Absolutely terrified about fare evasion

[Green1746]

Hi all

So I was on the train from my local village to the town, it’s about an 8 min journey and cost me just short of £2. The operator was northern.

No one came through to scan my ticket, and so I made the really stupid decision to refund my ticket on the train. I’m at uni and on a low weekly budget, and so at the time I felt that I needed the cash, although now looking back I realise what a stupid thing to do it was and I’m sorry. However as I got to the stairs of the train station there were staff there collecting tickets.

I decided to go the honest approach and explained that I’d refunded the ticket and that I was very sorry. The staff member seemed nice but pretty stern, and she took me to the side and took my name and address. She put it down as not having a ticket, but noted that it had been refunded. I apologised again and she said I could go, and that a letter would arrive in the post for me.

I’m now absolutely terrified and anxious. I’ve never broken the law in my life and it was such a thoughtless decision to make at the time. I regret so much but realise there’s nothing I can do about it now. What should I expect from the letter?? I didn’t receive a ticket or anything from the station, they just took my details.

I’ve looked online and it says I could be fined £20. Although it also says I could be convicted and taken to court. The prospect of this is terrifying for me. Is there any way this can be settled without going to court? I am willing to pay a fine if that would help my case? As I mentioned I’ve never done anything like this before

Thank you and a lesson learned here for me..

 

[skyhigh]

Generally, for a first offence Northern are fairly reasonable about offering out of court settlements. They will likely write to you and ask for your side of the story. You should apologise, make it clear it won't happen again and offer to pay any of their costs to avoid the matter progressing to court. However - the £20 you refer to is what a penalty fare would have been and they can't be issued retrospectively. The lowest a settlement will probably be is around £80 plus the fare, but it may be more.

It is worth considering that they may well look at your purchase history, and if you have a history of refunding similar tickets they may be less inclined to offer a settlement, or it will cost you more.

 

[Green1746]

Generally, for a first offence Northern are fairly reasonable about offering out of court settlements. They will likely write to you and ask for your side of the story. You should apologise, make it clear it won't happen again and offer to pay any of their costs to avoid the matter progressing to court. However - the £20 you refer to is what a penalty fare would have been and they can't be issued retrospectively. The lowest a settlement will probably be is around £80 plus the fare, but it may be more.

It is worth considering that they may well look at your purchase history, and if you have a history of refunding similar tickets they may be less inclined to offer a settlement, or it will cost you more.

Thank you for this

The only other times I have refunded tickets are if the train has been cancelled, which I’m assuming they will be able to see? I’ve never done it for anything else and so I feel so stupid now for messing up. Should I wait for their letter to arrive or try and contact them now to resolve it?

Thank you

 

[skyhigh]

The only other times I have refunded tickets are if the train has been cancelled, which I’m assuming they will be able to see? I’ve never done it for anything else and so I feel so stupid now for messing up. Should I wait for their letter to arrive or try and contact them now to resolve it?

Assuming you didn't travel and got a refund, that's fine (and easy enough to see if they're advance tickets). If you did use the ticket but were delayed, you should claim Delay Repay rather than request a refund.

Wait until they contact you. Before that point you will just be in a pile waiting to be processed and if you write to them they'll have no idea what it's in reference to.

 

[Wethebest838]

Unless mistaken but once a ticket is ‘refunded’ then it is no longer valid and thus your ticket was invalid and no ticket was held.

Granted, you have refunded before like cancellations then there’s times where you may not even use it (happened to me the other day funny enough) and you get a refund/partial refund. But you was on the train so the ticket was ‘used’ without it even being scanned. If they weren’t there then yeah you prob would have got away with it but I think this is unfortunate and you was caught I’m afraid.

Try to not worry, I think an out of court settlement is defo high

 

[Green1746]

Unless mistaken but once a ticket is ‘refunded’ then it is no longer valid and thus your ticket was invalid and no ticket was held.

Granted, you have refunded before like cancellations then there’s times where you may not even use it (happened to me the other day funny enough) and you get a refund/partial refund. But you was on the train so the ticket was ‘used’ without it even being scanned. If they weren’t there then yeah you prob would have got away with it but I think this is unfortunate and you was caught I’m afraid.

Try to not worry, I think an out of court settlement is defo high

Yeah I think this is what the lady who handled the issue noted it as, as she selected that I didn’t have a valid ticket. I asked if she could cancel the refund and also offered to pay for the fare, but she said to wait for the letter.

I’m just really nervous and anxious because I’ve got lots of deadlines to prepare for, and now I’ve just added to the anxiety by being a fool. I really don’t want to go to court and I’m terrified that might happen

 

[WesternLancer]

Thank you for this

The only other times I have refunded tickets are if the train has been cancelled, which I’m assuming they will be able to see? I’ve never done it for anything else and so I feel so stupid now for messing up. Should I wait for their letter to arrive or try and contact them now to resolve it?

Thank you

Welcome to the forum

The general advice on here is you should wait for the letter to arrive - it may take up to 6 months but chances are it will be less time - could be 4 to 8 weeks tho - if you have given a student term time address or will have moved from that address you need to be sure you can get the letter to reply to - eg Royal Mail postal forwarding (or chances are it will progress to court without you knowing where you will be found guilty without knowing that and that will take a lot of effort to untangle).

You need to reply to that letter as per advice above - people will help you with checking your draft if you want them to - (post it here anonymously)

If you have other refunds as mentioned it would be a good idea to make your own notes of them. any records or screen shots / dates etc as you may need to prove to the railway to their satisfaction that it did indeed relate to dates with cancelled trains (which of course they should be able to check) - just worth you making a few notes now about time of train, what happened where etc - as well as for the time you were stopped of course - whilst this is all fresh in your mind.

Your aim in what you write to them should be to persuade them to settle with you without court action as your desired outcome.

BTW - they probably did not offer you the £20 penalty fare option because what you did is, in the eyes of the railway company, more serious - Penalty Fares are generally more likely to be for when people make a mistake and get the wrong ticket or claim the ticket machine is not working etc, but what you did was actively buy a ticket but then seek to avoid payment later by getting a refund when you thought you could 'get away with it' - I am not saying this to be judgmental, just to help you see things from their point of view. I am sure you appreciate the point because it is clear from your OP that you regret the refund you made due to the consequences.

As you are a student your student union welfare advice service may also be able to give you help with this problem. It is worth you asking them about that service now as it will help you to know and get their advice.

 

[Green1746]

Welcome to the forum

The general advice on here is you should wait for the letter to arrive - it may take up to 6 months but chances are it will be less time - could be 4 to 8 weeks tho - if you have given a student term time address or will have moved from that address you need to be sure you can get the letter to reply to - eg Royal Mail postal forwarding (or chances are it will progress to court without you knowing where you will be found guilty without knowing that and that will take a lot of effort to untangle).

You need to reply to that letter as per advice above - people will help you with checking your draft if you want them to - (post it here anonymously)

If you have other refunds as mentioned it would be a good idea to make your own notes of them. any records or screen shots / dates etc as you may need to prove to the railway to their satisfaction that it did indeed relate to dates with cancelled trains (which of course they should be able to check) - just worth you making a few notes now about time of train, what happened where etc - as well as for the time you were stopped of course - whilst this is all fresh in your mind.

Your aim in what you write to them should be to persuade them to settle with you without court action as your desired outcome.

As you are a student your student union welfare advice service may also be able to give you help with this problem. It is worth you asking them about that service now as it will help you to know and get their advice.

Thank you - I’ll contact the student union welfare today and see if they can advise me on this. I gave the lady my home address as I felt that would be the safer option to go for, that way if it does take a while to come through it won’t be lost in old student accommodation etc

 

[Wethebest838]

Yeah I think this is what the lady who handled the issue noted it as, as she selected that I didn’t have a valid ticket. I asked if she could cancel the refund and also offered to pay for the fare, but she said to wait for the letter.

I’m just really nervous and anxious because I’ve got lots of deadlines to prepare for, and now I’ve just added to the anxiety by being a fool. I really don’t want to go to court and I’m terrified that might happen

Focus on your deadlines. Trust me, I was in the same boat with something my cousin was going through. Feel feee to message me if you need anything at all!

It’s as soon as it’s ‘refunded’ or marked as refunded then you are on a train without a valid ticket.

 

[Green1746]

Focus on your deadlines. Trust me, I was in the same boat with something my cousin was going through. Feel feee to message me if you need anything at all!

It’s as soon as it’s ‘refunded’ or marked as refunded then you are on a train without a valid ticket.

Thank you I appreciate that

It was marked as ‘refund requested’, so should I have still tried to use it? I felt at the time that would’ve gotten me into more trouble and I didn’t want to be accused of deceiving them or anything

 

[WesternLancer]

Thank you - I’ll contact the student union welfare today and see if they can advise me on this. I gave the lady my home address as I felt that would be the safer option to go for, that way if it does take a while to come through it won’t be lost in old student accommodation etc

Good stuff - this is a good plan.

Should be quite possible to avoid court - plenty of help on this forum.

I agree with @Wethebest838 - so make some notes on this (and contact SU advice) - then put it to one side, but keep an eye on the post or ask your family to do so if you are back at uni address, and focus on those study deadlines for now, as results of that studying bound to be v important to your future. Good luck with all that.

Come back here for more advice if you need it when Northern write to you (and save up some money I am afraid, so that you have this to hand to pay any settlement offer requested by them).

Also - If you are entitled to any railcards etc that you do not already have - buy one now as you can refer to that in your reply to them as evidence of your good intention not to try to save money on rail fares by ever fare evading again, but by legitimate means of reducing ticket costs. Helps show you have learned a lesson and acted on it.

 

[skyhigh]

It’s as soon as it’s ‘refunded’ or marked as refunded then you are on a train without a valid ticket.

It's worse than having no ticket at all, as it's blatantly obvious you were attempting to avoid paying the fare due.

 

[Wethebest838]

Thank you I appreciate that

It was marked as ‘refund requested’, so should I have still tried to use it? I felt at the time that would’ve gotten me into more trouble and I didn’t want to be accused of deceiving them or anything

Did you have any barriers or were barriers open at either station?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Apr 2022 ==

It's worse than having no ticket at all, as it's blatantly obvious you were attempting to avoid paying the fare due.

Yeah exactly. It just looks worse. Like short faring looks worse than no ticket in my opinion.

 

[WesternLancer]

It was marked as ‘refund requested’, so should I have still tried to use it? I felt at the time that would’ve gotten me into more trouble and I didn’t want to be accused of deceiving them or anything

Well, if it wasn't actually refunded, and the railway still has the money, then things might be different and you might still have had a valid ticket - but I assume the staff checked that and this was not the case?

But you clearly intended to obtain your money back and thus travel without paying the fare due so I am not sure it is a great argument to use to form a defense. Others who know more about how these refund requests work may be able to give useful advice on this point.

EDIT - I see @skyhigh post #12 which addresses the point.

 

[Green1746]

Did you have any barriers or were barriers open at either station?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Apr 2022 ==


Yeah exactly. It just looks worse. Like short faring looks worse than no ticket in my opinion.

There are no barriers or anything at the stations no

It's worse than having no ticket at all, as it's blatantly obvious you were attempting to avoid paying the fare due.

Well, if it wasn't actually refunded, and the railway still has the money, then things might be different and you might still have had a valid ticket - but I assume the staff checked that and this was not the case?

But you clearly intended to obtain your money back and thus travel without paying the fare due so I am not sure it is a great argument to use to form a defense. Others who know more about how these refund requests work may be able to give useful advice on this point.

EDIT - I see @skyhigh post #12 which addresses the point.

This is why I’m really annoyed with myself. I tired to save literally £1.30 and regret it so much, it was wrong and I hate that I did it. Would I have just been better saying I didn’t have a ticket? I thought by being honest with them and explaining what I had done was the better route to go down, however I understand now that it just blatantly shows I was trying to avoid paying the fare.

 

[Wethebest838]

Would I have just been better saying I didn’t have a ticket? I thought by being honest with them and explaining what I had done was the better route to go down, however I understand now that it just blatantly shows I was trying to avoid paying the fare.

Being honest is the best way forward. Do not lie as they will find out.

 

[WesternLancer]

This is why I’m really annoyed with myself. I tired to save literally £1.30 and regret it so much, it was wrong and I hate that I did it. Would I have just been better saying I didn’t have a ticket? I thought by being honest with them and explaining what I had done was the better route to go down, however I understand now that it just blatantly shows I was trying to avoid paying the fare.

I can't be sure of the answer to that myself - in general being honest is better (if at least for your own long term peace of mind!) - it is possible that saying you had no ticket may have got you a £20 penalty fare - but given other cases on here ref Northern there is every chance that the outcome would have been the same - ie a report to revenue protection who will send you a letter.

BTW - these letters (there are examples on other threads) can seem quite threatening when you get them as they tend to say stuff about prosecuting and being taken to court etc - so be prepared for that but do not overly worry - as said before there will be advice on here on how to respond to the letter when you get it.

You will basically need to reply in brief and
- apologise
- show regret
- show you have learned why what you you did was wrong
- make it clear you will not do it again
- ask if they will agree to settle the matter without going to court, and you will be happy to pay any fare owed and the costs of them investigating this (not sure what other recent Northern cases might have been but you may be looking at circa £100)

and hopefully this will bring the matter to a close.

 

[Green1746]

Being honest is the best way forward. Do not lie as they will find out.

That was my thought and this isn’t something I’ve gotten involved in before, being truthful is usually the best way to go

I can't be sure of the answer to that myself - in general being honest is better (if at least for your own long term peace of mind!) - it is possible that saying you had no ticket may have got you a £20 penalty fare - but given other cases on here ref Northern there is every chance that the outcome would have been the same - ie a report to revenue protection who will send you a letter.

BTW - these letters (there are examples on other threads) can seem quite threatening when you get them as they tend to say stuff about prosecuting and being taken to court etc - so be prepared for that but do not overly worry - as said before there will be advice on here on how to respond to the letter when you get it.

You will basically need to reply in brief and
- apologise
- show regret
- show you have learned why what you you did was wrong
- make it clear you will not do it again
- ask if they will agree to settle the matter without going to court, and you will be happy to pay any fare owed and the costs of them investigating this (not sure what other recent Northern cases might have been but you may be looking at circa £100)

and hopefully this will bring the matter to a close.

thanks for this summary, I’m hoping that’s what’ll happen as I regret what I did so I believe for my own peace of mind it would help paying a settlement. Isn’t it in their best interest for a settlement anyhow as they’d see more of the money? I’m not fully sure on how the proceedings work though

 

[skyhigh]

Isn’t it in their best interest for a settlement anyhow as they’d see more of the money?

Yes and no. With a settlement they get all the money, but with prosecutions they get good publicity to deter others from fare evasion, so there's a balance to be had.

 

[Green1746]

Yes and no. With a settlement they get all the money, but with prosecutions they get good publicity to deter others from fare evasion, so there's a balance to be had.

Ok so worst case scenario and they decide to prosecute, would I receive a criminal record? Should I look into a solicitor or something?

I understand that what I did was wrong, and I’m not here trying to argue that, but I do feel it’s slightly unfair that my entire career prospect and future could be destroyed from a £1 train ticket. I’d feel it would be more understandable if I’d tried to not pay for a train from London to Edinburgh or something, but for such a small amount court seems a little extreme?

 

[WesternLancer]

Yes and no. With a settlement they get all the money, but with prosecutions they get good publicity to deter others from fare evasion, so there's a balance to be had.

Good summary - tho worth the OP bearing in mind that there are no doubt plenty of fare dodgers who do not engage with them, or who evade persistently, and get taken to court as a result to provide the publicity stream to deter others - so by engaging and now 'doing the right thing' the OP has every chance of not being in the 'to be prosecuted pile' I would hope / suggest.

 

[Green1746]

Good summary - tho worth the OP bearing in mind that there are no doubt plenty of fare dodgers who do not engage with them, or who evade persistently, and get taken to court as a result to provide the publicity stream to deter others - so by engaging and now 'doing the right thing' the OP has every chance of not being in the 'to be prosecuted pile' I would hope / suggest.

I really do hope that this is the case, and I am hoping that I receive this letter sooner or later so I can put this behind me

 

[Haywain]

Well, if it wasn't actually refunded, and the railway still has the money, then things might be different and you might still have had a valid ticket - but I assume the staff checked that and this was not the case?

Part of the process of requesting a refund is the cancellation of the ticket so the railway holding the money doesn’t affect that (any more than the fact that when you buy a ticket the money is not instantly transferred to the railway).

 

[WesternLancer]

Part of the process of requesting a refund is the cancellation of the ticket so the railway holding the money doesn’t affect that (any more than the fact that when you buy a ticket the money is not instantly transferred to the railway).

Thanks for explaining.

 

[glasgowniteowl]

Just thinking due to your age if they check your trainline(or other) account, will they find any child tickets that are over your date if birth so to speak

 

[Green1746]

Just thinking due to your age if they check your trainline(or other) account, will they find any child tickets that are over your date if birth so to speak

No, I’ve never purchased any child tickets before so I have nothing to hide from them. I’m just going to be honest and apologetic with them and express that it was a really bad mistake that won’t happen again

 

[30907]

Ok so worst case scenario and they decide to prosecute, would I receive a criminal record?

Only if you were to be prosecuted for the more serious of the possible offences, and that would be spent after a year. There is an offence under the Railway Byelaws of boarding without a valid ticket which they can easily prove - it is non-recordable so you wouldn't get a record, though it would appear on an enhanced DBS check.

Should I look into a solicitor or something?

Not at this stage.

I understand that what I did was wrong, and I’m not here trying to argue that, but I do feel it’s slightly unfair that my entire career prospect and future could be destroyed from a £1 train ticket. I’d feel it would be more understandable if I’d tried to not pay for a train from London to Edinburgh or something, but for such a small amount court seems a little extreme?

Unless you have a highly unusual career path mapped out (MI5?) a minor conviction isn't going to have that effect. Please don't panic!

Isn’t it in their best interest for a settlement anyhow as they’d see more of the money?

They can ask the court for costs, so they get a fair whack. It costs you more though

 

[Green1746]

Only if you were to be prosecuted for the more serious of the possible offences, and that would be spent after a year. There is an offence under the Railway Byelaws of boarding without a valid ticket which they can easily prove - it is non-recordable so you wouldn't get a record, though it would appear on an enhanced DBS check.

Not at this stage.

Unless you have a highly unusual career path mapped out (MI5?) a minor conviction isn't going to have that effect. Please don't panic!

They can ask the court for costs, so they get a fair whack. It costs you more though

Thanks for this - I mainly ask about career issues as I may go into teaching at some point, although it wouldn’t be the path I had planned, I’d hate to miss out on an opportunity or something for such a silly misjudgment/mistake. I’m really hoping that a settlement will be an option, and looking through the forums it looks like that is usually offered to people, I suppose it just depends on how I word my letter?

 

[skyhigh]

There is an offence under the Railway Byelaws of boarding without a valid ticket which they can easily prove

Technically no. A valid ticket was held when boarding the train, but the OP chose to invalidate it while on the train. Therefore if they were going to prosecute under the Byelaws, it would have to be for failing to hand over a ticket for inspection and verification of validity when asked to do so by an authorised person (Byelaw 18(2)) - as they had no ticket to hand over as they'd already requested a refund.

 

[30907]

Technically no. A valid ticket was held when boarding the train, but the OP chose to invalidate it while on the train. Therefore if they were going to prosecute under the Byelaws, it would have to be for failing to hand over a ticket for inspection and verification of validity when asked to do so by an authorised person (Byelaw 18(2)) - as they had no ticket to hand over as they'd already requested a refund.

Point taken, but end result is the same.