Caught with wrong ticket

[lansdon]

Hello,

Back in the summer I was caught by a ticket inspector at Marylebone station, after having taken the train from High Wycombe and only having actually bought a ticket from Wembley Stadium. I understand this was completely my fault and I hold my hands up to that.

I've today received this letter from TIL also suggesting that I travelled without a valid ticket on various other occasions all the way back to November 2022 or refunded tickets that I had used. They've attached a sheet for me to fill in with Date, From and To fields. I don't fully understand this allegation as this was the only time I had tried to cheat the system (as unbelievable as I appreciate that sounds). The refunds I applied for were for when I actually didn't end up taking the train.

I'm not too sure how to proceed, any advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks,
lansdon

 

[AlterEgo]

Have you audited your own ticket purchasing account and seen if there are, for example, other tickets from Wembley Stadium there?

 

[Mcr Warrior]

@lansdon. Welcome to the forum. You seem to have found yourself in a bit of a pickle.

Clearly, Transport Investigations Ltd. have had a quick trawl through your online ticket purchasing history, and would quite possibly like you to self incriminate yourself by 'fessing up to other ticketing irregularities which may (or may not) have occurred, so that they can then bump up the total amount of money demanded from you to make the matter go away, and not be taken to court, where, from what you've told us, you'd likely be found guilty for the short faring from Wembley Stadium.

Question then is... How do you persuade them that your various other journeys and/or refund requests were all genuine, if indeed they were, now that they've identified you as a potential wrong 'un (this after the short-faring incident)?

I'll now defer to others as to how best to reply and whether you might need to seek specialist legal representation in order to satisfactorily resolve the matter.

 

[lansdon]

@AlterEgo , thanks for the suggestion. I've had a look and no other journeys from Wembley, there's a fair few between Wycombe and Marylebone funnily enough.

@Mcr Warrior , thanks for your thoughts. Quite the pickle indeed! I've seen on some other threads that an apology letter is the best course of action. Perhaps I go through each journey on my trainline account and explain the genuine journeys I took?

 

[Fawkes Cat]

@AlterEgo , thanks for the suggestion. I've had a look and no other journeys from Wembley, there's a fair few between Wycombe and Marylebone funnily enough.

@Mcr Warrior , thanks for your thoughts. Quite the pickle indeed! I've seen on some other threads that an apology letter is the best course of action. Perhaps I go through each journey on my trainline account and explain the genuine journeys I took?

At the risk of writing a fare dodger's primer, there are a few ways of fare dodging which the railway will be looking out for:

- short faring, where you buy a ticket and override. The trip that the OP made from Wycombe to Marylebone with a ticket only from Wembley Stadium to Marylebone is an example of this, and so, of course, would be a ticket from Marylebone to Wembley but not getting off until Wycombe.

- 'doughnutting' which is essentially having a ticket at each end but with a gap in the middle. So something like a ticket from Wycombe to Beaconsfield and another from Wembley Stadium to Marylebone - but nothing between Beaconsfield and Wembley.

- inappropriate refunds: you buy a ticket online but avoid showing it or scanning it at a barrier line: then you claim a refund for your 'unused' ticket.

The railway won't be particularly interested in journeys where you have bought and used a fairly long distance ticket - that was probably a real, paid for journey. They will be interested in things that look like the ways of fare- dodging that I have described above.

So concentrate on any tickets that look like that. And remember that the railways employ staff who are really quite observant and will recognise travellers: they already know from the time when they caught you that you can be dishonest: if they can catch you out on anything you say ('you say you didn't travel on 1 November: but our employee remembers seeing you get on a train that day') then they won't believe you at all and will prosecute you for all the occurrences that they can.

 

[Hadders]

Welcome to the forum!

Some good advice has already been given.

To summarise, I suspect your desired outcome is keeping this matter out of court. I suggest you carry out an audit of your online ticket purchasing history and explain any instances involving refunds, or tickets involving Wembley Stadium (or any other tickets which could be viewed as suspicious and allow short faring).

While you aren’t required to incriminate yourself the danger is if you don’t co-operate Chiltern/TIL will prosecute for the single offence where you were caught with the Wembley Stadium ticket.

 

[30907]

I take it that the phrase "short ticket collection HWY" means that you allegedly collected tickets at HWY which you could then have used to short-fare (eg from Wembley Stadium, but it could have been Solihull to Brum or similar). Worth checking your records.

 

[fandroid]

Has "collection HWY" recorded the station that was input at time of purchase or the actual collection site? I've often picked up TOD tickets at stations that haven't been the nominated ones.

 

[lansdon]

@Fawkes Cat @Hadders thank you for your responses. I'll compose an apology/explanation letter explaining the refunds I requested as well as the 1 shorter journey I took between Wycombe and Marylebone.

@30907 @fandroid that would make sense, though I haven't actually collected a physical ticket in quite a while. I tend to use trainline. Will double check my account for the past year though.

 

[lansdon]

Hello again,

Following your helpful advice, I sent a letter response to TIL explaining that I am sorry for the incident in the summer and also explaining every journey that I had refunded between November 2022 and August 2023 (the dates they mentioned in their initial letter) including the reasons why I had refunded those.

Today I received their response which doesn't seem to acknowledge that my tickets since November 2022 have been genuine, and slapping me with a hefty settlement fee of £370. This feels disproportionate for one misdemeanour.

My question is whether it would be worth either writing back to them and asking them for a reduction in this fine, or even taking this matter to a magistrates court to see whether they would see this as an unjust fee?

My feeling is that with legal fees, the risk of getting convicted and the potential monetary and social implications which may follow a conviction, it wouldn't be worth taking to court. This £370 is not sitting too comfortably with me though.

Have letters asking for settlement reductions worked in people's favour before?

Thanks,
lansdon

 

[AndroidBango]

Don't let it proceed to court, you will lose - you only need to be convicted for one offence, which you have admitted to.

 

[EZJ]

Sadly I think you are going to have to treat this as a very pricey learning experience, I'd just pay the requested amount to close the matter. If you go to court as already suggested you will be convicted and may get a bigger fine and all the other problems thar arise from a conviction.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Although someone will be along shortly to point out that the onus is on the railway to prove their accusation and not on you to disprove it, I would suggest that you start by asking yourself whether the amount they are asking for is completely unreasonable.

Rather unhelpfully, there's no breakdown of where the £370 comes from, but
- we know the period they're looking at (basically, from a year ago). Can you remember your journeys over that period? Are you certain that you didn't either fare dodge or play the rules for any of them? (The thing about playing the rules - the railway may have a different view of what the rules mean to you: it could be expensive and difficult for you to find out whose view is right).
- typical settlements include an admin fee, normally of somewhere between £100 and £200 (although higher and lower have been known). Once you take account of this what does this leave for fares?
- typical settlements also charge all journeys at the anytime single rate - so no reduction for return tickets, off peak travel or holding a Railcard. Again, what does this do to the fares owed?

You also need to take on board that if you don't settle, the letter makes it clear that it's near certain that prosecution will follow. Even if you manage to head a conviction off, that will be time consuming and stressful to deal with.

Only you know the exact position that you are in. But realistically, £370 to let you walk away from the case is the best settlement offer you are going to get. My advice would be to take a deep breath and pay it.

 

[Hadders]

If the matter ends up in court you will be found guilty and it will end up costing far more than £370 given that you would have to pay a fine, surcharge, Chiltern’s costs and compensation for the fare avoided.

I would pay the £370.

 

[Bungle158]

Some very sound expert advice above.

If this goes to court, it will be a slam dunk criminal conviction for fare avoidance. Depending on the route the prosecutor takes, that may result in a recordable offence being entered against you. There are almost daily reports in local media of court proceedings where fines and costs frequently top £500 for relatively small evaded fares.

Why risk the stress and potential reputational damage, along with a larger financial hit by going the court route?