SWR fare evasion prosection

[asaid]

Hi, this is my first time posting.

In early November, I was stopped on the Southern Western Railway train to Egham by revenue protection staff requesting to show my ticket. I don't own a railcard and was using a 16-17 savers railcard to make my train-line e-ticket cheaper, which I now regret. I received a prosecution slip from the revenue staff and was told they would contact me.

A couple of months have passed, and I have now received an email, as shown in the attachments below. The issue is they initially contacted me by my email of the train-line account, which is not my primary email, and then later contacted me the email I provided to the revenue protection staff for communication. The 2nd email I received to the correct sounds much more concerning as I didn't respond in time to the first email and am quite worried about how I should proceed. I was also given a specific time frame for using invalid tickets.

Should I first explain why I didn't respond on time to the email and then follow up with an account of my actions, persuading for an out-of-court settlement?

 

[30907]

Hi and welcome.

I assume that you did not have a 16-17 Saver at any relevant time?
If so, you need to reply stating that clearly.

You could also explain briefly why you did not access their previous mail, though I don't think it will affect how things progress.

Your mail could also make the points that a long-standing forum member Hadders regularly suggests.

You could also ask SWR for a list of fares they suspect you have underpaid - they may well do so anyway. You could also start a list based on your account for comparison.

You should assume that SWR's settlement offer will be that you pay the full Anytime fare for each journey where you have cheated them, plus an admin fee which might be somewhere around £150. You will need to find ways to pay that promptly.

Don't panic - provided you engage with them, SWR will very likely be willing to settle.

 

[asaid]

Hi and welcome.

I assume that you did not have a 16-17 Saver at any relevant time?
If so, you need to reply stating that clearly.

You could also explain briefly why you did not access their previous mail, though I don't think it will affect how things progress.

Your mail could also make the points that a long-standing forum member Hadders regularly suggests.

You could also ask SWR for a list of fares they suspect you have underpaid - they may well do so anyway. You could also start a list based on your account for comparison.

You should assume that SWR's settlement offer will be that you pay the full Anytime fare for each journey where you have cheated them, plus an admin fee which might be somewhere around £150. You will need to find ways to pay that promptly.

Don't panic - provided you engage with them, SWR will very likely be willing to settle.

Thank you very much for the swift reply. I will certainly look into the points Hadder makes and aim to create a draft response.

 

[John R]

As well as the good advice that @30907 has given, you should request that any further correspondence goes to the email address you use to reply. It might seem obvious for them to use that email, but it does no harm to reconfirm it, as they clearly have both on their file, and it will have the added benefit of implicitly emphasising why you didn't reply to the first email.

Provided you cooperate you're almost certain to be offered a settlement instead of prosecution, but you are well advised to work out yourself what the cost might be. For each individual single journey, you are likely to be "charged" the Anytime Single fare - so that's two for every return journey. You can use brfares.com to find these out. The fares you paid won't be offset against the total amount though.