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Over a year and a bit ago a GWR inspector found I was travelling with a ticket that required a railcard and upon checking my railcard I discovered it was expired and it was a honest mistake. GWR sent me a letter and email this week with a Pre-Court Settlement offer to pay the price of the Anytime Single fare for each journey undertaken (I purchased off-peak and super off-peak singles and some advances.) There were a total of 15+ journeys that I made while my railcard was expired. Again a honest mistake.
I managed to get 1 removed as it was impossible for me to be on it. But the total they are asking for is quite high at £1000+. Am I projected under the 6 month rule? Can they prove fraud?( no intent again.) Their letter is slightly different compared to others as they mention condition 9 under NRCoT but don’t mention the fraud act? They say reserve the right to prosecute and institute civil money claims. ( does this language hint at anything?)
Should I pay the full price of the Pre-Court Settlement? Or would I be able to stake a civil claim and how would that affect me in life?
Any advice is greatly appreciated,
Thank you.
NRCoT condition 9 is travelling without a valid ticket. If you use a discounted ticket that is conditional on having a valid railcard, then if you don't have the railcard, the ticket isn't valid, effectively no ticket.
The 6 month rule is for railway bylaws, and I believe they are out of time to go to court for bylaw offence. Others will advise best way to reply.
A civil claim, is more owing money (a debt), how far companies would actually proceed with this, even if they threaten you with nasty letters is difficult to tell. Most hope you panic into voluntarily offering what you failed to pay them (but they had noticed for a long time)
Over a year and a bit ago a GWR inspector found I was travelling with a ticket that required a railcard and upon checking my railcard I discovered it was expired and it was a honest mistake. GWR sent me a letter and email this week with a Pre-Court Settlement offer to pay the price of the Anytime Single fare for each journey undertaken (I purchased off-peak and super off-peak singles and some advances.) There were a total of 15+ journeys that I made while my railcard was expired. Again a honest mistake.
I managed to get 1 removed as it was impossible for me to be on it. But the total they are asking for is quite high at £1000+. Am I projected under the 6 month rule? Can they prove fraud?( no intent again.) Their letter is slightly different compared to others as they mention condition 9 under NRCoT but don’t mention the fraud act? They say reserve the right to prosecute and institute civil money claims. ( does this language hint at anything?)
Should I pay the full price of the Pre-Court Settlement? Or would I be able to stake a civil claim and how would that affect me in life?
Any advice is greatly appreciated,
Thank you.
There are one or two recent threads with detailed advice for people on how to push back on these civil claim requests / threats.
Need to try and find those for you.
People here probably need to see all the correspondence so far to see how best to advise - both what they have sent you and how you have responded so far.
If you upload them make sure anything that would personally identify you is blanked out eg name address ref number etc.
Are they seeking Anytime fares instead of potentially cheaper fares that you might have paid at the actual time of travel?
We’ve seen cases on here where people have pushed back but not ever seen anyone let it go to the civil court where court experts on here are firmly convinced the court would not award a sum as large as the Anytime fares.
As a consequence we’ve not seen what a court has actually done.
But these would not be criminal prosecution cases. They would be civil debts. So no criminal record etc.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
This is one such case. You’ll need to read it all carefully and also any other threads linked off it
Hi people, I've received a letter from a GWR Prosecutions Administration Officer about 15 journeys I unwittingly took with an expired railcard. I was stopped by one of their officers nearly 2 years ago with an expired railcard and they've only recently reached out to me with a pre-court...
www.railforums.co.uk
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Hi folks, I have just received a letter in the mail from GWR for a pre court settlement offer totalling £622. The letter came with a spreadsheet with a total of 8 journeys I allegedly took, 7 of which in May 2024, and 1 in July 2022 with an expired 16-25 railcard. They have said that failure...
Hi all, I have just received a bit of a shock. April 2024, I was unknowingly travelling with an expired railcard. I had done so on five journeys, where my ticket and railcard had been checked each time and the inspectors found no issue with my railcard, so I had assumed it to be fine. I was...
www.railforums.co.uk
O ne or two of these have suggested letters drafted by one of the experts on the forum on this area.
Those drafts maybe something you can adapt and make use of.
What’s a bit frustrating is that in these cases despite substantial detailed help and advice being given here I don’t think we have been updated with outcomes so don’t know if for example GWR agreed significantly reduced sums, or if the OPs gave in and ultimately paid up what was demanded, or if anything got or is due to go to, a court.
Ref your own case
it’s probably important for you to give us some details about the travel concerned that they are seeking payment for (when, time of day, ticket you held etc).
Your successful engagement with GWR to have one journey removed is a significant development. The following advice assumes you have already been in contact with GWR.
By identifying the journey you could not have taken, you have effectively confirmed the accuracy of the remaining journeys. To a civil court or investigator, this suggests you made those trips. As a result, disputing your identity as the traveller in a civil claim is now very difficult.
At this stage, you should focus on reaching a settlement based on restitution. In contract law, damages are intended to restore the injured party to the position they would have been in if the contract had been properly fulfilled, not to impose an arbitrary penalty.
Currently, GWR is requesting the full Anytime Single fare for each trip, resulting in a total exceeding £1,000. They appear to be disregarding the payments you have already made for off-peak and advance tickets. If they retain your original payments and also demand the full Anytime fare, they are effectively receiving double compensation for the same seat. While this approach is common when criminal prosecution is possible, your case has now shifted to a civil claim.
Respond to the revenue protection team with a calm and cooperative counteroffer. Review your booking history and prepare a clear breakdown of the remaining journeys. For each journey, note what you paid, the full undiscounted fare for that ticket type without the railcard, and the difference. You should post a draft of your reply here, omitting any identifying details, for further help.
Additionally, as @WesternLancer suggested, please share redacted versions of all correspondence with GWR, both sent and received.
Purchase flexible single/return tickets & Travelcards – in 3 clicks, at face value with no fees. Every British rail fare shown, railcard discounts included.
www.brfares.com
but you will notice this throws up masses of different fares for most journeys between any 2 stations, so if you are not familiar with how fare pricing works this might be confusing to you at first glance.
But if you list the journeys concerned here we can help find the correct prices, usually for the date concerned as it has previous fares on it as well as current prices (ie historic data)
But you may simply feel happy using your usual ticket buying site to get prices - so long as you are familiar with the general rules around the pricing / use vaildity for Advance, Off Peak, Super Off Peak and Anytime fares.
I would take a look at previous threads on GWR's (threatened) civil claims to see the advice given there.
Broadly speaking the view is that they are unlikely to have grounds to demand the Anytime fare for journeys where a cheaper ticket was used. Arguably they are only entitled to repayment of the incorrectly obtained discount, but a reasonable offer in most cases would be to pay for the difference to the appropriate walk-up fare (Off-Peak or Super Off-Peak where relevant to).
For cases that took place before 1 November 2025, e.g. yours, they have absolutely no legal basis for recovering any admin fees so I certainly wouldn't be prepared to pay those if they're asking for them.
In previous cases GWR have also refused to provide any evidence of the authority they claim to have over journeys where the tickets were not valid on GWR. They merely keep on asserting it, but they haven't done anything to prove it. Of course it may be that all of your journeys, or the vast majority by cost, were on tickets that would have allowed travel on GWR, in which case this is a moot point.
There is a 6 month time limit for prosecutions, unless they can prove fraud - but the bar for this is very high and it is highly unlikely they would be able to prove it in an expired Railcard case.
Given this time limit, your only realistic risk if you can't agree a settlement with GWR is a civil claim against you. In a civil case there is limited risk to taking it to Court since the default position for claims under £10k is for each side to cover their own legal costs, win or lose. The loser will only usually be ordered to pay the Court fees, interest and the winner's direct travel/accommodation costs of attending any hearing.
They’re out of time to prosecute under RoRA through their own incompetence.
The other option you have is just ignoring all further correspondence and seeing how far they’ll go in terms of a civil recovery.
You may get away with having to pay nothing if they drop it - and if it goes as far as a civil claim, they’d only be able to claim the actual damages anyway (far less than all the anytime single fares). They may realise that the cost and reputational risks of pursuing it is not worth it.
They’re out of time to prosecute under RoRA through their own incompetence.
The other option you have is just ignoring all further correspondence and seeing how far they’ll go in terms of a civil recovery.
You may get away with having to pay nothing if they drop it - and if it goes as far as a civil claim, they’d only be able to claim the actual damages anyway (far less than all the anytime single fares). They may realise that the cost and reputational risks of pursuing it is not worth it.
There is a fair element of risk to this.
It’s been said on here that by making a reasonable offer to GWR over sums owed you are in a stronger position in civil action if it came to court.
We have seen forum
Members in a position to know (GWR employees) assure us that civil court action has been taken against people.
But
it is the case that for the possible 6-8 cases that have come to the forum like this so far none have reported civil court action against them actually happening, or in most cases what they ultimately decided to do or agreed with GWR in the end.
And from memory only one updated their thread with their final decision which was to pay GWR after some push back (but iirc there were potential inferences that some of their ticket buying might have looked potentially suspicious if scrutinised in court so they wanted to avoid that).
They’re out of time to prosecute under RoRA through their own incompetence.
The other option you have is just ignoring all further correspondence and seeing how far they’ll go in terms of a civil recovery.
You may get away with having to pay nothing if they drop it - and if it goes as far as a civil claim, they’d only be able to claim the actual damages anyway (far less than all the anytime single fares). They may realise that the cost and reputational risks of pursuing it is not worth it.
Unfortunately, the OP has already engaged and effectively admitted to a number of journeys, so there is little chance of the matter being dropped. If they had not engaged, the position may have been different.
There is a benefit of this being a civil matter rather than a criminal one - if it does go to court you avoid a criminal record altogether, and the economics work in your favour - on the small claims track each side pays their own legal costs win or lose, so they could only recover their court fees (around £130-170 for a claim this size) plus limited witness/travel expenses, not their solicitor time. The hearing would also be at a court local to you, so they'd need to send someone or instruct a local solicitor, which is another thing that changes the maths significantly compared to a criminal prosecution. It's a reason I suspect we still haven't seen one of these GWR cases actually progress to court.
On damages, as has already been said, what they're entitled to is the financial loss your actions caused them - meaning the appropriate walk up fare you should have paid at the time, less what you actually did pay. Not the anytime single regardless of when you travelled. Some people argue it should just be the cost of a replacement railcard which I think goes a bit far, but going the other way and demanding the anytime fare for journeys that could've legitimately been bought as off peak or super off peak is unlikely to be seen as reasonable but it would depend on the judge.
Personally I'd work out the appropriate walk up fare for each journey, deduct what you actually paid, and propose that as a settlement. If they refuse, let them take you to court and make the argument there. It does depend on your tolerance for risk though.
One thing worth factoring in - if you settle directly with GWR, including via a payment plan agreed before any claim is issued, there's no court involvement and no credit impact. But if it goes to court and you lose, the only way to avoid a CCJ being registered against you is to pay the judgment in full within one month of the judgment date. If you pay any later than that, it will still sit on your credit file for 6 years - and a payment plan agreed after judgment doesn't get you out of that. If you don't have the funds to pay what they ask for in one go, you may want to avoid that possibility entirely and the only way to do that is to settle with what GWR end up asking for after your negotiation.
There is a benefit of this being a civil matter rather than a criminal one - if it does go to court you avoid a criminal record altogether, and the economics work in your favour - on the small claims track each side pays their own legal costs win or lose, so they could only recover their court fees (around £130-170 for a claim this size) plus limited witness/travel expenses, not their solicitor time. The hearing would also be at a court local to you, so they'd need to send someone or instruct a local solicitor, which is another thing that changes the maths significantly compared to a criminal prosecution. It's a reason I suspect we still haven't seen one of these GWR cases actually progress to court.
On damages, as has already been said, what they're entitled to is the financial loss your actions caused them - meaning the appropriate walk up fare you should have paid at the time, less what you actually did pay. Not the anytime single regardless of when you travelled. Some people argue it should just be the cost of a replacement railcard which I think goes a bit far, but going the other way and demanding the anytime fare for journeys that could've legitimately been bought as off peak or super off peak is unlikely to be seen as reasonable but it would depend on the judge.
Personally I'd work out the appropriate walk up fare for each journey, deduct what you actually paid, and propose that as a settlement. If they refuse, let them take you to court and make the argument there. It does depend on your tolerance for risk though.
One thing worth factoring in - if you settle directly with GWR, including via a payment plan agreed before any claim is issued, there's no court involvement and no credit impact. But if it goes to court and you lose, the only way to avoid a CCJ being registered against you is to pay the judgment in full within one month of the judgment date. If you pay any later than that, it will still sit on your credit file for 6 years - and a payment plan agreed after judgment doesn't get you out of that. If you don't have the funds to pay what they ask for in one go, you may want to avoid that possibility entirely and the only way to do that is to settle with what GWR end up asking for after your negotiation.
Unfortunately, the OP has already engaged and effectively admitted to a number of journeys, so there is little chance of the matter being dropped. If they had not engaged, the position may have been different.
yes, but presumably if it actually got to the civil court, and you were asked in the court 'did you make these other journeys?' - it's not going to be a good idea to lie in court, and if you say 'no comment' that presumably means conclusions will be drawn.
I expect the OP did make the other journeys ... and the fact that they have got one removed implies that they did, or they would have asked GWR to remove those too.
To get the journey removed, the OP had to ask GWR to amend the settlement total. The conversation effectively becomes:
OP: "Your data is incorrect regarding date X. Please remove it from the calculation."
GWR: "We have verified your proof and removed date X. The revised balance for the remaining journeys is now £1,000+."
If the OP accepts that revised figure or continues the conversation without immediately saying, "And I also deny all the others," they have entered into a negotiation based on a revised dataset. In any formal or semi-formal dispute, failing to contest an item once you have actively engaged in amending the list is treated as an acceptance of those remaining items.
After reading multiple threads, I’ve concluded that ignoring their initial email might be the most advantageous strategy, however due to my current financial situation, if this did end up going to civil court, and I ended up losing, I most likely would not be able to pay the full judgment within a one month period therefore reveling a CCJ.
So, I’m torn between whether to ignore the email and see if they actually do take me to court or ultimately drop the charges, or avoid this risk and negotiate a counter offer and settle a smaller amount.
After reading multiple threads, I’ve concluded that ignoring their initial email might be the most advantageous strategy, however due to my current financial situation, if this did end up going to civil court, and I ended up losing, I most likely would not be able to pay the full judgment within a one month period therefore reveling a CCJ.
So, I’m torn between whether to ignore the email and see if they actually do take me to court or ultimately drop the charges, or avoid this risk and negotiate a counter offer and settle a smaller amount.
Hi. I’ll reply later on your thread on this, but as per one of the previous threads probably linked where I’ll have commented I’m not of the view that you should ignore this.
But better to explain my view on it properly in that thread.
