Expired Railcard - Chiltern

[chilhelp2025]

Hello, received a notice of intended prosecution from Chiltern Railways. Railcard expired in November, did not realise until stopped in March on the train. Renewed the railcard on the spot and showed this but my details were taken.

Letter states they have reviewed purchasing history and "our investigation has revealed you may have avoided the correct rail fare on other occasions" - Where would this have come from, trainline? I have 20 journeys between Nov-March, how would you recommend approaching this? Is it fare to offer to pay the additional fees for each fare as anytime day singles as well as an administrative fee?

The vast majority of these trips are expensed through work so the intention of saving money personally was not there - is that arguable?

Letter below.

 

[swt_passenger]

Yes, they will have audited your trainline account. The usual process is that the TOC will treat each journey has having had no valid ticket, so their default position will be to ask you for the total of 20 (or is it 40?) Anytime single fares, (with no consideration of the fare you’ve already paid), plus an admin fee, usually about £160-200.

I don’t think the fact you were given expenses for the journeys will be of any concern to them at all.

 

[Titfield]

Yes the data would have come from Trainline. Under GDPR they are permitted to do this.

They usually seek the full anytime single fare with no credit given for the fares already paid.

Experience suggests that TOCS take what appears to be a very harsh line on this.

You can see the discission about this in a number of similar threads.

 

[chilhelp2025]

Thank you for the quick replies, what is the default response to them providing mitigating information? Do you state how many journeys or ask them to share this information with you? Is it worth proposing to pay the difference and waiting for their response? Most letters people send seem to apologise and ask for a settlement without proposing anything?

Presumably they are only interested in the fare owed to them, I have a random journey on an alternative rail line when visiting friends?

 

[AlterEgo]

Thank you for the quick replies, what is the default response to them providing mitigating information? Do you state how many journeys or ask them to share this information with you? Is it worth proposing to pay the difference and waiting for their response? Most letters people send seem to apologise and ask for a settlement without proposing anything?

You can try proposing something but the forum’s experience is Chiltern ask for the Anytime fare regardless.

Presumably they are only interested in the fare owed to them, I have a random journey on an alternative rail line when visiting friends?

No, they are authorised to collect all rail fares. Even what you think are “Chiltern tickets” likely have a revenue split between Chiltern and another train company due to something called ORCATS.

 

[chilhelp2025]

Thank you - in that case the email you send to them basically just needs to explain that you apologise for the inconvenience, admit this was an oversight on your behalf, have mitigated the error by buying a new railcard immediately and that you would like to settle outside of court to avoid taking the matter further?

Do you then just wait for them to share the details of any penalty?

 

[Titfield]

Yes, They will reply usually with a spreadsheet of the journeys in question for you to agree / comment on.