GA Travel Irregularities

[mischiefmaker4]

Hello, I received this email on the 29th of December:

Good morning,
We are emailing from the Greater Anglia fraud department. We have been investigating industry data and have been led to believe you are potentially not paying full fares on Greater Anglia services. There appear to be a number of incorrectly purchased tickets showing on your account that are a breach of our terms and conditions and considered fraudulent activity. Please refer to our Revenue Protection and Prosecutions Policy: Revenue Protection & Prosecutions Policy .
Attached is a letter for you to read.
Please respond within 7 days to settle this case.

With a letter saying:

Following a review of your bookings, several travel irregularities were identified.
We are seeking to ascertain whether a valid ticket and railcard were held for these journeys.
We invite you to respond to this letter within 7 days by email to Fraud.Investigations@greateranglia.co.uk quoting the
reference number (REDACTED) in the subject field.
In your response, please provide any statements or mitigations, as well as any supporting documentation, that you would
like us to consider in relation to this matter.

And I had just woken up when I received it, so I replied with a screenshot of the receipt of my railcard. Then today I received a response saying:

Good afternoon,

Thank you for getting into contact about your case.

Your account was highlighted due to some off-peak tickets being purchased and used during peak travel times with a railcard discount applied to the fare. As stated in the terms and conditions of your railcards, the restrictions are ( all fares must be a minimum of £12.00 if travelling before 10am on weekdays- (except during July and august).

Could you provide evidence of the railcards for the periods below you have been using to discount your tickets please:

16-25 railcard - 09/10/2024 - 21/11/2025

Also there have been child tickets purchased from the dates of 27/05/2025 - 03/06/2025.

Can you please confirm your age?

At this stage we would like to offer you an opportunity to explain these irregularities on your account, and based on your response the decision will be to either offer you the opportunity to repay any funds relating to these journeys (plus our administration fee), (b) to forward your case to our prosecutions department for processing or (c) close your case (if sufficient evidence has been provided and proved).

So I checked, and I did make some travels with a child ticket in June (4 tickets, but only 2 days). I did not know about this forum till today. Should I continue to reply or just leave them be? I would like to not get prosecuted for this since this is my only investigation, and I don't buy child tickets.

 

[Haywain]

and I don't buy child tickets.

That is, by your own admission above, not true. But you shouldn't do so in future.

Should I continue to reply or just leave them be?

Do not reply. You are providing evidence that will weaken your position.

 

[z444z]

You should not reply any further. This is not what they do when they have evidence, this is what they do when they have a suspicion and want to scare you into paying up.

So we can make sure you have already incriminated yourself to the point that this course of action is no longer advisable, could you please tell us exactly what you said in your response to them? Did you just attach a screenshot, or did you say something too?

 

[mischiefmaker4]

You should not reply any further. This is not what they do when they have evidence, this is what they do when they have a suspicion and want to scare you into paying up.

So we can make sure you have already incriminated yourself to the point that this course of action is no longer advisable, could you please tell us exactly what you said in your response to them? Did you just attach a screenshot, or did you say something too?

What I said in the first response email was this:

Hello,
I have received your letter about travel irregularities and I would like to know if there was a specific day of travel that is causing the problems or if it was the railcard in which I purchased and provided a receipt of purchase below. Any other issues, please let me know as soon as possible.

Also, when the first email came, I called them, and they said it is nothing serious and I asked if I should send a screenshot of my railcard and the guy on the phone said yes, send one, which I also did.

 

[Haywain]

What I said in the first response email was this:

Also, when the first email came, I called them, and they said it is nothing serious and I asked if I should send a screenshot of my railcard and the guy on the phone said yes, send one, which I also did.

We can't undo what you have done already but you should not respond to them any further.

 

[mischiefmaker4]

We can't undo what you have done already but you should not respond to them any further.

Are you certain they won't escalate? I'll listen to your advice, it's just that I am a little stressed and paranoid because nothing like this has happened before.

 

[Haywain]

Are you certain they won't escalate?

They will write to you again, perhaps more than once, but if you do not respond there is nothing more they can do. If you do respond they will make demands for you to pay them an amount that they will regard as covering unpaid fares and their 'costs' but while they will threaten prosecution they do not, currently, have sufficient evidence and won't get it without your help.

 

[mischiefmaker4]

They will write to you again, perhaps more than once, but if you do not respond there is nothing more they can do. If you do respond they will make demands for you to pay them an amount that they will regard as covering unpaid fares and their 'costs' but while they will threaten prosecution they do not, currently, have sufficient evidence and won't get it without your help.

Okay, thank you. So basically, stay calm and don't stress reply because it will make everything worse. Has there been any time when someone hasn't replied, and they just left them alone? because most of the posts I have seen are people paying some amount of money back.

 

[z444z]

Okay, thank you. So basically, stay calm and don't stress reply because it will make everything worse. Has there been any time when someone hasn't replied, and they just left them alone? because most of the posts I have seen are people paying some amount of money back.

Yes, nothing further will happen if you ignore the threatening emails, as long as you make sure you’re paying the correct fare from now on.

 

[mischiefmaker4]

Yes, nothing further will happen if you ignore the threatening emails, as long as you make sure you’re paying the correct fare from now on.

Oh yes, I will be paying correct fares from now on

 

[Mattplans]

Are you certain they won't escalate? I'll listen to your advice, it's just that I am a little stressed and paranoid because nothing like this has happened before.

I encourage you to search “travel irregularities” on the forum
and read cases similar to your own. You will see that it has never resulted in anything, except when someone decides to engage with them (… which has been against the advice of forum members)

This is a relatively new type of revenue protection campaign launched by some train companies. It relies on the average user not knowing the company actually has no leverage as they were not stopped while
using the tickets.

At this stage, we must advise that you stop buying tickets or adding discounts you are not entitled to (if that is even the case…) If you are caught using a ticket that you are not entitled to, a train company could then use that circumstance (the threat of prosecution for that offence) to squeeze all of the money you should have paid for the child tickets and any other alleged evasions. We had a case of this earlier in the week and the user had to settle a large amount with the company in question.

Feel free to post any further replies from GA here as it will be useful to see how long they go along with it for. Also there is a section for it on this website if you would like any suggestions on how you can save money while commuting etc

 

[mischiefmaker4]

I encourage you to search “travel irregularities” on the forum
and read cases similar to your own. You will see that it has never resulted in anything, except when someone decides to engage with them (… which has been against the advice of forum members)

This is a relatively new type of revenue protection campaign launched by some train companies. It relies on the average user not knowing the company actually has no leverage as they were not stopped while
using the tickets.

At this stage, we must advise that you stop buying tickets or adding discounts you are not entitled to (if that is even the case…) If you are caught using a ticket that you are not entitled to, a train company could then use that circumstance (the threat of prosecution for that offence) to squeeze all of the money you should have paid for the child tickets and any other alleged evasions. We had a case of this earlier in the week and the user had to settle a large amount with the company in question.

Feel free to post any further replies from GA here as it will be useful to see how long they go along with it for. Also there is a section for it on this website if you would like any suggestions on how you can save money while commuting etc

It seems like I spelt "Irregularities" wrong, and that's my bad. I will not continue to have a dialogue with them to not incriminate myself any further. I do not buy anything I am not entitled to. It was a one-time thing. Thanks for replying.

 

[mischiefmaker4]

Hey all, been a while since I last was contacted by them. There has been an update as I checked my spam and saw they had actually emailed me this on the 28/01/26

Good Morning,
We have not received any contact from you; you were previously contacted on 07/01/2026.
At this stage we would like to offer you an opportunity to explain these irregularities on your account, and based on your response the decision will be to either offer you the opportunity to repay any funds relating to these journeys (plus our administration fee), (b) to forward your case to our prosecutions department for processing or (c) close your case (if sufficient evidence has been provided and proved).

If we do not hear from you within the next 5 working days, you will lose any opportunity to settle this case with us.

I didn’t see it because it went to spam but I assume I should just leave it as technically it would been the 5 days already.

 

[z444z]

Yes, continue to ignore. Honestly I’d expect this to be the last you hear from them, but there might be one or two more.

 

[mischiefmaker4]

Yes, continue to ignore. Honestly I’d expect this to be the last you hear from them, but there might be one or two more.

Okay that’s alright. I’ll continue to hold out hopefully they drop it after that email

 

[STINT47]

That's a standard email that they send out. As others have put do not reply. They don't have enough to prosecute you and are fishing for people to incriminate themselves.

 

[mischiefmaker4]

UPDATE:
Hey guys, just a small update because it has been a month since I last updated. They have not contacted me since the last thing I sent here so it seems they have decided to leave me alone. Thank you guys for all the help and I will update if they end up coming back (Hopefully not)

 

[z444z]

UPDATE:
Hey guys, just a small update because it has been a month since I last updated. They have not contacted me since the last thing I sent here so it seems they have decided to leave me alone. Thank you guys for all the help and I will update if they end up coming back (Hopefully not)

Thanks very much for the update, that’s helpful for us, and glad to hear it seems to be over!