Pre-court settlement offer for expired railcard

[blimmo]

Which part do you believe is incorrect?

This:

otherwise it will end up costing you even more than they are offering to begin with.

In the small claims track the costs that can be awarded are minimal (comparable to their "admin fee") and the amount they can be awarded is only the loss which is very unlikely to be more than what they've offered.

This is not the usual "they have all the cards" situation, here there is a *lot* of room for OP to negotiate and there is very little risk to doing so since letting it go to court won't increase the cost above what it would cost to settle now.

The only exception to that is if the OP is ruled to have behaved unreasonably, so they should come back here if/when GWR reject their counteroffer and send a letter of claim so they can respond appropriately. Capitulating now has no benefit other than paying GWR a bunch of extra money to avoid having to write a few short letters.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Capitulating now has no benefit other than paying GWR a bunch of extra money to avoid having to write a few short letters.

It also brings the matter to an end.

People have different appetites for argument, so there will be people who will be happy to fight this to the last ditch to delay having to pay. But don't underestimate how many people may just want to do what it takes to make the problem go away as soon as possible.

 

[blimmo]

This is what I meant by "write a few short letters" but yes I appreciate your point. What I want to emphasise is that the risk from not paying up now is low since I think the risk of paying more is usually what drives the desire to make the problem go away.

 

[furlong]

"Unpaid sums" is referenced in NRCoT, though it was most recently updated on April 1st 2026, the previous version applies to OP as the journeys occurred prior to that.
Condition 9.2 is literally laying out the authority of TOCs being permitted "under these Conditions and in accordance with law" to take action whether people think this is incorrect or not makes no difference.

I fear you may be getting confused by the changes and additions they made in 2025 and 2026 which are utterly irrelevant to this thread and should not be mentioned. Those words are simply not present in the contracts governing the travel concerned.

 

[jumble]

Indeed. They are merely asking for what they'd probably get at the CC a win for both sides I'd say. Pay.

Does anyone really think that GWR are going to actually issue proceedings for £90.00 when they have no proof that it was the OP who travelled?

 

[WesternLancer]

Thanks all for your help so far! I've drafted a response to them, figured it's worth a go to try to talk them down, even if unlikely.



If anyone is able to glance over this and offer any relevant pointers, I'd be very grateful.

"Good day,

Thank you for your offer regarding pre-court settlement. I apologise for the journeys I accidentally took without a valid railcard. As I’m sure you’re able to see, I purchased a 26-30 railcard as soon as I was made aware by the Revenue Inspection Officer that my previous railcard had expired. Booking this travel without the relevant railcard was unintentional and not an attempt at fare-dodging.

I would like to pay the amount that the fares would’ve come to had I not bought a railcard ticket, as I believe that paying the outstanding fare amount is fair and reasonable. Having looked through the breakdown sent over and having researched what the full price fares would have been, I can see that the difference is £40.75. I am happy to pay this amount to settle any outstanding amount owed.

Best,
X"

Hi. Did you send this or something like it?
Just wondering if you have any updates as another similar case has been posted today.