Max Fine cost for fraudulently commiting refunds?

[Jack D]

Hi all,

I'm writing a short story in which a subplot is a character being fined by a train company (in my story it is a fictional train company) for fraudulently committing refunds on trains they did not take. They've been claiming refunds for the last six months and have gained approximately £200.

Can someone inform me what cost they would face from the train company? Would it vary by company?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Hi all,

I'm writing a short story in which a subplot is a character being fined by a train company (in my story it is a fictional train company) for fraudulently committing refunds on trains they did not take. They've been claiming refunds for the last six months and have gained approximately £200.

Can someone inform me what cost they would face from the train company? Would it vary by company?

Thanks in advance.

Let's treat this as if it's a real world problem.

We'd normally want to confirm whether the matter at stake was a refund (done honestly, you bought a ticket: you did not make the journey and claim the money back from the company that sold you the ticket. Depending on whether the journey was disrupted or whether you just chose not to travel there may be a charge of £10(? or has it gone down to £5?) taken from your refund) or a delay repay claim (again done honestly, you bought a ticket or maybe hold a season ticket: you assert that the journey was delayed and claim the money back as a proportion or all of the cost of your ticket from the company whose train disrupted your journey) in that who you claim from is different - and for a refund there's a fair chance you will be claiming from Trainline who don't run trains.

Either way, to obtain money by making false statements is fraud, and the relevant company would be entitled to seek a prosecution in the crown court, where there isn't the six month time limit on bringing a prosecution that we see in the magistrates' court. But in practice the railway companies don't often take matters to crown court.

Realistically, the train company would want their money back, plus the cost of the investigation. So around £500 (i.e. £200 wrongly claimed plus maybe £300 costs). But because the six month bar doesn't apply. your character will have to pay this or risk prosecution indefinitely i.e. if more than six months have passed the company is still in a position to threaten prosecution. From a live (real world) case running at the moment, we're also reminded that the railway and ticket vendors can withdraw the facility to make online refund or delay repay claims if they think someone is defrauding them. So your character will quite likely have ongoing problems as the fictional train company will not want to risk any further losses/

 

[AlterEgo]

Hi all,

I'm writing a short story in which a subplot is a character being fined by a train company (in my story it is a fictional train company) for fraudulently committing refunds on trains they did not take. They've been claiming refunds for the last six months and have gained approximately £200.

Can someone inform me what cost they would face from the train company? Would it vary by company?

Thanks in advance.

Train companies can't fine people for fraudulent refunds. Do you mean a settlement?

 

[Jack D]

Let's treat this as if it's a real world problem.

We'd normally want to confirm whether the matter at stake was a refund (done honestly, you bought a ticket: you did not make the journey and claim the money back from the company that sold you the ticket. Depending on whether the journey was disrupted or whether you just chose not to travel there may be a charge of £10(? or has it gone down to £5?) taken from your refund) or a delay repay claim (again done honestly, you bought a ticket or maybe hold a season ticket: you assert that the journey was delayed and claim the money back as a proportion or all of the cost of your ticket from the company whose train disrupted your journey) in that who you claim from is different - and for a refund there's a fair chance you will be claiming from Trainline who don't run trains.

Either way, to obtain money by making false statements is fraud, and the relevant company would be entitled to seek a prosecution in the crown court, where there isn't the six month time limit on bringing a prosecution that we see in the magistrates' court. But in practice the railway companies don't often take matters to crown court.

Realistically, the train company would want their money back, plus the cost of the investigation. So around £500 (i.e. £200 wrongly claimed plus maybe £300 costs). But because the six month bar doesn't apply. your character will have to pay this or risk prosecution indefinitely i.e. if more than six months have passed the company is still in a position to threaten prosecution. From a live (real world) case running at the moment, we're also reminded that the railway and ticket vendors can withdraw the facility to make online refund or delay repay claims if they think someone is defrauding them. So your character will quite likely have ongoing problems as the fictional train company will not want to risk any further losses/

Thank you. I really feel for my poor character.

 

[Egg Centric]

Thank you. I really feel for my poor character.

Then make them win the lottery on the next page, that should make them feel better

 

[Gloster]

I believe that the time limit for prosecutions under the Fraud Act 2006 is six years dating from the time that the fraud was detected or, with reasonable diligence, should have been detected. The last point seems to be greatly appreciated by lawyers.

 

[Jack D]

Then make them win the lottery on the next page, that should make them feel better

The story is about unexpected wealth and unexpected poverty so I might just do that. Unrelated to the railway but there are countless people who have said winning the lottery has brought them nothing but trouble.

 

[AlterEgo]

I believe that the time limit for prosecutions under the Fraud Act 2006 is six years dating from the time that the fraud was detected or, with reasonable diligence, should have been detected. The last point seems to be greatly appreciated by lawyers.

No, the statute of limitations for civil action *recovering the fraudulent gains* is six years from when it was discovered or should have been discovered, as per Limitation Act 1980:

Limitation Act 1980

An Act to consolidate the Limitation Acts 1939 to 1980.

www.legislation.gov.uk

Prosecution for the offence has no statute of limitations.

 

[Jack D]

Out of interest, how would the train company detect fraud? My character searches for cancelled or delayed trains on the app, cross references them with stations that don't have a ticket barrier and then applies from there. How long would it be till the train company clock on and how would they do so?

 

[SuspectUsual]

Out of interest, how would the train company detect fraud? My character searches for cancelled or delayed trains on the app, cross references them with stations that don't have a ticket barrier and then applies from there. How long would it be till the train company clock on and how would they do so?

I think the simplest answer without getting overly technical or assisting wannabe fare evaders is they look for outliers in the massive amount of data they have

 

[swt_passenger]

Out of interest, how would the train company detect fraud? My character searches for cancelled or delayed trains on the app, cross references them with stations that don't have a ticket barrier and then applies from there. How long would it be till the train company clock on and how would they do so?

If your character is a regular on the same route and using a normal season ticket, they’ll probably start with a reasonable assumption that he would travel at similar times each day. So if for the days claimed the times were widely different to normal commuting patterns their software might be set to look out for it.

 

[Gloster]

I hope that this is not going to provide advice to ne’er do wells as to how best to bilk the railway. Remember the Day of the Jackal passport loophole. In 1971 Frederick Forsyth explained in his novel how to obtain a genuine passport in the name of dead person: he hoped that this would force the authorities to close this loophole. They did: thirty-six years later.

 

[ainsworth74]

I think what's been described above is about as far as we're able to go with giving information on how someone might go about committing the fraud in your story. So I think we'll leave that particularly question there thank you.

 

[MarlowDonkey]

How long would it be till the train company clock on and how would they do so?

It would seem plausible that they monitor whether they are paying frequent amounts of delay repay to the same person. There are threads on the forum where people have been accused of making fraudulent or excessive claims.

 

[Jack D]

I hope that this is not going to provide advice to ne’er do wells as to how best to bilk the railway. Remember the Day of the Jackal passport loophole. In 1971 Frederick Forsyth explained in his novel how to obtain a genuine passport in the name of dead person: he hoped that this would force the authorities to close this loophole. They did: thirty-six years later.

Good point. I didn't think about that.

 

[35B]

Out of interest, how would the train company detect fraud? My character searches for cancelled or delayed trains on the app, cross references them with stations that don't have a ticket barrier and then applies from there. How long would it be till the train company clock on and how would they do so?

If you look at previous threads, you'll see that train operators have used data analytics tools to find "suspicious" patterns and have then used that data to pursue people for settlements. WMT are getting a lot of attention for it at the moment, Greater Anglia had a run of mentions a while ago.

Such tools are very good at picking up anomalies against the norm. So, in the scenario you outline, they might look at the pattern of trains used, the pattern of stations used, and how they related to more normal patterns. If they have access to any external data (e.g. postcodes), that may also help with identification.

The key point here is that, as an individual, you don't know what data is held about you or how easily matched it can be - or how your individual pattern will show up against the background noise. So, if you're looking for how your character came to fall in the doo-doo, I'd suggest that as a regular offender, the surprise should be that he wasn't caught earlier.

It's non-railway, but in administering Gift Aid for a charity, I've been surprised at which donors have come to me saying "I've had a letter from HMRC about my Gift Aid" - and how accurate that letter has been.

 

[ainsworth74]

I think what's been described above is about as far as we're able to go with giving information on how someone might go about committing the fraud in your story. So I think we'll leave that particularly question there thank you.

I guess I'll repeat myself!

And we'll draw the thread to a close I think at this point. OP if you've got any more specific questions you can request it be reopened.