Buy Before You Board help

[Fawkes Cat]

Dear Fraud and Prosecutions Team,

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to the Notice of Intended Prosecution with customer reference [].

I do not have a valid reason for failing ‘buy before you board’. I mistook the train arrival times due to strikes, which is completely my fault, and rushed to make an earlier service. As I live near the entrance without barriers, I boarded the train without a ticket with the intension intention of buying it on my phone. I understand that this is unacceptable.

I apologise for my actions and have learnt from my mistake. Since this incident, I have not failed ‘buy before you board’ and I will not do so in future. I understand the importance of these policies to prevent fare evasion and I fully support them.

If it is amenable to you, I would appreciate settling this matter without prosecution. I am happy to pay for the fare I should have paid and any administrative costs in dealing with this matter.

I look forward to hearing from you and I apologise again.

Thank you,

I think this is basically OK. If you have a look at where I've quoted you above (click to expand where it says so to see all of it) , I've corrected a couple of typos, and added a few words: I don't remember the railway ever settling just for admin costs - they always ask for the fare as well, so it's probably better to make it clear that you're prepared to pay that as otherwise they might decide to go to court instead of settling.

 

[claw]

Thank you for catching those! It feels weird to put fare as I did pay for the full valid fare on my phone. I've slightly tweaked it to make it clear I bought the ticket on my phone (not just the intention to do so) and clarified that I'm happy to pay anything they want. Updated email:

---
Dear Fraud and Prosecutions Team,

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to the Notice of Intended Prosecution with customer reference [].

I do not have a valid reason for failing ‘buy before you board’. I mistook the train arrival times due to strikes, which is completely my fault, and rushed to make an earlier service. As I live near the entrance without barriers, I boarded the train without a ticket and bought it on my phone. I understand that this is unacceptable.

I apologise for my actions and have learnt from my mistake. Since this incident, I have not failed ‘buy before you board’ and I will not do so in future. I understand the importance of these policies to prevent fare evasion and I fully support them.

If it is amenable to you, I would appreciate settling this matter without prosecution. I am happy to pay for any administrative and additional costs Chiltern deems reasonable.

I look forward to hearing from you and I apologise again.

Thank you,
[]
---

If there are no objections I will send today. I really appreciate all of the help!!

Oh one last thing, as I've moved from that address, should I let them know in the email? Will they respond by email from this point? I set up post forwarding but for this letter it went to the original address anyway and new people are moving in soon.

 

[WesternLancer]

Oh one last thing, as I've moved from that address, should I let them know in the email? Will they respond by email from this point? I set up post forwarding but for this letter it went to the original address anyway and new people are moving in soon.

Presumably you should do whatever you can to advise them of any change of address - but on thi point:

I set up post forwarding but for this letter it went to the original address anyway and new people are moving in soon.

If Royal Mail's redirection service did not work as it should you should complain to Royal Mail who I would hope ought to give you a refund (they did give me a refund when I paid for such a service and they didn't implement it properly)

 

[claw]

Hi all,

By email I was offered an administrative disposal with payment of £213 which I have now paid. Thank you for the help everyone!

The message mentions that it's because there was nothing else on record for me and after payment this will now be marked as a 'final warning' in their system.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Hi all,

By email I was offered an administrative disposal with payment of £213 which I have now paid. Thank you for the help everyone!

The message mentions that it's because there was nothing else on record for me and after payment this will now be marked as a 'final warning' in their system.

Thanks for letting us know - that means everything is finished and you don’t have a criminal record. But note the ‘final warning’ bit: it’s really important to get the right fare before getting on the train on all future journeys as the railway won’t give you a second chance, and will very likely prosecute if there’s a next time.