Supporting posters

[WesternLancer]

Penalty notice due to forgetting to renew railcard

Hi, I was issued a penalty notice for failing to have a valid railcard on my return journey. This was a genuine oversight and I immediately bought one whilst on the train. I have appealed twice in the hope that someone may be sympathetic as to the circumstances. However, both appeals have been...

www.railforums.co.uk

Do people think that the way I've helped in this case has been appropriate? I have ended up writing the whole appeal for the OP but I did direct the OP to another thread and ask "Are you happy to draft an appeal based on what I’ve said, and the advice given in the other thread, then send it here for us to review, or do you need help writing it?" and they asked for help writing it.

Penalty fare appeals are quite a different ball game to responding to a NIP but given how this thread started and the fact that I have previously been "told off" (not really, just not sure how else to put it) for writing things for the OP instead of helping them write it, I just want to check people's thoughts on this one!

Personally I think if a Penalty Fare appeal has to be made on technical grounds (and many we see here have little hope of being successful on other grounds -,esp the sort of grounds people come here with which are very often along the lines of ‘it’s not really fair that I got this Penalty Fare’) then I think they don’t have much hope of drafting a good appeal without experience of doing that. Though some people do have a good go at it.

So rather more support may well be in order to help people achieve the outcome desired with things like PFs.

 

[furlong]

If we got our act together, we'd publish templates for Penalty Fares appeals covering all the common scenarios involving process failure. Absolutely OK to suggest text to use. What we need to avoid is "putting words into people's mouths" when it comes to excuses.

 

[z444z]

If we got our act together, we'd publish templates for Penalty Fares appeals covering all the common scenarios involving process failure. Absolutely OK to suggest text to use. What we need to avoid is "putting words into people's mouths" when it comes to excuses.

Agreed. It's tough with penalty fares though as so often the panel's decisions are nonsensical and not consistent with each other so it's hard to establish with any certainty "what works" in the same way we have with responding to NIPs. Edit: I say we but in reality that has been established far before I became active on here!

 

[Hadders]

The subject of letter writing does come up from time to time. I think there's three potential scenarios:

1. 'Normal' sort of incident - OP has done something wrong and wants to keep the matter out of court. My view is they should draft a letter and we proof read it and suggest amendments. If they want to keep the matter out of court then I think they should put in some leg work and I don't think it's asking people too much to post up a draft letter to the TOC.
2. 'Normal' sort of incident but the OP appears to be incapacle of writing a coherent letter. In this sort of situation then it's sometimes easier to write a draft for someone, but even then I would try and get them to have a go first.
3. Highly technical issues - I think it's fine to direct OP's to a particular thread or suggest a form of wording to use

All of this is my personal opinion, other will have a different view.

 

[WesternLancer]

The subject of letter writing does come up from time to time. I think there's three potential scenarios:

1. 'Normal' sort of incident - OP has done something wrong and wants to keep the matter out of court. My view is they should draft a letter and we proof read it and suggest amendments. If they want to keep the matter out of court then I think they should put in some leg work and I don't think it's asking people too much to post up a draft letter to the TOC.
2. 'Normal' sort of incident but the OP appears to be incapacle of writing a coherent letter. In this sort of situation then it's sometimes easier to write a draft for someone, but even then I would try and get them to have a go first.
3. Highly technical issues - I think it's fine to direct OP's to a particular thread or suggest a form of wording to use

All of this is my personal opinion, other will have a different view.

I think under number two I’d include people whose English language skills are clearly poor and who may find it a) hard to understand what we’re advising and
B) v hard to draft a response in clear English

I know if I was abroad I’d appreciate someone drafting something in the language required.

 

[John R]

The subject of letter writing does come up from time to time. I think there's three potential scenarios:

1. 'Normal' sort of incident - OP has done something wrong and wants to keep the matter out of court. My view is they should draft a letter and we proof read it and suggest amendments. If they want to keep the matter out of court then I think they should put in some leg work and I don't think it's asking people too much to post up a draft letter to the TOC.
2. 'Normal' sort of incident but the OP appears to be incapacle of writing a coherent letter. In this sort of situation then it's sometimes easier to write a draft for someone, but even then I would try and get them to have a go first.
3. Highly technical issues - I think it's fine to direct OP's to a particular thread or suggest a form of wording to use

All of this is my personal opinion, other will have a different view.

I would agree with this, especially the point in #2 that the OP should put some effort into writing it. I do sense that one poster who has recently started offering advice here is maybe a bit too quick to offer to write something - a service that should be offered very sparingly IMO. An apology can't really be sincere if it, or something similar, hasn't first come from the virtual pen of the person asking for a settlement.

 

[blimmo]

I think it's important to note that the amount of writing the OP needs to do is very different for a report for prosecution than a penalty fare.

IMO completely writing a penalty fare appeal for them is fine: the responses to the appeals are all clearly mostly copy and paste anyway and the appeal is (should) be based on technical arguments only.

For a report for prosecution it is slightly different as the reader (supposedly) needs to be convinced of the OPs honesty. I think then the OP should at least write *something* before we start offering the entire response.

 

[AlterEgo]

If we got our act together, we'd publish templates for Penalty Fares appeals covering all the common scenarios involving process failure. Absolutely OK to suggest text to use. What we need to avoid is "putting words into people's mouths" when it comes to excuses.

Agreed with all points here.

 

[PMH]

As a frequent reader but infrequent poster on thsee forums, could I just say I am amazed with the patience, advice, and knowledge shared here. Even when the person asking the question is clearly in the wrong.

It makes me happy to see this.

Echo this - the same endless sob stories generally treated with patience and empathy.

Good to see.

 

[Hcommute]

The subject of letter writing does come up from time to time. I think there's three potential scenarios:

1. 'Normal' sort of incident - OP has done something wrong and wants to keep the matter out of court. My view is they should draft a letter and we proof read it and suggest amendments. If they want to keep the matter out of court then I think they should put in some leg work and I don't think it's asking people too much to post up a draft letter to the TOC.
2. 'Normal' sort of incident but the OP appears to be incapacle of writing a coherent letter. In this sort of situation then it's sometimes easier to write a draft for someone, but even then I would try and get them to have a go first.
3. Highly technical issues - I think it's fine to direct OP's to a particular thread or suggest a form of wording to use

All of this is my personal opinion, other will have a different view.

Long time lurker here. Just want to throw my 2 pence in.

I don’t think anyone should be writing letters for any other person - as if I was reading a letter (as someone at a TOC prosecutions department) from someone who had been stopped for evasion - but I’d seen on here it was written by someone else, I don’t think I’d consider it sincere or remorseful.

What makes this forum special is the guidance and advice for those who are in unfortunate situations. They need to write in their own words how they feel / what happened / etc.

The recent change in certain members writing letters for others does concern me - and I question why it is necessary now when it wasn’t before?

Anyway - keep up the good work.

 

[SuspectUsual]

I don’t think anyone should be writing letters for any other person

Fundamentally that's my view too, albeit there are likely to be parts of penalty fare appeals which need to be quite specifically phrased, for example mentioning the specific piece of legislation that's relevant. Even then, I think the OP should write the first draft having been told what needs to be included, and that can then be finessed by people here

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Fundamentally that's my view too, albeit there are likely to be parts of penalty fare appeals which need to be quite specifically phrased, for example mentioning the specific piece of legislation that's relevant. Even then, I think the OP should write the first draft having been told what needs to be included, and that can then be finessed by people here

We need to bear in mind that there are people who come here who don't have a strong grasp of written English: it can be appropriate to help out to the point of writing the letter. And we don't want to make such a rule out of 'write it yourself' that we refuse help to those who for whatever reason won't write.

But otherwise, yes. We're here to help - to advise as we've seen it before and hold hands for those who are nervous. But we're not here to do it all for them.

 

[tonycockram]

At the end of the day, there are so many examples
Of suitable letters on here it surely can not be beyond the Ken of anyone to at least make an attempt at a letter.
We can always advise changes to the letter as required but I think at least an attempt from the person is at least reasonable

 

[blimmo]

Fundamentally that's my view too, albeit there are likely to be parts of penalty fare appeals which need to be quite specifically phrased, for example mentioning the specific piece of legislation that's relevant. Even then, I think the OP should write the first draft having been told what needs to be included, and that can then be finessed by people here

I disagree, I don't think it matters at all who writes a penalty fare appeal. Except maybe a compelling reason but those are basically never accepted anyway.

Also telling the poster which parts of the legislation to cite can get very confusing very quickly and not really save anyone any time over just writing (most of) it. A series of templates for penalty fare appeals that can be linked to would probably be even better I suppose. Imagine being able to tell a poster "incorrect fare charged, use template 3 from here".

To be clear this is entirely different to letters in response to a NIP etc. A temple for those would probably do more harm than good.