Is there any chance that this lack of follow-up is due to GWR possibly gagging the accused with confidentiality clauses as part of the settlement?
It may or may not be relevant that in the other thread where GWR and our poster are disputing around £6k, there's been no mention yet of a confidentiality clause, although the case seems not to be far from court. That suggests to me that there are no gagging clauses.
I think I jokingly suggested this having thought it seems odd that none of the cases had told us how it played out....
It seems extremely unlikely to me, because it's normally the case that an NDA is a condition of receiving money (buying silence), not paying it out.
That's just tough luck, because this website is already doing that. An NDA isn't going to stop that.
And just what would be in it for the person paying GWR the money owed? Nothing at all.
But as per this discussion with no actual evidence that your commendable efforts have been successful, which GWR might view as being enough to tip the less brave into paying up.
Not having to pay the full amount requested and being permitted to pay a much lower amount or attend a court hearing.
The question was what is in it for the people who are paying the settlement (important word, that) to then keep quiet? GWR would not be able to take action against them for spilling the beans.
That GWR agree to accept a lower amount and GWR don't say "we will see you in court". As we know a lot of people will do a lot to avoid a trip to court and being "prosecuted and ending up with a criminal record". We know that isn't the risk here but we know GWR's tone does nudge the unaware in that direction of thinking and worrying. The agreement could be worded to say something along the lines of (in layman's speak) "you agree to receive a discount on your unpaid fares of X in return for not telling anyone that you got this discount, if you break the agreement the balance of £Y then becomes owing". Throw in some spurious legal buzz words to put the willies up people and objective achieved for GWR.
That would be completely unenforceable - GWR cannot accept a settlement and then go to court because they don't like the behaviour of the payee subsequently. The courts would have none of it.
That though is the nature of non-disclosure agreements surely - the two parties agree something mutually agreeable and as part of that an NDA is included.
They would. You can get sued for breaking an NDA, that is what they are for.
There has been at least one case where a serial evader has avoided prosecution and their employer or regulator being informed by handing over large sums of money. I doubt they had any leverage to insist on non-disclosure as the next thing is that the details of the case and settlement are leaked anyway and the employer and regulator find out.
That case involved a potential prosecution, unlike the civil cases we are discussing.
This is what I was trying to say! Thank you for saying it much more eloquently than I achieved!
This is quite a common thing online in advice spaces.
Out of interest, what were the two stations and have TfL confirmed or not?
Redhill and Dorking (Deepdene). I consider myself fairly savvy but I couldn't quite tell from the GWR or TfL website. The single fare finder would show me a fare to "Dorking Station" but that doesn't help when there are three Dorking stations but you could travel to either Dorking Main or Dorking Deepdene depending on the route. I recalled being told you couldn't (at least at the time) use contactless between Reading and Gatwick, so thought I would quickly check.
The authoritative source on the validity of PAYG beyond the London Zones is the National Rail Enquiries website, specifically the page on contactless PAYG which includes a map showing the validity (current version here).
Thank you! Would you like a job running twitter for GWR, that would have been a much better answer!
