large ticket fraud- need help asap

[mynameisname]

i have made some mistakes.

for the past 6 years i have been using trains as my main form of transport and in this time, i have bought child tickets and most importantly, short fared for a really long time. i got flagged in october for short faring and are now receiving the emails from waterloo fraud investigators stating the seriousness of the offence. i will attach all emails down below.

they have said that there are multiple tickets using a railcard when they suspect me to not have them but that is not true. i have had a railcard since 2021 and i know that i can prove that.

however, the shortfaring and child tickets i cannot.

they have stated that we can settle out of court but what i want to know is what they can charge me for. are there any loopholes to what classifies as something they can charge me for. what are my rights? how do i minimise the cost of this settlement. do i hire a lawyer? can i use mitigating circumstances.


please please please help

 

[jfollows]

They will settle with you out of court if you engage with them and if they believe you.
They will calculate full single fares for all journeys they see short faring and child tickets. If you respond with the details they request (you are already late) they will come up with a settlement figure, which will also include something like £150 for their expenses.
Otherwise, you will be prosecuted for the offence for which they have evidence, the one you were stopped for, and if convicted you will have a criminal record.
Generally we advise you engage with them. But you are not compelled to, in which case they will prosecute you.

A lawyer will cost you high £hundreds, but there are specialists whom you could contact if you want.

 

[CarrotPie]

They will calculate full single fares for all journeys they see short faring and child tickets. If you respond with the details they request (you are already late) they will come up with a settlement figure, which will also include something like £150 for their expenses.

And this will be the Anytime adult fare, by the way, with no discounts for off-peak, Railcards or anything else. If a case is very big or complex, they may charge an admin fee or more than £150.

 

[jfollows]

Misuse Freedom Pass Court Summons

Hi All, I’m a nurse in England and have a court summons in March for using an elderly freedom pass that was not mine. I have lived in London for 5 years and got caught and charged for 2 months usage (I haven’t used it any longer than this). I am worried about losing my job as the regulatory...

www.railforums.co.uk

Specialist firms that get mentioned on here by people who have used them are:

Manak Solicitors

Fare Evasion Solicitors | Kent & London | Manak Solicitors

Manak Solicitors: Skilled legal defence for fare evasion cases. Rely on our experienced team to protect your rights, challenge penalties, and guide you through the process.

manaksolicitors.co.uk


Makwanas

Fare Evasion Solicitors London | High Success Rate | TFL Solicitors

www.makwanas.co.uk


http://www.grayhooperholt.co.uk/default.asp?id=30


https://penmansedgwick.com/fare-evasion/

 

[mynameisname]

They will settle with you out of court if you engage with them and if they believe you.
They will calculate full single fares for all journeys they see short faring and child tickets. If you respond with the details they request (you are already late) they will come up with a settlement figure, which will also include something like £150 for their expenses.
Otherwise, you will be prosecuted for the offence for which they have evidence, the one you were stopped for, and if convicted you will have a criminal record.
Generally we advise you engage with them. But you are not compelled to, in which case they will prosecute you.

A lawyer will cost you high £hundreds, but there are specialists whom you could contact if you want.

i have engaged with them and continue to do so. missing the last email was my fault and i immediately responded to the follow up they sent me.

how can i minimise the cost of this settlement. or is what they say final

 

[MarlowDonkey]

they have said that there are multiple tickets using a railcard when they suspect me to not have them but that is not true. i have had a railcard since 2021 and i know that i can prove that.

The information they requested would enable tickets purcahsed with a legitimate railcard to be filtered out. That's only going to help if you paid the full fare from A to B. In other words short tickets won't count.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

how can i minimise the cost of this settlement.

For this point, the important bit is probably at the top of the last screen <edit> that you showed us in post #1 </edit>: to paraphrase, you will know what your travel pattern looked like, so you should be able to work out which journeys were legitimate, and which weren't.

If you make an honest attempt to work out which journeys were properly paid for, I would expect the railway to be prepared to believe you. But as they say, they do have various sorts of data to hand, so it must be an honest attempt: if they spot cases where you say that you paid what you should, but actually you didn't, they're liable to assume that everything else you said is untrue as well - and they will charge you for everything.

Also, if you can't find the specific evidence they are looking for (pictures of old railcards for example) see if you can find something else instead: do you have emails showing when you bought railcards, or does your credit card / bank statement show that you bought one? Again, if you are making an honest effort to co-operate, the railway may respond positively.

 

[Sun Chariot]

Hello @mynameisname

I'll add to Fawkes Cat's wise advice:

Were all, or only some, of your Child tickets - short-fared ones and full-journey ones - bought digitally?

I think you'll need to dedicate some of your time to go back through your past 6 years of self-confessed fare-avoidance:
a)) your digital ticket-app buying history and
b) your bank account / payment card,
in order to fihd all evidence of exactly how many tickets you bought at lower [Child] rate.

Which Railcard have you held since 2021?
Did you purchase and use any valid ticket(s), e.g. for your full journey and were relvant for that railcard?
If yes, do any of those journeys appear within the information sent to you? Those ones, using your evidence from points a) and b) above, you can comment on their list as "valid ticket".

 

[skyhigh]

Were all, or only some, of your Child tickets - short-fared ones and full-journey ones - bought digitally?

For obvious reasons, they won't be able to trace any tickets that weren't purchased digitally.

 

[Sun Chariot]

For obvious reasons, they won't be able to trace any tickets that weren't purchased digitally.

Exactly, hence my question

 

[WesternLancer]

Is this one of those cases where being prosecuted might result in a lower cost to the OP than settling out of court?
However that would result in a criminal record which the OP might have good reason to avoid.

I assume the sentencing guidelines would give an indication of the level of court fine that would be given as punishment and the op would have to pay when convicted.

 

[spotify95]

The only problem I see with taking the prosecution route (for one offence, the one they can prove) is that, if the ToC (South Western Railway?) believes the OP has committed a large amount of fare evasion (which they will if they see this thread) then SWR may do what TfL have been doing recently, which is to issue a summons for offences taken into consideration. If this happens then it won't be cheaper to take the prosecution route, and the OP will still have a criminal record!

On a related note, a single prosecution via SJPN will be cheaper than a settlement for all offences the ToC has found - however there could be civil action later down the line that may also have to be dealt with?

 

[WesternLancer]

The only problem I see with taking the prosecution route (for one offence, the one they can prove) is that, if the ToC (South Western Railway?) believes the OP has committed a large amount of fare evasion (which they will if they see this thread) then SWR may do what TfL have been doing recently, which is to issue a summons for offences taken into consideration. If this happens then it won't be cheaper to take the prosecution route, and the OP will still have a criminal record!

On a related note, a single prosecution via SJPN will be cheaper than a settlement for all offences the ToC has found - however there could be civil action later down the line that may also have to be dealt with?

These would seem points for the OP to be mindful of.

 

[PI]

Can I ask what happened with this case in end?

 

[30907]

Can I ask what happened with this case in end?

Extremely unlikely to have been resolved yet, and the OP is not obliged to report back even when a result is achieved.

 

[ikcdab]

If you have fares in the spreadsheet that you know is not evasion, then a solicitor may well have a good chance of getting these genuine ones set aside. If that would result in a saving on the penalty of more than the solicitors costs, then it's worth engaging one.

 

[30907]

If you have fares in the spreadsheet that you know is not evasion, then a solicitor may well have a good chance of getting these genuine ones set aside. If that would result in a saving on the penalty of more than the solicitors costs, then it's worth engaging one.

Or if you tell them about specific journeys yourself, they will normally accept your reasonable explanation.