Greater Anglia Penalty Fare - Contactless Mistake at Kelvedon".

Well done Mike taking a personal interest and putting an the OP’s mind at rest.

AlterEgo said:

That does not make the penalty fare necessarily valid, but it does seem likely that is what happened.

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Indeed it doesn't. Words like entrapment come to mind.

AlterEgo said:

Will bet a tenner the OP is from a different demographic background to me, because this kind of tomfoolery doesn't get tried on with 40yo white blokes who might, just might, tell you to go and do one and stand their ground.

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Yes, being 6'5" tall helps here too! My non white, shorter other half had a much tougher time during the 2020 silliness, but ironically sent aggressors packing with scathing politeness I could never achieve!!

Do you forgive me if I have misunderstood any of the recent developments in communicating with the OP, do we now have a clearer idea at what point on the journey the train was when they were asked for their ticket? Was it before the train left the contactless boundary? If so then at the time of inspection they presented a valid ticket.

If so then surely an appeal should be submitted soon remembering that there is a strict deadline for its submission.

gray1404 said:

Do you forgive me if I have misunderstood any of the recent developments in communicating with the OP, do we now have a clearer idea at what point on the journey the train was when they were asked for their ticket? Was it before the train left the contactless boundary? If so then at the time of inspection they presented a valid ticket.

If so then surely an appeal should be submitted soon remembering that there is a strict deadline for its submission.

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Hi all,
Went over the time line with Mike yesterday on call, and hopefully will be submitting the appeal very soon. I have 14 days from Friday 4th September. I have also requested the camera footage in the meantime and have got my TFL journey for that particular day for evidence. I will update on here once I have more information. Thank you

MikeWh said:

OK, brief update to answer some questions. I have spoken to the OP on the phone - I offered if they wanted which they did. They are now a lot less stressed.

Some context. The OP is used to travelling short distances on the Underground. They have never had an onboard ticket check before so they weren't at all sure what to do. They were alone on the train, their colleague was meeting them at Kelvedon. They had lots of questions which the inspector was not making a good job of answering. I've explained why ticketless travel is dealt with by a penalty fare and not just the fare, and they now understand that. I too find it impossible to believe that the whole penalty fare was filled out in the 4 minutes after Witham, especially because it included taking payment for the fare.

They will be asking for the CCTV footage and have registered on the TfL website and will get the details from there. I will be assisting with writing the third appeal by listing the things to include. In my opinion this PF has not been issued correctly and it will get quashed. Whilst I'm not certain, it would appear that the inspector did not have a RID.

Whilst I understand most of the comments on here are genuinely trying to help, where people are not au-fait with the contactless PAYG system it has muddied the water and added to the OPs anxiety.

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Splendid news. Thank you for giving up your free time to assist them directly.

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talldave said:

A cynic like me might wonder if, having found a contactless passenger, the RPI delayed dealing with them until after Witham in order to secure the penalty's validity?

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It does seem to defy all possible logic that the customer wasn't asked to leave the train at Witham in order to touch out and purchase a new ticket or continue their journey by taxi or something.

AlterEgo said:

Do GA RPIs use body worn video?

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Not required to.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Sep 2026 ==

talldave said:

Indeed it doesn't. Words like entrapment come to mind.

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I would agree it's scummy (if that's what has happened, I would hope it isn't), but I don't think it qualifies as entrapment as they didn't force the OP to remain on the train.

The job isn't to harvest penalty fares from well-intentioned people and anybody in the job doing so should be moved to a role that doesn't have such powers.

* views are my own and not of my employer, of course.

gray1404 said:

Was it before the train left the contactless boundary? If so then at the time of inspection they presented a valid ticket.

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99.99% sure it was. There was only 4 minutes between the two stations and the interaction included getting the address wrong once and taking payment, all of which adds to a process that is not that quick. The other thing to note is that the inspector didn't ask them to present their card to a device, they just asserted that it was not valid.

I was once on a train from London Victoria to Brighton. There was a ticket check by revenue protection shortly after leaving Clapham Junction but before the train had called at East Croydon (which would have been the last stop on the service contactless could have been used at that point). People were presenting their contactless cards no problem but one passenger presented his and volunteered that he was travelling to Haywards Heath.

The Inspector attempted to proceed to issue a Fare (which would have been 2x the Anytime Day Single at that point). The passenger protested at first but then started to give their details. I suggested the passenger avoided the Penalty Fare as at that point in the journey they had presented a valid authority to travel. So alight at East Croydon, tap out and purchasing a single to Brighton from there. I informed them of the cheapest TOC specific ticket that existed too.

Thankfully they followed my advice. The inspector relented and carried on checking tickets. He did initially try telling me not to get involved but I informed him that I was happy to do his job for him by informing the customer that they must alight at East Croydon on their current ticket.

The point I am making is, I do wonder if the OP volunteered information to suggest to the inspector they were traveling beyond the contactless zone, rather than just present their contactless card like everybody else. A lesson to be learnt here.

I do sincerely hope there are valid grounds for appeal and that the next appeal will be successful.

gray1404 said:

The point I am making is, I do wonder if the OP volunteered information to suggest to the inspector they were traveling beyond the contactless zone, rather than just present their contactless card like everybody else.

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Given the trouble we have had getting information from the OP, it's also possible the OP was told and didn't understand. And CCTV isn't going to prove anything on that count.

Haywain said:

Given the trouble we have had getting information from the OP, it's also possible the OP was told and didn't understand. And CCTV isn't going to prove anything on that count.

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I gave all the information as I recalled it at the time. To be absolutely clear, I was not told to alight at Witham, nor did the officers mention anything about contactless validity at Witham. Furthermore, I was not asked to present my card by the officers, even though I explicitly mentioned to them that I had tapped in. CCTV will prove exactly what I have mentioned in this forum regarding how the interaction actually went down.


If my previous posts were not completely clear, it is because this entire situation has been very stressful. Recalling the exact timeline of the journey and the whole altercation has been quite difficult to process.

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It is probably best to just leave this thread alone @KayAli and update us as and when any appeal is decided. @MikeWh is a subject matter expert on Oyster and contactless and their advice should be paramount.

I don't think you need to explain yourself again. It seems very clear from the timeline - even without your explanation - that the PF was extremely unlikely to have been issued after Witham, and you have been badly served by the railway. Hopefully the appeal will succeed.

And if they don't want to alight at Witham, the inspector can tell them to buy an e-ticket on their phone from that station to their destination or sell them such a ticket directly themselves. The missing touch out (maximum fare charged) is then a separate matter which may be resolved with TfL afterwards, either online or over the phone as long as it's a one-off situation.

furlong said:

And if they don't want to alight at Witham, the inspector can tell them to buy an e-ticket on their phone from that station to their destination or sell them such a ticket directly themselves. The missing touch out (maximum fare charged) is then a separate matter which may be resolved with TfL afterwards, either online or over the phone as long as it's a one-off situation.

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I'm sorry but this wouldn't work. The terms and conditions of using contactless PAYG on National Rail state that you must touch in and out at each end of the journey. Furthermore, the maximum fare deducted at Leytonstone would not cover a journey beyond the standard zones, so an inspector would be correct to issue a penalty fare.

If for some reason you would like to debate this further, please start a new thread so as not to further complicate this one.

AlterEgo said:

That does not make the penalty fare necessarily valid, but it does seem likely that is what happened.

Will bet a tenner the OP is from a different demographic background to me, because this kind of tomfoolery doesn't get tried on with 40yo white blokes who might, just might, tell you to go and do one and stand their ground.

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Indeed…!

Also, having seen what we have previously from GA’s crook RPIs, I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if he saw it as an easy PF and he wouldn’t be found out for deliberately deceiving OP that they couldn’t alight at Witham to buy a ticket to continue their journey. All we need now is CCTV of the encounter from OP’s SAR. OP, just be sure not to submit another appeal until you have all this evidence!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Sep 2026 ==

jonb said:

They are correct, you were travelling to a station without Contactless facilities (Kelvedon), had your destination been Witham or prior then there wouldn’t have been an issue. Ultimately, you can go through the appeal process but I’m afraid to say you had no valid ticket for your journey - a lesson learnt for next time hopefully.

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With all due respect, this is both unhelpful to OP and factually incorrect regardless of whether you are personally satisfied with GA’s revenue protection operations on this route.