Expired railcard confiscated - will I be prosecuted?

[Ceecee123]

I recently boarded a train with a railcard discounted ticket (16-25) completely oblivious to the fact that my railcard had infact expired by 9 days. With it being Christmas etc it had completey slipped my mind until I came to present it to the conductor on board. I showed my ticket and the railcard and the conductor and I both saw it had expired and I apologised and said I wasn't aware. The driver said he would need to confiscate the railcard and he took it from the sleeve. He driver advised me that he would allow me to continue my journey and didn't make me pay for a new ticket or take any of my details but did say he would need to send off the railcard. I am very worried they will be bring up my details from the railcard and and send me a prosecution letter. I have never evaded fares before and this was a genuine mistake. I renewed my railcard the next day as due to the time the ticket office was closed when I reached my destination. How likely is it that they will pursue this based on details held on file for the railcard. If the conductor let me continue my journey without a new ticket or a penalty or taking my details, am I lucky and that's the end of the matter?

Kind. Regards

 

[mikeg]

I'd say you're lucky and that's the end of the matter. The railcard was likely simply destroyed at the end of the conductor's shift. AFAIK they would need to take details to prosecute you.

 

[gray1404]

I would agree that should be the end of it. In order for them to take an action he would have needed to take some more details from you, like your journey details and your name and address. Now I see you are worried that the railcard might get "sent off" like he says and they will then look up the details you gave when you applied for the railcard. That is highly unlikely indeed. It would be for the rail company to take an action and they, most likely do not hold any further railcard details. In short, if they wanted to take any further action he would have needed to have taken more details at the time.

 

[Sophie Anthony]

Most threads I've read on this forum regarding disputes over expired railcards have a "I gave my details and signed my name on a slip" somewhere, it's pretty difficult to obtain personal details from a railcard alone

 

[Darandio]

it's pretty difficult to obtain personal details from a railcard alone

Apart from a name(s), in some cases a photo and a unique number linked to an address. For the vast majority that have given the correct details to obtain their railcard, i'd say obtaining these details if needed isn't that hard.

 

[Sophie Anthony]

Apart from a name(s), in some cases a photo and a unique number linked to an address. For the vast majority that have given the correct details to obtain their railcard, i'd say obtaining these details if needed isn't that hard.

Fair enough

 

[Ceecee123]

But surely the conductor wouldn't mislead me into thinking all was fine but then knowingly send my railcard off so that they can deal with it by way of prosecution etc. I know the new updated system for railcard and season tickets holds addresses and ticket purchases etc on file. The conductor did not confiscate my ticket, so my logic is that he would have needed to take my ticket as well as the railcard which was only the paper ticket part and not the photo if he intended to formally pursue it as the ticket I was using would be the proof. Anyone else able to add anything, kind regards

 

[221129]

You'll be fine.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

To summarise - we can't give a definite answer. If the railway company wants to pursue you, then the guard won't have made it easy for them by taking the railcard as the only evidence of who you are, rather than writing down your name and address. Given that your railcard had only expired by nine days, there's good reason to think that what the guard was doing was giving you the benefit of the doubt - but making sure that if you were looking to get a cheap fare without a valid railcard then you couldn't do it again.

You can almost certainly write this one off to experience. If it turns out that actually the railway company does want to take things further, you have already made a note of what you did in the first post in this discussion, so you have most of a witness statement already prepared. So you don't even need our standard advice of making a note about what happened in case you need to argue the point later.

You made a mistake by not checking the date on your railcard. Learn from that mistake, but otherwise you can forget that this ever happened. And if I turn out to be wrong on this, then come back to ask us for more advice when the railway company writes to you.

 

[Fare-Cop]

Whether there is automatically a record of your name and address depends on whether you bought your original railcard online.

If so the company has a record of the name of the Railcard holder, the date of birth and the address to which the Railcard was posted, so all he would need additionally is a note of the date & time, the ticket held and the journey being made.

That said, even if your Railcard was purchased online, I would expect that you have got away with a gentle warning and the inspector simply retained the Railcard to prevent you being tempted to use it again.

I would hope there will be no follow up.