Caught short-faring and need to respond

[darrenmcmillan]

Hello,

I was caught short-faring at Waterloo Station and have just received an email from South Western Railway about it, asking me to respond. Firstly, I want to say I'm aware of how incredibly stupid this was, and I fully regret doing this so much. This has caused me such anxiety and I would never even think of doing this again. However, I need to respond to this email and need help. I really want this to be settled outside of court, as the thought of getting a criminal record is making me feel so sick. I know that it would significantly impact my life forever.

I've looked, and I've likely short-fared around 30 times in the last few months. What are the chances this is settled outside of court vs going to court?

Here is the email I received:

On XXX, you presented ticket number XXX at London Waterloo to a member of Revenue Protection. Upon questioning, it was established that you had purchased a Vauxhall to London Waterloo ticket but had not scanned in your ticket to validate the start of your journey. You were issued a Report for Prosecution, number XXX.

Further investigation of your online account has highlighted other potential inconsistencies in your ticket purchase history. This suggests that you may not be paying the correct fare for journeys made on the UK rail network.

Given the serious nature of this matter, we have taken this step to contact you and initiate a resolution, prior to escalating the matter to our case management team.

Please respond to this email within 7 days quoting the reference number XXX in the subject field.

Please also ensure that ALL details below are completed and returned to ensure our records are correct.

XXX

 

[30907]

They will almost certainly offer you an out of court settlement if you engage with them.

Respond with an apology for cheating the company and the taxpayer (try to word it so that it leaves the number of times ambiguous).
Promise to mend your ways.
Ask if they would kindly consider settling out of court.
Expect to pay the full single fare for each occasion plus an admin sum (?£150), so do your own calculations on that basis.
If the amount they ask for in fares is significantly more than you have calculated, you can ask for a breakdown and challenge any incorrect ones.

 

[z444z]

The advice above is solid. You can find plenty of similar cases on the forum and you can take inspiration from, though shouldn’t directly copy, the final drafts in other cases.

Just to clarify, they’ll be asking for the full Anytime Single fares for each journey you made without a valid ticket. A return journey will be charged as 2x singles and they won’t take any account of the amount you did pay either.

 

[Sun Chariot]

Hello @darrenmcmillan

SWR, by scanning your short-fared digital ticket, has access to investigate all your digital ticket-buying history.

Have you short-fared or applied railcard discount, for tickets relating to journeys other than your c.30 in recent months?

Go through all of your digital ticket-buying history and make a list of each and every instance where you did not buy a valid ticket for your entire journey. For each and every journey, use SWRs website / app (or third-party app), to calculate the full Anytime Single standard fare. It will give you an indication of how much SWR might seek to recover from you (plus SWR's standard administration costs).

 

[z444z]

Have you short-fared or applied railcard discount, for tickets relating to journeys other than your c.30 in recent months?

Good catch. We regularly see them look back multiple years, it would make sense if the theoretical limit was 6 years to match the time limit for civil claims.

 

[OpalStar]

Hello,

I was caught short-faring at Waterloo Station and have just received an email from South Western Railway about it, asking me to respond. Firstly, I want to say I'm aware of how incredibly stupid this was, and I fully regret doing this so much. This has caused me such anxiety and I would never even think of doing this again. However, I need to respond to this email and need help. I really want this to be settled outside of court, as the thought of getting a criminal record is making me feel so sick. I know that it would significantly impact my life forever.

I've looked, and I've likely short-fared around 30 times in the last few months. What are the chances this is settled outside of court vs going to court?

Here is the email I received:

On XXX, you presented ticket number XXX at London Waterloo to a member of Revenue Protection. Upon questioning, it was established that you had purchased a Vauxhall to London Waterloo ticket but had not scanned in your ticket to validate the start of your journey. You were issued a Report for Prosecution, number XXX.

Further investigation of your online account has highlighted other potential inconsistencies in your ticket purchase history. This suggests that you may not be paying the correct fare for journeys made on the UK rail network.

Given the serious nature of this matter, we have taken this step to contact you and initiate a resolution, prior to escalating the matter to our case management team.

Please respond to this email within 7 days quoting the reference number XXX in the subject field.

Please also ensure that ALL details below are completed and returned to ensure our records are correct.

XXX

Try not to panic - I know this is the worst feeling in the world. I was caught short faring at Charing X last year. Over 100 journeys (long ones too). It was my first offence and they offered me out of court settlement for several thousand pounds which I had to find and pay. We all do silly things to save a bit of money you’re not a bad person and ultimately you will pay the money back and then some.

The experience rocked me so much (I thought I would loose my job) I still check back on this forum from time to time. There are some capeless hero’s on here who helped me word all my responses to SWR. I couldn’t be more grateful. Listen to them and you will be fine x

 

[darrenmcmillan]

Okay thanks so much for the help everyone. This has made me feel a lot better. I'm going to write back soon with an apology and fingers crossed this will be settled outside of court.

 

[z444z]

Okay thanks so much for the help everyone. This has made me feel a lot better. I'm going to write back soon with an apology and fingers crossed this will be settled outside of court.

Do post your draft here for us to give feedback on before you send it!

 

[WesternLancer]

Try not to panic - I know this is the worst feeling in the world. I was caught short faring at Charing X last year. Over 100 journeys (long ones too). It was my first offence and they offered me out of court settlement for several thousand pounds which I had to find and pay. We all do silly things to save a bit of money you’re not a bad person and ultimately you will pay the money back and then some.

The experience rocked me so much (I thought I would loose my job) I still check back on this forum from time to time. There are some capeless hero’s on here who helped me word all my responses to SWR. I couldn’t be more grateful. Listen to them and you will be fine x

Thanks for sharing your experience here. Bound to be helpful I think.

 

[darrenmcmillan]

They will almost certainly offer you an out of court settlement if you engage with them.

Respond with an apology for cheating the company and the taxpayer (try to word it so that it leaves the number of times ambiguous).
Promise to mend your ways.
Ask if they would kindly consider settling out of court.
Expect to pay the full single fare for each occasion plus an admin sum (?£150), so do your own calculations on that basis.
If the amount they ask for in fares is significantly more than you have calculated, you can ask for a breakdown and challenge any incorrect ones.

The advice above is solid. You can find plenty of similar cases on the forum and you can take inspiration from, though shouldn’t directly copy, the final drafts in other cases.

Just to clarify, they’ll be asking for the full Anytime Single fares for each journey you made without a valid ticket. A return journey will be charged as 2x singles and they won’t take any account of the amount you did pay either.

Hello @darrenmcmillan

SWR, by scanning your short-fared digital ticket, has access to investigate all your digital ticket-buying history.

Have you short-fared or applied railcard discount, for tickets relating to journeys other than your c.30 in recent months?

Go through all of your digital ticket-buying history and make a list of each and every instance where you did not buy a valid ticket for your entire journey. For each and every journey, use SWRs website / app (or third-party app), to calculate the full Anytime Single standard fare. It will give you an indication of how much SWR might seek to recover from you (plus SWR's standard administration costs).

Try not to panic - I know this is the worst feeling in the world. I was caught short faring at Charing X last year. Over 100 journeys (long ones too). It was my first offence and they offered me out of court settlement for several thousand pounds which I had to find and pay. We all do silly things to save a bit of money you’re not a bad person and ultimately you will pay the money back and then some.

The experience rocked me so much (I thought I would loose my job) I still check back on this forum from time to time. There are some capeless hero’s on here who helped me word all my responses to SWR. I couldn’t be more grateful. Listen to them and you will be fine x

Update: Yesterday I received a letter with an option to pay an out-of-court settlement! Been a very anxious month and a half but these comments helped me out a lot and made me feel a hell of a lot more hopeful about my situation, so thank you so much everyone. I am truly so grateful to you guys

 

[30907]

Update: Yesterday I received a letter with an option to pay an out-of-court settlement! Been a very anxious month and a half but these comments helped me out a lot and made me feel a hell of a lot more hopeful about my situation, so thank you so much everyone. I am truly so grateful to you guys

That's good news, and as anticipated.

Without disclosing too much personal stuff, could you indicate roughly how SW have calculated the settlement amount (fares plus admin) as it would help us giving advice in future.

 

[johnsmith1234]

Update: Yesterday I received a letter with an option to pay an out-of-court settlement! Been a very anxious month and a half but these comments helped me out a lot and made me feel a hell of a lot more hopeful about my situation, so thank you so much everyone. I am truly so grateful to you guys

Great news Darren, can I ask as facing as very similar thing ~30 times in last few months - did they look back at all your journeys and charge you accordingly? Or did you come clean initially to save time/hassle.

Any reply is greatly appreciated - thank you

 

[SECR 65]

Great news Darren, can I ask as facing as very similar thing ~30 times in last few months - did they look back at all your journeys and charge you accordingly? Or did you come clean initially to save time/hassle.

Any reply is greatly appreciated - thank you

SWR are much more likely to check journey history than GTR are. SWR will normally inform you in their initial letter whether they are investigating all journeys or not. GTR usually send an initial letter only asking about the one incident.

Given the long time since this thread was last active, the chance of the OP replying may be slim.

It's best to stick to GTR cases if this is the TOC you are dealing with, as there are plenty of that TOC on the forum.