Caught using brothers rail card

[Lp1999]

Hi guys,

Stupidly used my brothers railcard for a train to Stansted airport and got caught when showing.

I showed my brothers rail card, the lady saw it was a screenshot and asked for the original. I then took 2 mins and just bought my own as I was only using my brothers out of laziness(stupidity) and showed her my newly purchased rail card. She asked to see the old one and I refused at first just saying it was out of date and I wrongly travelled with it. I did show her and confessed I was travelling on my brothers and she placed me under caution and took questions, I refused to comment as I know pleading guilty to stuff straight away can result automatic prosecution. They took pics of my ticket, my brothers rail card and my new rail card. They weren’t normal train people but enforcers with badges.

I know I messed up here and I was really arrogant to think I could just flash my brothers and get away with it but here we are, lesson learnt. Does anyone have any advice? I am expecting a fine and would really like to avoid any criminal prosecution

Thanks guys

 

[WesternLancer]

Hi guys,

Stupidly used my brothers railcard for a train to Stansted airport and got caught when showing.

I showed my brothers rail card, the lady saw it was a screenshot and asked for the original. I then took 2 mins and just bought my own as I was only using my brothers out of laziness(stupidity) and showed her my newly purchased rail card. She asked to see the old one and I refused at first just saying it was out of date and I wrongly travelled with it. I did show her and confessed I was travelling on my brothers and she placed me under caution and took questions, I refused to comment as I know pleading guilty to stuff straight away can result automatic prosecution. They took pics of my ticket, my brothers rail card and my new rail card. They weren’t normal train people but enforcers with badges.

I know I messed up here and I was really arrogant to think I could just flash my brothers and get away with it but here we are, lesson learnt. Does anyone have any advice? I am expecting a fine and would really like to avoid any criminal prosecution

Thanks guys

Hi - this is potentially more serious than your post implies you may think. Because it has the implication it was 'pre meditated' - if you had picked up your brothers Railcard by mistake from the hallway table as you walked out the house to go to the station then that's a plausible reason for the error - but this sounds like a digital railcard that you would not otherwise have had access to without asking him for a copy, so it looks premeditated oe you deliberately asked him if you could use his railcard for your travel. It would probably have been less worse to simply not have had a Railcard at all...

If you did anything to tamper with it (eg photoshopped your pic on to it for example) that's even worse - hopefully not the case tho.

They will write to you now and you will need to prepare to reply to that, but in the mean time I think you just have to wait for the letter, then you can get more advice here on how best to respond. I assume you gave them a correct name and address to contact you about this with, it will likley be by post so you must watch out for your mail as you have only a short time to respond ot it (14 days from date on letter, not date you receive it, usually)

They will also trawl through any online ticket purchases you have made with any train ticket retailers to see if there are other journeys with tickets bought with a Railcard Discount and they will suspect you have done the same on those occasions. You don't need to tell us here if you have done that or how often but I am sure you will know if you have.

 

[spag23]

Expect the Company to be in touch with your brother too, if it seems he collaborated in this card copying. (Hopefully you are the only "beneficiary" of this sharing)

 

[WesternLancer]

Hi guys,

Stupidly used my brothers railcard for a train to Stansted airport and got caught when showing.

I showed my brothers rail card, the lady saw it was a screenshot and asked for the original. I then took 2 mins and just bought my own as I was only using my brothers out of laziness(stupidity) and showed her my newly purchased rail card. She asked to see the old one and I refused at first just saying it was out of date and I wrongly travelled with it. I did show her and confessed I was travelling on my brothers and she placed me under caution and took questions, I refused to comment as I know pleading guilty to stuff straight away can result automatic prosecution. They took pics of my ticket, my brothers rail card and my new rail card. They weren’t normal train people but enforcers with badges.

I know I messed up here and I was really arrogant to think I could just flash my brothers and get away with it but here we are, lesson learnt. Does anyone have any advice? I am expecting a fine and would really like to avoid any criminal prosecution

Thanks guys

all you can do now is wait to hear from them by letter and then be ready to respond to that - you can ask for advice on that when you get the letter. Plus save up the money that you will need to pay them - which will almost certainly be over £100 if they agree an out of court settlement.

See other threads for the sort of thing you will need to include in your response.