Greater Anglia Fraud Email/Letter

Hello,
Seems like Greater Anglia are cracking down. I didn’t check here before replying to their opening email:
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 .
So I replied:
Good afternoon,

I hope you are well.

I’ve received an email/letter about irregularities with my travel. I don’t have any supporting evidence as I’m not sure what you’re referring to so if you could provide more information that would be greatly appreciated.
Hopefully, I’ve not incriminated myself in any way. But I was interested to see what information they were holding on me.
I have received an answer this morning, I’ll attach the table the sent also.
Good morning,

Thank you for contacting us regarding your case.

Your account was flagged by one of our Revenue Protection Officers due to a ticket irregularity when they came across you whilst you were travelling on Greater Anglia services.

Upon further investigation, we have also noticed that your tickets are not correlating with the full journey you are taking.

Click to expand...

This involves tickets purchased between Colchester - Marks Tey and Clacton-On-Sea and Colchester only.

On the day you was spoken to you had alighted the train at Stratford, and the ticket shown was between Clacton-On-Sea and Colchester only. Therefore, can you provide any other valid tickets for your full journey taken please?

Click to expand...

Please see attached other journeys where the full fare may have gone unpaid. Could you explain these journeys please?

At this stage we would like to offer you an opportunity to explain these irregularities on your account, and based on your response the decision will be to either offer you the opportunity to repay any funds relating to these journeys (plus our administration fee), (b) to forward your case to our prosecutions department for processing or (c) close your case (if sufficient evidence has been provided and proved).

Click to expand...

I’m asking on here because the advice seems to be unless they stop you in person just ignore the emails. But they have specified about me being stopped by someone. What do we think, should I ignore emails going forward or is this slightly too risky?
And yes, if I did have fare dodging days, they are now behind me.

Were you actually stopped?

AlterEgo said:

Were you actually stopped?

Click to expand...

Yes, as their email states as well.

And what happened when you were stopped? Did they just take your details or did they also sell you a ticket on the spot for the journey you were making? Were you interviewed formally?

When they stopped me they scanned my ticket, and I said that I would get off at Stratford and make my way back to Colchester. They then checked my previous journeys, to see that this is a journey I do semi regularly. They didn’t take my details, we had a chat but I was not interviewed formally.

How recently were you stopped?

It was last Thursday

zly said:

I’m asking on here because the advice seems to be unless they stop you in person just ignore the emails. But they have specified about me being stopped by someone. What do we think, should I ignore emails going forward or is this slightly too risky?

Click to expand...

I don't see what stops them potentially prosecuting you for the incident at Stratford. If you hadn't been stopped all they know is that someone using the identified account has potentially been short faring.

So the consensus is, I pay fees while admitting as little fault as possible

I don't think it's as simple as that. You were stopped at Stratford on the journey of which tickets they are questioning. There are 59 journeys which they have listed. They have six months from last Thursday to string you along asking for explanations of all these journeys.

I suspect if you ignore things you will simply get a bill for something along the lines of 59 anytime singles Colchester to Stratford (call it 59x£36.10 less what you have already paid if you are lucky) to keep it out of court. I make that over £2000. But what is interesting is that TOCs are increasingly using the word fraud explicitly.

This is what happens when you are caught I'm afraid.

If they didn’t take your name/address, caution you or issue you with an MG11, it will be very hard for them to prosecute you criminally. Also, sensibly, you admitted to nothing in your reply.

If it were me, I would ignore all further email correspondence and come back here with a photo for further guidance if you receive a letter in the post.

Swedenorer said:

I don't think it's as simple as that. You were stopped at Stratford on the journey of which tickets they are questioning. There are 59 journeys which they have listed. They have six months from last Thursday to string you along asking for explanations of all these journeys.

I suspect if you ignore things you will simply get a bill for something along the lines of 59 anytime singles Colchester to Stratford (call it 59x£36.10 less what you have already paid if you are lucky) to keep it out of court. I make that over £2000. But what is interesting is that TOCs are increasingly using the word fraud explicitly.

This is what happens when you are caught I'm afraid.

Click to expand...

Thank you for your reply. I also find it interesting using fraud so freely. When you say six months, why that specific amount of time? Do you think there’s argument that the dates they’ve listed that are six months ago could be null?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Jul 2026 ==

tatitiliti said:

If they didn’t take your name/address, caution you or issue you with an MG11, it will be very hard for them to prosecute you criminally. Also, sensibly, you admitted to nothing in your reply.

If it were me, I would ignore all further email correspondence and come back here with a photo for further guidance if you receive a letter in the post.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. In theory that don’t have my address so can’t send me a letter. All their information seems to be through trainline, they don’t even have my legal name.

Swedenorer said:

I don't think it's as simple as that. You were stopped at Stratford on the journey of which tickets they are questioning. There are 59 journeys which they have listed. They have six months from last Thursday to string you along asking for explanations of all these journeys.

I suspect if you ignore things you will simply get a bill for something along the lines of 59 anytime singles Colchester to Stratford (call it 59x£36.10 less what you have already paid if you are lucky) to keep it out of court. I make that over £2000. But what is interesting is that TOCs are increasingly using the word fraud explicitly.

This is what happens when you are caught I'm afraid.

Click to expand...

The term ‘fraud’ (re Fraud Act 2006) is used to scare people into compliance and is not routinely used for small- or medium-scale fare evasion (in fact many large-scale cases are still dealt with out of court or prosecuted under byelaws). Not least because the burden of evidence required for Fraud Act prosecutions is one of the highest in our legal system.

The best and only realistic shot GA has here is civil recovery (which is increasingly being used by operators) - but as OP (sensibly) didn’t put his address or legal name on his account and GA didn’t get either during the stop, GA may not bother with the cost of obtaining it through the bank, so I would only *consider* replying further if I got postal correspondence.

zly said:

Thank you for your reply. I also find it interesting using fraud so freely. When you say six months, why that specific amount of time? Do you think there’s argument that the dates they’ve listed that are six months ago could be null?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Jul 2026 ==


Thanks for the advice. In theory that don’t have my address so can’t send me a letter. All their information seems to be through trainline, they don’t even have my legal name.

Click to expand...

6 months is how long GA have to process court papers. They can still charge you will offences previous to that time period, but the latest offence must be within that timeframe.

They will have your address from your ticket purchase history. This way of processing your fare avoidance was likely stated by a Senior Conductor who cannot issue the MG11 or Penalty Fare. They have passed on your scan data for the back office (Digital Fraud team) to investigate.

Whether that constitutes enough evidence for a court case? Probably not, but you have been caught and they know your pattern of ticket purchases. If you fail to engage, it's possible they will do a sting at one of your stations and proceed from that point - I don't think it's likely this will just go away.

SCDR_WMR said:

6 months is how long GA have to process court papers. They can still charge you will offences previous to that time period, but the latest offence must be within that timeframe.

Click to expand...

Not correct. Under S127 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980, a Magistrates' Court cannot try a summary offence unless the information/charge is laid before the court within six months of the date the offence was allegedly committed. Both the Railway Byelaws and S5(3) of the Regulation of Railways Act 1889 are summary-only offences. Therefore, each individual journey is a separate offence in law. The six-month clock runs independently for every single date an offence occurred.

TOCs will certainly use the older data as leverage; they cannot bring criminal charges for the offences committed outside the six-month statutory limit.

If a prosecution is brought under the Fraud Act 2006, the legal time limits change entirely, though we all agree the chances of that happening for the majority of cases we see on the forum are vanishingly small.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Jul 2026 ==

zly said:

Thank you for your reply. I also find it interesting using fraud so freely. When you say six months, why that specific amount of time? Do you think there’s argument that the dates they’ve listed that are six months ago could be null?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Jul 2026 ==

Click to expand...

If they have not brought the matter to court within 6 months of the offence date, they are out of time. See above.

SCDR_WMR said:

If you fail to engage, it's possible they will do a sting at one of your stations and proceed from that point - I don't think it's likely this will just go away.

Click to expand...

For this reason, if zly decides not to engage (I'm not sure I wouldn't, due to fallibility of human memory they may well know more him/her than they believe - how sure are they that they didn't say "yes" during the "chat" to a question like "did you buy these tickets?") then they should (as well as stopping evading fares) get a completely new train ticketing account. Why not use the forum one?