SWR investigating 200+ journeys since 2022

[VOLrail]

Hello all,

In need of general support / information with the current situation I have put myself in!

On Jan the 12th of this year I was stopped at Waterloo with an incorrect 16-17 railcard, when questioned I admitted to using the wrong railcard & the dude took my details down etc etc. Fast forward to the 1st of this month & I had received an email from SWR expressing that "Further investigation of your online account has highlighted other potential inconsistencies in your ticket purchase history." - I responded to this email on 03/07 with an apologetic nature, an acknowledgement of the seriousness of the matter, a desire to settle out of court / pay any unpaid fares due.

They then came back on the same day (03/07) with 4 years worth of journey history (since 2022) & within that 200+ suspected irregularities. (short faring / wrong railcard & sometimes a mixture of the two).

To note: I have possessed a railcard 16-25 over these years, however have used incorrectly used the 16-17 on many occasions, I have short fared on many occasions, Not all of my journeys here have been seen due to my almost equal use of my Oyster Card / tapping in over the past years.

Firstly, over the past days researching more, this has been a major wakeup call. What I had deemed (naively) as a "trick" "tip" or "hack" I now understand to be a straight up offence. I'm ready to make amends & pay what needs to be paid.

In regards to this PDF they have sent me, I will begin to go through and to the best of my ability fill this out. They have asked for me to
1. indicate the correct start and finish stations you travelled between
2. specify whether you travelled on a ticket with a Railcard discount when entitled
3. state whether a return journey was made

Given the date of some of these journeys I will find it nearly impossible to remember, but I will use the the limited resources I have. In general, 90% of these SWR journeys were from EPSOM to then either Vauxhall / Clapham Junction or Waterloo. Given the potential lack of clarity on the actual end destinations, for the journeys that I really have no idea on, I guess I can state my uncertainty in the "customer comments" section of each trip & just put Waterloo?

Also they have asked to confirm whether each of these trips was a single or return, which I now could see how on their end it may appear as though I have barged through barriers due to single journeys being made & no clear return journey on the list they have, I have never barged through a barrier & as I said over these years I have used my oyster / card to tap in as much as I have used the Trainline app, mixing between the two during parts of a journey either there or back. For example buying a ticket to a London terminal, for example, clapham junction & then from Clapham junction tapping in and proceeding using the overground or other TFL services etc.

When I have something in my calendar that suggests this type of route was made should I express this in the "customer comments" section?

Lastly, I have noted the dates of the correspondences because I have seen some users speak of this 6 months to prosecute notion. SWR have given me 7 days to respond to each email, so they are technically due my response on the 10th when the 6 month period is over on the 12th - any thoughts on this?

Lastly I just want to express thanks in advance. This forum has been a great help to many people. I found myself in quite a state, but to have this resource has been regulating & very educational. Any more info that is needed please do let me know. As of now I will begin to fill out this PDF & get more clarity on where I actually stand re these trips.

Thank you!!

 

[SECR 65]

Hello and welcome to the forum,

I don't neccecarily have the experience to reply to every question, and it seems you are already fairly knowledgeable, but I will do my advise to respond where I can.

Firstly as I suspect you will have gathered SWR almost always agree to settle out of court provided you cooperate, so hopefully you can avoid prosecution.

Note that I have removed parts of your original post below as I am able to reply or not.

On Jan the 12th of this year I was stopped at Waterloo with an incorrect 16-17 railcard, when questioned I admitted to using the wrong railcard & the dude took my details down etc etc. Fast forward to the 1st of this month & I had received an email from SWR expressing that "Further investigation of your online account has highlighted other potential inconsistencies in your ticket purchase history."

This is a fairly common email from SWR - I suspect you may have seen some elsewhere on the forum.

- I responded to this email on 03/07 with an apologetic nature, an acknowledgement of the seriousness of the matter, a desire to settle out of court / pay any unpaid fares due.

Perfect - this is exactly what we would suggest you to have done.

They then came back on the same day (03/07) with 4 years worth of journey history (since 2022) & within that 200+ suspected irregularities. (short faring / wrong railcard & sometimes a mixture of the two).

You have probably gathered that SWR have up to 6 months from the date of the incident to prosecute you. I believe (but could be wrong) that when prosecuting they are only prosecuting for the one incident where they caught you. I think they can ask the court to reclaim some of the money from previous offences as well. (EDIT - I see you refer to this below.)

To note: I have possessed a railcard 16-25 over these years, however have used incorrectly used the 16-17 on many occasions, I have short fared on many occasions, Not all of my journeys here have been seen due to my almost equal use of my Oyster Card / tapping in over the past years.

As a general rule, only answer the questions which they ask - don't tell them more than you need to. BUT, don't lie to them - if you want to settle out of court you will need to be honest with them.

In regards to this PDF they have sent me, I will begin to go through and to the best of my ability fill this out. They have asked for me to
1. indicate the correct start and finish stations you travelled between
2. specify whether you travelled on a ticket with a Railcard discount when entitled
3. state whether a return journey was made

Given the date of some of these journeys I will find it nearly impossible to remember, but I will use the the limited resources I have. In general, 90% of these SWR journeys were from EPSOM to then either Vauxhall / Clapham Junction or Waterloo. Given the potential lack of clarity on the actual end destinations, for the journeys that I really have no idea on, I guess I can state my uncertainty in the "customer comments" section of each trip & just put Waterloo?

I suppose this is the best thing to do, yes. Anything you don't remember, tell them in the comments box that you're not sure. You could possibly put 'central London' or 'Clapham Junction/Vauxhall/Waterloo'. I think the latter would be better than the former.

Also they have asked to confirm whether each of these trips was a single or return, which I now could see how on their end it may appear as though I have barged through barriers due to single journeys being made & no clear return journey on the list they have, I have never barged through a barrier & as I said over these years I have used my oyster / card to tap in as much as I have used the Trainline app, mixing between the two during parts of a journey either there or back. For example buying a ticket to a London terminal, for example, clapham junction & then from Clapham junction tapping in and proceeding using the overground or other TFL services etc.

When I have something in my calendar that suggests this type of route was made should I express this in the "customer comments" section?

I would suggest you, yes, say something like 'returned via Oyster/Contactless' (you delete as appropriate).

Lastly, I have noted the dates of the correspondences because I have seen some users speak of this 6 months to prosecute notion. SWR have given me 7 days to respond to each email, so they are technically due my response on the 10th when the 6 month period is over on the 12th - any thoughts on this?

I think they have to start the prosecution process within 6 months. So if they hear from you on the 10th, they can put court papers in on time. I would suggest it is in your best interest to reply quickly and helpfully. Basically, you have less than a week to convince them not to prosecute you.


I hope some of the above is of some use. Hopefully other members can add bits in.

 

[WesternLancer]

Hello all,

In need of general support / information with the current situation I have put myself in!

On Jan the 12th of this year I was stopped at Waterloo with an incorrect 16-17 railcard, when questioned I admitted to using the wrong railcard & the dude took my details down etc etc. Fast forward to the 1st of this month & I had received an email from SWR expressing that "Further investigation of your online account has highlighted other potential inconsistencies in your ticket purchase history." - I responded to this email on 03/07 with an apologetic nature, an acknowledgement of the seriousness of the matter, a desire to settle out of court / pay any unpaid fares due.

They then came back on the same day (03/07) with 4 years worth of journey history (since 2022) & within that 200+ suspected irregularities. (short faring / wrong railcard & sometimes a mixture of the two).

To note: I have possessed a railcard 16-25 over these years, however have used incorrectly used the 16-17 on many occasions, I have short fared on many occasions, Not all of my journeys here have been seen due to my almost equal use of my Oyster Card / tapping in over the past years.

Firstly, over the past days researching more, this has been a major wakeup call. What I had deemed (naively) as a "trick" "tip" or "hack" I now understand to be a straight up offence. I'm ready to make amends & pay what needs to be paid.

In regards to this PDF they have sent me, I will begin to go through and to the best of my ability fill this out. They have asked for me to
1. indicate the correct start and finish stations you travelled between
2. specify whether you travelled on a ticket with a Railcard discount when entitled
3. state whether a return journey was made

Given the date of some of these journeys I will find it nearly impossible to remember, but I will use the the limited resources I have. In general, 90% of these SWR journeys were from EPSOM to then either Vauxhall / Clapham Junction or Waterloo. Given the potential lack of clarity on the actual end destinations, for the journeys that I really have no idea on, I guess I can state my uncertainty in the "customer comments" section of each trip & just put Waterloo?

Also they have asked to confirm whether each of these trips was a single or return, which I now could see how on their end it may appear as though I have barged through barriers due to single journeys being made & no clear return journey on the list they have, I have never barged through a barrier & as I said over these years I have used my oyster / card to tap in as much as I have used the Trainline app, mixing between the two during parts of a journey either there or back. For example buying a ticket to a London terminal, for example, clapham junction & then from Clapham junction tapping in and proceeding using the overground or other TFL services etc.

When I have something in my calendar that suggests this type of route was made should I express this in the "customer comments" section?

Lastly, I have noted the dates of the correspondences because I have seen some users speak of this 6 months to prosecute notion. SWR have given me 7 days to respond to each email, so they are technically due my response on the 10th when the 6 month period is over on the 12th - any thoughts on this?

Lastly I just want to express thanks in advance. This forum has been a great help to many people. I found myself in quite a state, but to have this resource has been regulating & very educational. Any more info that is needed please do let me know. As of now I will begin to fill out this PDF & get more clarity on where I actually stand re these trips.

Thank you!!

Welcome

Clearly this was never a 'hack' or a 'trick' (perhaps in the same way that using a supermarket self check out and deliberately putting items in your bag without scanning them wouldn't be a 'trick' or 'hack' etc) so now you have been caught SWR want their money from you and they can try to extract that under threat of criminal prosecution, as you now have learned.

Taking your final point first in relation to the 6 months period you are in a finely balanced position because they need to initiate court proceedings in 6 months for the date they caught you red handed to bring a criminal prosecution - they might have actually done that as you would now know until papers from the court arrive with you in hard copy - that might take 2 or 3 weeks if SWR did this at the last minute.
But it possibly sounds like they have not done that.
It does change their leverage over you if they can't take you to criminal court by virtue of running out of time

But they could then, for up to 6 years, pursue you through civil courts as a civil debt - but the sanctions for that are less.

However, given the tone of your message I'm not sure that stringing this out to frustrate them is a good idea - better to co-operate with them and resolve the matter by paying what you owe would be my advice.

So then turning to the problems you have with not being clear in terms of able to recall your exact trips:

- what we find is that if they believe you are being honest in general they will accept what people say if its plausible, and remove items from the list, especially if you can point towards some sort of evidence
- if you have no chance of recalling then respond as you suggest (tho I guess you can say that you can not recall exact travel but probably travelled between x and Waterloo) - if you get this wrong you can calculate how much would be at stake - probably not much so you should err on the side of caution and what they will be most likely to believe is probable in the absence of nay other evidence you could provide
- It may be worth detailing / proving you had a 16-25 Railcard even though you presumably deliberately then selected the 16-17 Railcard no doubt to get the 50% discount instead of the former's 34% discount. That is perhaps just a chance that they may then only charge you for the difference between the 2 railcard process rather than the full fare (though I suspect that chance is extremely thin...). You may wish to explain this in a general supporting comment sent with your table of responses perhaps (or I suppose could place in the boxes concerned eg "travelled between x and y with a 16-17 Saver discount when I held a 16-25 Railcard)
- ref single or return issue - yes, again as you suggest - a succinct explanation of you travel pattern
On this - can you access any of your TfL journey history that would evidence what you say you did? eg by logging in. If so then you could append it to your reply

EDIT - I cross posted this with @SECR 65 helpful post above. I think we are broadly suggesting the same things

 

[Mattplans]

Perhaps OP could also share the emails concerned, and obscure any personal info?

 

[VOLrail]

Thank you all for your responses.

I will be taking action on the above advice.

Two other questions, SWR seem to have added Southern Railway train trips to this list also, not many but a handful over these years. I've understood the two to be separate entities, so not sure as to why they are including their trips within this - any thoughts?

Some of these trips I've made have genuinely confused me as to how they happened, to be more specific I have journeys here that I've short fared from only end of the single trip, so I presume in the past when barriers were open I simply walked through? - Kind of just sharing out loud, not sure there is any particular response from this, I guess as stated just to be honest & direct with what I can & can't remember.

Thank you again.

 

[SECR 65]

Two other questions, SWR seem to have added Southern Railway train trips to this list also, not many but a handful over these years. I've understood the two to be separate entities, so not sure as to why they are including their trips within this - any thoughts?

SWR are able to contact Southern and as I understand it take payment themselves for Southern journeys. I suppose thay're 'working together' to deal with fare evaders.

 

[WesternLancer]

Thank you all for your responses.

I will be taking action on the above advice.

Two other questions, SWR seem to have added Southern Railway train trips to this list also, not many but a handful over these years. I've understood the two to be separate entities, so not sure as to why they are including their trips within this - any thoughts?

Yes, It is standard procedure across the industry for the train operator that catches someone to then act on behalf of all the others in these matters - so you can expect to find suspicious travel with any other operator in the country potentially listed. As you will appreciate this can get seriously expensive if they start to find the occasional long distance journey with another operator that is suspicious, like wrong railcard discounts on a London to Manchester trip and they start to seek a full replacement fare at the peak time fare for that travel....

And data protection rules are exempt for the processes of investigating crimes.

In reality all these train operators are pretty much controlled by the government anyway now - either directly already (part of Great British Railways nationalisation) or since covid under indirect control. But that's another issue really.

Some of these trips I've made have genuinely confused me as to how they happened, to be more specific I have journeys here that I've short fared from only end of the single trip, so I presume in the past when barriers were open I simply walked through? - Kind of just sharing out loud, not sure there is any particular response from this, I guess as stated just to be honest & direct with what I can & can't remember.

I suspect you probably walked through open barriers and sat on the train thinking you would only by a ticket is an inspector cam along or at the last moment to get through the exit barriers at your destination. That is common evasion behaviour from what we see on here (former usually called 'pay when challenged', later an aspect of short faring.

All easily traceable by the railway company on e-tickets / QR coded tickets especially as there is a lot of digital fingerprints encoded in the scans and ticket purchase data.

 

[Swedenorer]

YAs you will appreciate this can get seriously expensive if they start to find the occasional long distance journey with another operator that is suspicious, like wrong railcard discounts on a London to Manchester trip and they start to seek a full replacement fare at the peak time fare for that travel....

You need to be prepared for it to be expensive even if there are no long distance journeys. If they offer you a settlement just for 180 Epsom London return (they will assume you went back) journeys only they could - and many operators would - be asking for two anytime singles per day plus an admin fee.

Good luck - I couldn't recall all the trips I made in 2022 leave alone the times.

 

[mikeg]

I note they haven't long to prosecute. Six days to be exact assuming when the OP was caught was when the OP stopped offending. How long have they given the OP to reply?
Ah, I see, a week.
Can the court though possibly take into account offences which are out of time? Seems a bit unfair if they can? In which case, depending on how keen the OP is to avoid a criminal conviction, it may be worth attempting to settle for one or two journeys and then having their day in court should this be refused?

 

[Haywain]

Can the court though possibly take into account offences which are out of time?

As TOCs do not use the "taken into consideration" route it matters not what a court would think of it.

 

[VOLrail]

Hello all,

Thank you again for the responses to my initial post.

I am in the process of completing the PDF & some more questions / thoughts have arisen. Just to recap below what has been asked within this PDF.

In regards to this PDF they have sent me, I will begin to go through and to the best of my ability fill this out. They have asked for me to
1. indicate the correct start and finish stations you travelled between
2. specify whether you travelled on a ticket with a Railcard discount when entitled
3. state whether a return journey was made

For SWR, what level of detail do you think is required here, for anyone viewing the journeys over the years its pretty clear that there is a usual route from Epsom to one of the London terminals CLJ/VXH/WAT that, in different times over the past years have either had a misused 16-17 railcard or been short fared. I find myself copying & pasting the same thing into majority of the journeys where its applicable in the "Customer comments" saying "The origin / destination of this trip is unknown due to the time of travel but I am assuming it follows a historical route of travel route which is what has been filled in to the right. The other portion of this trip I believe was completed with contactless"

Majority of this PDF shows only tickets purchased during one leg of a journey, as I stated before & will do in my response email, I have used contactless almost as much as if not more then the trainline app for my travel & could if needed provide an extensive amount of screen shots of bank statements to prove full paid trips over the years.

In regards to 3. (whether any return journey was made), I have put No for every journey with the above ^ explaining I would have used contactless. Whatever I am to pay I basically don't want them to charge for 2 single journeys because yes, I have paid what was due via contactless. Any thoughts on wording of this or how to present this?

Another thought, despite the pretty clear patterns, do I incriminate myself by sending this PDF back to them? would the receipt of this PDF act as evidence for them (if they wanted to proceed further?) Although I am not worried of this due to my position of ready to pay what is due.

Many thanks again

 

[Haywain]

Majority of this PDF shows only tickets purchased during one leg of a journey, as I stated before & will do in my response email, I have used contactless almost as much as if not more then the trainline app for my travel & could if needed provide an extensive amount of screen shots of bank statements to prove full paid trips over the years.

Deal with what's on the pdf, you don't need to explain what isn't there and you're not being asked about.