Fare evasion - Thameslink/GTR

[Saturn]

Hi all
I am a newbie on here and am hoping for your helpful advice and support on my case.
I moved to Bedfordshire not too long ago and was paying a full fare on my travel to London, then I stupidly short-fared for a few month (around 30 journeys in total over 3 months) to save on the trip cost. For this I am very sorry of course and in hindsight it was never worth it.
I was stopped by a Revenue Protection Officer on the train a couple months ago for have an e-ticket from ThamesLink to Farringdon, when my original departure was from another station. The revenue officer told me that I would either receive a penalty fee or a notice of prosecution.

I have recieved an email with the following:
______________________________________
______________________________________
I am writing to you to regarding the statement you gave on XX/XX/2023 to a Govia Thameslink Railway Revenue
Protection Inspector whilst travelling on a Thameslink service.
You were found not to be in possession of a valid rail ticket for your journey between XXXX and Farringdon (London)
and were subsequently interviewed under caution. An investigation undertaken by GTR’s Fraud Department has
established that you avoided a significant sum in rail fares over a prolonged period of time.

Travel Fraud costs the rail industry over £400 million per year and Govia Thameslink Railway has a zero-tolerance
approach to fare evasion on our network. We always ask the courts to impose the maximum penalty for
offenders, which can include the following:
- A Criminal Record
- Fine of up to £1000
- Prison Sentence
- Suspended Sentence
- Community Service
- Compensation
- Costs

I would like to discuss the matter further with you and would therefore request that you respond to this letter
within 7 days using the email address above. Failure to respond to this letter will result in your case being referred
to the Prosecutions Department.
______________________________________
______________________________________

I would really like to settle the matter out of court and would appreciate any help on this matter please. I am willing to pay the fine and the admin charges, and have also learnt my lesson and would never do anything like this again. Having this go to court would be extremely detrimental to my situation and future impacting...

Thanks in advance.

 

[Sultan]

Others will be along to advise your first point of action but they will also ask from which station you travelled from and to, which stations from and to you purchased tickets for, and the number of times. Then you should get an idea of the approximate amount you will need to pay in order to discharge the incident. It tends to the full standard single fare for each incident plus about £100 admin. Depending on time of day, 30 journeys could mount to a considerable sum, and you won't be able to deduct anything in relation to the tickets you did purchase I'm afraid.

Note that not all Train Operating Companies offer settlements - that will likely be down to how you initially respond to the first letter - wait for other advice on what's best in your particular case.

 

[WesternLancer]

Hi all
I am a newbie on here and am hoping for your helpful advice and support on my case.
I moved to Bedfordshire not too long ago and was paying a full fare on my travel to London, then I stupidly short-fared for a few month (around 30 journeys in total over 3 months) to save on the trip cost. For this I am very sorry of course and in hindsight it was never worth it.
I was stopped by a Revenue Protection Officer on the train a couple months ago for have an e-ticket from ThamesLink to Farringdon, when my original departure was from another station. The revenue officer told me that I would either receive a penalty fee or a notice of prosecution.

I have recieved an email with the following:
______________________________________
______________________________________
I am writing to you to regarding the statement you gave on XX/XX/2023 to a Govia Thameslink Railway Revenue
Protection Inspector whilst travelling on a Thameslink service.
You were found not to be in possession of a valid rail ticket for your journey between XXXX and Farringdon (London)
and were subsequently interviewed under caution. An investigation undertaken by GTR’s Fraud Department has
established that you avoided a significant sum in rail fares over a prolonged period of time.

Travel Fraud costs the rail industry over £400 million per year and Govia Thameslink Railway has a zero-tolerance
approach to fare evasion on our network. We always ask the courts to impose the maximum penalty for
offenders, which can include the following:
- A Criminal Record
- Fine of up to £1000
- Prison Sentence
- Suspended Sentence
- Community Service
- Compensation
- Costs

I would like to discuss the matter further with you and would therefore request that you respond to this letter
within 7 days using the email address above. Failure to respond to this letter will result in your case being referred
to the Prosecutions Department.
______________________________________
______________________________________

I would really like to settle the matter out of court and would appreciate any help on this matter please. I am willing to pay the fine and the admin charges, and have also learnt my lesson and would never do anything like this again. Having this go to court would be extremely detrimental to my situation and future impacting...

Thanks in advance.

So is this a request to attend an interview with them about long standing ticket evasions?

There are some other recent threads on here discussing such requests that you may find helpful to have a look over. Suffice to say such discussions are often viewed on here as efforts to get people to provide more info that incriminates themselves, and advice is often given not to attend them without someone to represent you (eg a solicitor) which of course comes at a significant financial cost.

I wonder if in the 1st instance it would be better to respond with the more general apology structure often set out on these threads very well by @Hadders (see other threads) - without specifically addressing the question of this request to 'discuss the matter' at this stage.

As you may see in other threads they can very easily look at your online ticket purchasing digital fingerprint with any retailer and will no doubt have seen your pattern of ticket buying which they will see as suspicious.

And of course they have caught you once so presumably have enough evidence form that occasion to prosecute anyway of they chose to do so.

Thameslink do have a track record of agreeing out of court settlements, which is where I think you need to aim to get to. But you do need to respond to this letter because you are effectively on an escalator to court and the only way to try to get off that is by engaging with them I would think.

 

[Hadders]

Welcome to the forum!

We are seeing lots of cases like this at the moment. GTR are one of the more pragmatic companies when it comes to dealing with this sort of thing and they are usually prepared to offer an out of court settlement as long as you co-operate with them and haven't come to their attention before.

I suggest you mention the following in your reply to them:

- That you are sorry for what has happened
- What you have learned from the incident
- That you are keen to settle the matter without the need for court action
- Offer to pay the outstanding fare and the train company's administrative costs in dealing with the matter

Given that they know that you have avoided paying the correct fare over a sustained period it's probably worth researching your own ticket purchasing history yourself and listing the occasions on which you havn't paid the correct fare as this might avoid the need for an interview. Normally we would advise being represented in a formal interview to discuss this sort of thing although more recently we have heard of several examples where the interview has been more 'informal' to establish the number of occasions and value of fares avoided.

If you are offered a settlement the cost tends to be a few hundred pounds plus the outstanding fare. An out of court settlement might appear to be a fine, but it isn't and you won't have a criminal record as a result of accepting one.

Feel free to post a copy of your draft reply in this thread and forum members will be happy to proof read it for you.

 

[Saturn]

Hi Hadders, WesternLancer and Sultan.

Thank you all for the prompt replies. I did contact Samir @ Manak Solicitors regarding the matter too based on looking at some of the posts on here. I can confirm that today Samir was able to secure an out of court settlement with GTR. I had recounted all the journeys I had shorted on and was able to document these, for these I had to pay the difference as well as the compensation on top.

I want to thank you all for the incredible work that you folks do to help others that have had a lapse in judgement. One may think it's a victimless action but it's very much an action that impacts not just the train companies, but one's own peace.

For anyone thinking short-faring is saving you money, it really isn't, what you end up paying in stress and fear as well as the financial penalty, it's not worth it for a single penny.

Once again, thank you all on this forum and Samir at Manak Solicitors who was able to secure an out of court settlement within 4 days.

Thanks,

Saturn

 

[WesternLancer]

Hi Hadders, WesternLancer and Sultan.

Thank you all for the prompt replies. I did contact Samir @ Manak Solicitors regarding the matter too based on looking at some of the posts on here. I can confirm that today Samir was able to secure an out of court settlement with GTR. I had recounted all the journeys I had shorted on and was able to document these, for these I had to pay the difference as well as the compensation on top.

I want to thank you all for the incredible work that you folks do to help others that have had a lapse in judgement. One may think it's a victimless action but it's very much an action that impacts not just the train companies, but one's own peace.

For anyone thinking short-faring is saving you money, it really isn't, what you end up paying in stress and fear as well as the financial penalty, it's not worth it for a single penny.

Once again, thank you all on this forum and Samir at Manak Solicitors who was able to secure an out of court settlement within 4 days.

Thanks,

Saturn

Thanks for update - hope the overall costs of this to you balanced the outcome you got, and sounds like you feel they did. The potential 'interview discussion' scenario did seem to make this a bit more of an unknown scenario and it would seem you have avoided this via your course of action.