasoning and its perfectly understandable. If i were in their shoes I'd probably assume the same. But I genuinely didn't do it on purpose I'm just stupid.

 

[WesternLancer]

Wow, thank you so much for the detailed reply. In general thank you everyone for all the replies too!
I'll for sure come back here when I get their response, and I'll start calculating the costs...

Ngl you kind of made me scared now with the criminal record part, as I do not want to have one espcially if it was caused because of a careless mistake on my part haha
I hope it all goes smoothly...

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Apr 2026 ==


I did not know that at the time. The ticket inspector mentioned it to me as well, and I genuinely was shocked to find that out. I should have read it, but I usually skip terms and conditions like most people do.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Apr 2026 ==


Correct, I am 21

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Apr 2026 ==


Yeah, I understand their reasoning and its perfectly understandable. If i were in their shoes I'd probably assume the same. But I genuinely didn't do it on purpose I'm just stupid.

Don’t worry about the criminal record bit. With help from here you should be able to avoid that.
Unfortunately there will be a cost to you to resolve it however.

Head back when you hear from them. But do watch out for their communication over the coming weeks and months. At least for 7 months.