Had a railcard that was expired for a few months - didn’t realise it genuinely as I assumed I paid for 2 years instead of 1 but then couple of days ago was fined £50.. I paid immediately, but I know that it’s not over. I have a feeling they’re going to try and account for all the journeys that I took with the railcard. What do you advise I do? It’s with the c2c. I’m not too familiar with how they move.
I must say it’s very rare to get C2C cases on here so hard for me to give a clear view on what they may or may not do based on other cases.
Maybe hardly anyone evades fares on their route….
Or they just let people off
Anyway, yes it is possible they might investigate past ticket buying later on (West Midlands trains seem to do that as routine for example, but not all operators seem to do it). But it’s possible you won’t hear anything further.
Something you can do is buy a new railcard if that makes sense to do.
Otherwise all you can really do is wait to see if you hear from them by letter or email and check spam.
If you do, head here for advice before replying to them in any way at all.
If six to seven months passes without them hearing from you their ability to take action against you diminishes in that they could not bring a criminal prosecution for the case recently when you were stopped and questioned.
But they could take civil court action to try to reclaim un paid fares. GWR seem to do this but not seen any c2c examples. The consequences of this are less serious aiui. Civil debt not criminal record for example.
Other thing you could do is privately go through your on line ticket buying records and work out how many individual single trips you took after the expiry of your railcard and price them up using the Anytime Single fare (as that is the sum they would typically ask for) taking no account of any payment you did make. Make a list for your private records. Save that sum up in savings account plus about £150 on top. That’s probably the sort of money you’d need to have to hand if this escalated in the next 6 or 7 months.
Also find and keep records of your previous railcard in case they ask for proof you held one and to prove its expiry date. We do see train companies ask for this.
Head back here for advice if anything more comes of this.
Assuming you were issued with a Penalty Fare? If you have paid that keep the paperwork and proof of payment. Keep it for 6 years. 6 years is the time limit on civil debt claims I think.
Hopefully this advice is all overkill and you won’t hear anything more.
