Help and questions on potential prosecution

[bubbles2]

The email should be good enough. Don't forget to include the reference that the railway will have given - otherwise they might struggle to associate the email with your case papers.

Thanks, is there an estimated response time on emails?

 

[island]

Thanks, is there an estimated response time on emails?

It could be anything from same/next day to several weeks. They are handling hundreds of cases at any one time.

 

[bubbles2]

Received an email response back stating my case would be reviewed and I would be contacted via post shortly?

Not sure if I can read anything into that whether that is good or bad? Any idea how quickly that letter could arrive? I am on holiday next week so do not want to miss it.

 

[John R]

It probably means it’s gone into the “more complex” pile which they can’t get sorted quickly with a settlement offer. Which wouldn’t be a surprise given the scale of the evasion.

 

[bubbles2]

It probably means it’s gone into the “more complex” pile which they can’t get sorted quickly with a settlement offer. Which wouldn’t be a surprise given the scale of the evasion.

So would that mean the next thing expected would likely be court papers or what else? In which case I will contact a solicitor as soon as received

 

[John R]

So would that mean the next thing expected would likely be court papers or what else? In which case I will contact a solicitor as soon as received

Not necessarily, more that I would envisage case handlers would have authority to offer settlements in straightforward low value cases, which yours clearly isn’t. For more complex high value cases there may be a review process, more decisions to be made etc. all this takes time.

Although I don’t think at this point they have all the details of your historic doughnutting (?) but know enough to ask for it, so that itself will take some time to get hold of from Trainline and then assess it.

 

[bubbles2]

Not necessarily, more that I would envisage case handlers would have authority to offer settlements in straightforward low value cases, which yours clearly isn’t. For more complex high value cases there may be a review process, more decisions to be made etc. all this takes time.

Although I don’t think at this point they have all the details of your historic doughnutting (?) but know enough to ask for it, so that itself will take some time to get hold of from Trainline and then assess it.

Thanks. So I have all that information ready, though not provided, and I guess what makes my case more difficult is that the first part of the doughnutting isnt on trainline, just the end part. I can evident the tickets I did by with bank statements etc... so have it all if needed

 

[bubbles2]

Still waiting to hear back from southeastern here and it’s been 2 weeks, anyone know an expected wait time. They emailed me saying I would get a response in the post so not sure how long that is expected to be

 

[antharro]

Remember they have up to six months to take this to court. From reading your first post, you're just about two months in, so there's plenty of time to play with. Try to put it out of your mind for now; they'll get back to you when they get back to you.

 

[MotCO]

The longer they take to get back to you, the longer you have to save for any financial settlement they may offer you. If they make an offer, you will only have limited time to pay it. So start saving!

 

[bubbles2]

Appreciate I may receive the same responses as I did before, but its been 4 weeks since I received my email saying 'You will be contacted in writing through the post shortly'. Maybe naive of me to think shortly would be quicker than 4 weeks. Is it worth me responding to the email asking for an update?

 

[AlterEgo]

Appreciate I may receive the same responses as I did before, but its been 4 weeks since I received my email saying 'You will be contacted in writing through the post shortly'. Maybe naive of me to think shortly would be quicker than 4 weeks. Is it worth me responding to the email asking for an update?

Don’t contact them. It’s not in your interests to do so. They may run out of time (6 months).

 

[bubbles2]

Just a quick update for you all. I received a response today from southeastern with an out of court settlement offer. They had found 70 trips which totalled £2.5k plus a £265 admin fee. This has been paid and glad I went through this route rather than a solicitor. Thanks for all the advice given.

 

[Hadders]

Thanks for letting us know. I’m pleased you managed to obtain a satisfactory outcome and knowing the outcome helps us to advise people in similar circumstances in the future.

 

[John R]

Just a quick update for you all. I received a response today from southeastern with an out of court settlement offer. They had found 70 trips which totalled £2.5k plus a £265 admin fee. This has been paid and glad I went through this route rather than a solicitor. Thanks for all the advice given.

Thanks for letting us know. Given some of the figures estimated earlier, admittedly based on a slightly higher number of instances, that doesn’t appear to be as bad as it might have been.

Good that you managed to get it all sorted.