£290 for accidentally using expired railcard for one £30 journey??!

layman234 · Friday at 19:31

Hi, I received this letter in the post 4/5 months after the journey in question. I think it was to do with my railcard being expired, but even so the ticket inspector said I should be okay if I bought a railcard immediately after, which I did. Does anyone have any advice as to what I should reply, should I even mention the railcard incident I assume the letter is about? £290 seems a disproportionate amount of money and i'm not sure whether i'll be able to pay it, is this a standard amount to have to pay? And does anyone reckon I would be able to drag the process along past the 6 month deadline? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

RailUK Forums

Urban Gateline · Friday at 19:55

What was the journey in question? I can understand you might not want to divulge but it helps give an idea of the price, £30 was it an Advance ticket? If so and you failed to produce a railcard then XC are within their rights to charge an undiscounted Anytime single for the journey which could well amount to that £115.20. If you are in the wrong here I would advise paying what is asked, it's a very reasonable settlement amount to avoid going to court!

WesternLancer · Friday at 20:10

layman234 said:
View attachment 213054

Hi, I received this letter in the post 4/5 months after the journey in question. I think it was to do with my railcard being expired, but even so the ticket inspector said I should be okay if I bought a railcard immediately after, which I did. Does anyone have any advice as to what I should reply, should I even mention the railcard incident I assume the letter is about? £290 seems a disproportionate amount of money and i'm not sure whether i'll be able to pay it, is this a standard amount to have to pay? And does anyone reckon I would be able to drag the process along past the 6 month deadline? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Welcome.
Yes you are going to need to tell us the journey if you want a check on whether there is any basis to push back on the sum demanded.

Fawkes Cat · Friday at 22:03

It's also worth noting the final paragraph of the letter. Ignore the bit about the risk of being prosecuted for fraud: while theoretically that can happen, in practice it doesn't. But prosecution under the railway bylaws or the Regulation of Railways Act do happen: if you were convicted then as well as paying the ticket and costs to the railway as compensation, you would also have to pay a fine plus court costs.

It might be the offer the railway have made this time will be the best result available.

Nova1 · Friday at 22:06

Pretty expensive error, but you didn’t have a valid ticket. Paying that settlement figure makes it go away forever.

WesternLancer · Friday at 22:10

I notice ITAL charging top whack ‘admin fee’ for presumably pretty minimal admin if they are now sending these instant demands out without going through the process of two or three threatening letters before they would offer a settlement as we used to more typically see with them.

Take passengers name and address and journey details then send an out of court settlement like this seems to me to have streamlined the ‘admin’ considerably…

SuspectUsual · Friday at 22:21

WesternLancer said:
I notice ITAL charging top whack ‘admin fee’ for presumably pretty minimal admin if they are now sending these instant demands out without going through the process of two or three threatening letters before they would offer a settlement as we used to more typically see with them.

Take passengers name and address and journey details then send an out of court settlement like this seems to me to have streamlined the ‘admin’ considerably…

It doesn’t even refer to it as an administration fee - it’s just the cost of a settlement. Most lay readers would interpret that as a fine, I think

WesternLancer · Friday at 22:33

SuspectUsual said:
It doesn’t even refer to it as an administration fee - it’s just the cost of a settlement. Most lay readers would interpret that as a fine, I think

Interesting point!

blimmo · Friday at 23:33

Ah they've stopped pretending it's in any way related to the admin.

thejuggler · Saturday at 08:44

As OP states the inspector said "you should be OK if you buy a railcard" that's mitigation. The inspector could have advised the ticket wasn't valid and sold them one which was there and then, or advised them to leave at the next station (I have seen both solutions used).

Whether they wish to appeal on that basis is down to them.

WesternLancer · Saturday at 09:04

thejuggler said:
As OP states the inspector said "you should be OK if you buy a railcard" that's mitigation. The inspector could have advised the ticket wasn't valid and sold them one which was there and then, or advised them to leave at the next station (I have seen both solutions used).

Whether they wish to appeal on that basis is down to them.

Would be interesting to see if staff on board would offer to write that sort of thing down on the paperwork they gave passengers…
Or what would happen if you asked them to do so…

I suspect there might be a degree of reluctance.

John R · Saturday at 12:47

thejuggler said:
As OP states the inspector said "you should be OK if you buy a railcard" that's mitigation. The inspector could have advised the ticket wasn't valid and sold them one which was there and then, or advised them to leave at the next station (I have seen both solutions used).

Whether they wish to appeal on that basis is down to them.

We often hear that similar words are used, to enable them to process the case and move on with little or no argument. Whether it's right or not that they do that, I don't think we have seen a case where it has in any way helped as mitigation. Ultimately, they were found to be without a valid ticket and reported for prosecution - those are the facts.

layman234 · Saturday at 13:14

Urban Gateline said:
What was the journey in question? I can understand you might not want to divulge but it helps give an idea of the price, £30 was it an Advance ticket? If so and you failed to produce a railcard then XC are within their rights to charge an undiscounted Anytime single for the journey which could well amount to that £115.20. If you are in the wrong here I would advise paying what is asked, it's a very reasonable settlement amount to avoid going to court!

It was an open return Birmingham New Street to Manchester Pic

Gloster · Saturday at 13:24

Could the inspector have been suggesting that the OP should buy a railcard so that they would be holding a valid ticket for the Return journey, presuming that s/he was stopped on the Outward one? It wouldn’t take much to confuse one comment with the other.

I am not an expert.

layman234 · Saturday at 13:36

Gloster said:
Could the inspector have been suggesting that the OP should buy a railcard so that they would be holding a valid ticket for the Return journey, presuming that s/he was stopped on the Outward one? It wouldn’t take much to confuse one comment with the other.

I am not an expert.

Hi,
It was on the return journey that I was stopped by the inspector.

Coleridge · Saturday at 13:58

layman234 said:
It was an open return Birmingham New Street to Manchester Pic

layman234 said:
It was on the return journey that I was stopped by the inspector.

So it sounds like you paid £33.60 for an Off-peak return with Railcard discount, and are being asked to pay £115.20, which is the price of an Anytime return without railcard discount.

Was the railcard within its period of validity on the outward journey?

philthetube · Saturday at 14:09

If the inspector meant what he/she said could they have endorsed the ticket?

323235 · Saturday at 22:36

It’s an interesting case, as there was a similar situation with TPE recently on the forum that I recall where they dropped the case when presented with a new railcard being purchased, presumably on the new grounds of expiry being an honest mistake based on recent industry developments, but clearly these new practices haven’t filtered through the whole industry yet.

WesternLancer · Saturday at 23:05

323235 said:
It’s an interesting case, as there was a similar situation with TPE recently on the forum that I recall where they dropped the case when presented with a new railcard being purchased, presumably on the new grounds of expiry being an honest mistake based on recent industry developments, but clearly these new practices haven’t filtered through the whole industry yet.

Well. This case involves ITAL as contractor for Avanti and they don’t have a track record of being especially generous in these matters from cases seen here in the past. We e certainly seen people with unintentional railcard expirey on long distance cross country trains getting hit for very steep fares.

As an aside Such passengers would be better getting off at the next stop and buying a new railcard and a new ticket, but if they are told or given the impression on board that it’ll be ok if they buy a new railcard they wouldn’t think to alight anyway.

I seem to think TPE are often a little more reasonable from what I’ve seen on this forum.

Mcr Warrior · Sunday at 08:27

Coleridge said:
So it sounds like you paid £33.60 for an Off-peak return with Railcard discount, and are being asked to pay £115.20, which is the price of an Anytime return without railcard discount.

Anytime Return = £115.10, although does anything rest on this?

AlterEgo · Sunday at 08:32

Mcr Warrior said:
Anytime Return = £115.10, although does anything rest on this?

Ten pence does but nothing else.

Tetchytyke · Sunday at 09:21

Mcr Warrior said:
Anytime Return = £115.10, although does anything rest on this?

Not really. They can ask for what they want, and ITAL usually do.

Same with the administration fees. The NRCoT says that the fees must not exceed the actual cost of the administration. But as ITAL have the OP over a barrel then this doesn’t really have any effect, you can’t easily challenge their obvious larceny. If anyone thinks the admin in this case cost exactly £175- not a penny more, not a penny less- then I’ve got a bridge they might be interested in?

I always wonder how the low-paid minions at ITAL sleep at night. The owners sleep very well in an expensive bed, obviously, but the people sending these letters to people?

Mcr Warrior · Sunday at 14:20

Coleridge said:
So it sounds like you paid £33.60 for an Off-peak return with Railcard discount, and are being asked to pay £115.20, which is the price of an Anytime return without railcard discount.

It's more likely that the OP has actually been charged for 2 x £57.60 Anytime Singles, which is the £115.20 being asked for.

Egg Centric · Monday at 14:31

Tetchytyke said:
I always wonder how the low-paid minions at ITAL sleep at night. The owners sleep very well in an expensive bed, obviously, but the people sending these letters to people?

They probably don't think about it at all tbh. Many of them probably haven't taken a train in their life and I imagine the training is less than sympathetic to the people who find themselves in the position of being investigated.

dosxuk · 2026-10-13T07:44:45+0100

Egg Centric said:
They probably don't think about it at all tbh. Many of them probably haven't taken a train in their life and I imagine the training is less than sympathetic to the people who find themselves in the position of being investigated.

I imagine those who do use the train think along the lines of "well I pay for my train tickets, and they might be cheaper if everyone else did too" or "I bet this isn't the only occasion this person defrauded the railway, it's just the only time we caught them".

£290 for accidentally using expired railcard for one £30 journey??!

New Member

RailUK Forums

Established Member

Veteran Member

Established Member

Member

Veteran Member

Established Member

Veteran Member

Member

Established Member

Veteran Member

Established Member

New Member

Veteran Member

New Member

Member

Established Member

Established Member

Veteran Member

Veteran Member

Verified Rep - Wingin' It! Paul Lucas

Veteran Member

Veteran Member

Established Member

Established Member