Suggestion re prosecution cases: No Advice to be given without seeing paperwork/correspondence?

[Fawkes Cat]

Agreed, and I’d also add something to the effect of “because this will help make sure you get advice that’s relevant to your case - no two cases are identical”

I haven't been to check what we currently say, but we don't want to appear to be too authorative: overwhelmingly we're just interested amateurs and we don't want to suggest that we're giving formal advice of the sort where we could be sued if we were negligent.

 

[30907]

Is there a way that a new member (it's they who are the issue) could receive a welcome mail saying "Welcome... if you have joined us because you have received a Penalty Fare or been reported for a wrong ticket please click here ....
This would lead to the pinned "please read" post, at the end of which would be "please click here to confirm that you have read this" and then to the New Thread button.

I have no idea whether this is possible, if it isn't ignore me... and apologies too if any of this duplicates what others have said.

Variation: perhaps PF and reported should be two separate routes?

There could be a link from "reported" to more technical stuff that's in our Ticketing guide, but keep the main sequence as simple as possible - what happens next, what won't happen (prison etc), what outcomes are likely.... plus what we need to know to help.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

One last point...

Another thing that we (as contributors) could/should do better is to be more prepared to start up separate threads when a general point has been raised, rather than discussing the general point when the OP is seeking advice on their specific point. Discussing the general alongside the specific is at the very least confusing for everyone, and may end up hiding good advice for the OP.

We can do that by starting a new thread: if there's stuff in the original thread then we can report the thread to ask the moderators to split it into general/specific. And (accepting that they're busy and probably can't watch every thread) the moderators can always do the splitting for us!

If a point emerges from a general discussion that would help the OP, there would be nothing to stop someone posting something appropriate on the original thread.

 

[island]

Yes, I think there are several "perennial debates" that tend to wriggle their way into individual case threads which are at best of tangential relevance to OPs and at worst scare them off or utterly confuse them meaning they don't come back. These include:

• Staff rudeness
• "It's not a fine"
• The appropriate level of compensation when some but not all first class benefits aren't provided, e.g. no hot food
• Whether a passenger fully capable of paying by both cash and card is entitled to ignore a card-only TVM/PERTIS machine because they wish to use the other method
• All the debates around "Southern only" and "Thameslink only" tickets being used on other GTR brands
• The extent to which DelayRepay is a contractual entitlement

And I am sure there are plenty of others.

These could be taken away to separate threads and anyone wishing to refer back could do so.