Ten bizarre excuses used for dodging rail fares

[Flamingo]

Why 'rightly'? He may have been a cheeky git, but once he produced the means to pay the grip should surely have sold it to him. You can't just say that this was done 'rightly' just because you don't like a person's attitude. Nor can you call someone prepared to pay, even if it wasn't immediate, 'fare evading scum'.

Lots of cards are no use for on-board purchase. Without knowing what kind of card it was, it's impossible to know if the guard was correct or not to refuse to sell a ticket. I know several regular fare evaders who rely on this. There is one in particular on my patch who I will not allow to board the train unless he hands me the cash before boarding, as before now he has given me everything from Solo cards to M&S gift cards to pay.

"Pay when challenged" evasion is probably the most common, and to my mind (although I get 5% of it) most annoying form of evasion.

It's not my fault that the passenger gets to the station too late. If they are genuine, in my experience I see them running along the platform, and / or they approach me before or shortly after boarding to say they need a ticket.

If they are sitting down and waiting for me to find them, in most cases it's attempted fare evasion. If I have to waken them or open the toilet door to find them, then how am I expected to believe them?

Fare-dodgers are not customers, they are not entitled to good customer service, they have not paid for any.

 

[district]

Why 'rightly'? He may have been a cheeky git, but once he produced the means to pay the grip should surely have sold it to him. You can't just say that this was done 'rightly' just because you don't like a person's attitude. Nor can you call someone prepared to pay, even if it wasn't immediate, 'fare evading scum'.

If you ever do become a guard please let me know which TOC it's for so I can avoid it. I wouldn't like you to hand me over to the BTP 'rightly' for not getting my ticket out quickly enough or whatever else may displease you. A guard is not just a revenue collector, so unless customer service is also 'in your blood' may I suggest a different career?

A bit harsh...

Firstly he had no intention of trying to buy his ticket and he clearly seemed like he was put out to be asked to buy a ticket.

I am terribly, terribly sorry that I have an opinion that people shouldn't steal from the railway.

 

[Mutant Lemming]

- Of course it is lost revenue! The vast majority of these people would still travel by train, they just would pay for the journey.

Many train companies admit that they don't carry out checks at certain times/places on a frequent enough basis because it would cost more to police than it would recoup in revenue. Basically it's cheaper to let people get away with it than to employ the staff to stop it hence it can't be 'lost revenue'.

 

[Flamingo]

OK, it would not pay for a TOC to employ revenue staff 24/7 at Avoncliff or Freshford. But the vast majority of fare evasion does not involve passengers from the small stations going a stop or two who are not given an opportunity to pay. It involves individuals who plan to travel in a way that means they will not have to pay the correct fare for the type of journey they are making.

The late trains from London Paddington (and any train going off the unbarriered platforms) will always contain a number going to Reading who will have no ticket / incorrect ticket purchased on purpose. This is depite ticket-buying facilities being available.

Your arguement is that it is the fault of the TOC's that passengers when given the opportunity to buy chose not to do so unless they are forced to.

How does this tie in with other threads about "disgraceful TOC's treat everybody as criminals", which pop up on a regular basis?

 

[Mutant Lemming]

It isn't just remote locations in the evening - I have a quarterly season ticket which hasn't been checked or gone through a barrier for over two weeks. If they can't protect their revenue during the rush hour then there's precious little chance of them doing so at other times.

We can all witter on about the rights & wrongs - yes it IS wrong not to pay your fare - but we are living among the Jeremy Kyle generation and if you make it easy for people NOT to pay then a substantial number WON'T.
Even when caught many treat it as an occupational hazard, like not having car insurance, in many instances the fine will end up less than what they would have paid anyway.

As for FCC (disgraceful TOC etc), I can understand the reaction from many. Staff are thin on the ground and often ill-trained. I have seen people just give up at ticket offices and board without tickets and these are people who intended to pay. They also had the driver shortage dispute -they just loll from one debacle to the next. Yet they make a tidy profit from it all - though not enough to staff a station like Harpenden in the evening which has greater passenger usage than Hull.

 

[shinkansen1966]

"It is estimated that the £200m currently lost every year due to fare dodging would be enough to..."

...reduce the annual subsidy by £200 million. Which would the government's preferred option.

 

[Flamingo]

Yet they make a tidy profit from it all - though not enough to staff a station like Harpenden in the evening which has greater passenger usage than Hull.

I'll agree with you, I have complained to our MD before now that revenue protection was a bit of a joke outside of certain times.

But the tendency on this and other sites (and the media) to portray all fare evaders as victims of circumstance and innocents who didn't understand a Byzantine fare structure designed to confuse them is a bit disingenuous. In my experience, most of them are fully aware of what they are up to, and the injured innocence act is just that, an act.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

"Pay when challenged" evasion is probably the most common, and to my mind (although I get 5% of it) most annoying form of evasion.

You're quite right, of course.
By waiting until they are challenged, a passenger demonstrates their 'intention' to avoid payment. Simple. A Section 5 Criminal Offence.

But it is NOT really that simple. We seem to operate two quite distinct models of railway operation in the UK - one with long distance services and effective Ticket Offices, machines & websites (eg FGW, VT, EC) and one with local, rural stopping trains with only key stations staffed and many without ticket machines (Northern et al).

I struggle to reconcile the simplicity of applying the two simple tests universally (S.5 'intent to avoid payment' and B.15 'travel without a ticket').
Clearly someone without a ticket, wearing headphones and being tapped on the shoulder by a commercial Guard on a long distance service is a candidate for both tests of Evasion. The Guard will know that, and it will look like evasion even without the excuses.

But a regular commuter between close and unstaffed stations on a Pacer (while wearing headphones) is probably doing the only thing they can do. And the Guard will know that. But by contrast, it would NOT look like evasion until the excuses began.

Two methods of operation and One set of Conditions.

 

[Flamingo]

We have been told that we can only involve BTP if the following three conditions are met
1. The passenger has not got a ticket
2. The passenger refuses to pay
3. The passenger refuses to give their name and address.

So that is basically giving carte-blanche to the "pay when challenged" brigade. Charging them a full-open is one deterrent, but not much of one, as if they refuse to pay that, we will not be given much backing if we delay the train to have them dealt with.

It's all about preventing delay minutes.

 

[Solent&Wessex]

It's a bit like the regular commuters who use Anytime Returns rather than seasons tickets.

There are many regulars who buy Anytime Returns then go to any length possible to prevent you marking / stamping their ticket to prevent re-use. They have a valid ticket, but are intent on avoiding their fare on another occasion by trying to stop you cancelling it this time.

There is one regular who is always quite funny. Always sitting at the front of a six coach set, always pretending to be in a deep coma like sleep, always making a huge drama about being woken up when I bang my metal ticket clippers on the side of the metal framed seat, always going through delaying tactics to try and avoid getting his ticket out. He always has a ticket, but it is an Anytime Return he doesn't want marking as he wants to use it again, and again, and again etc.

 

[Mutant Lemming]

"It is estimated that the £200m currently lost every year due to fare dodging would be enough to..."

...reduce the annual subsidy by £200 million. Which would the government's preferred option.

I still don't buy in to that on a number of counts. For one how do they arrive at that figure ? If you knew where and when people travelled without tickets then surely you would do something about it - or at least optimise staff in a cost effective way to draw in as much of the revenue as you could. It could be more, it could be less than that figure as they say it is just an estimate. For many who fare dodge the high fares would be their excuse as to why they don't pay - so if the system was tightened up that cost would have to be met with no guarantee that those who previously didn't pay would then use the service.
Comments regarding how much the fare dodgers cost us are usually wheeled out to excuse the next inflation busting fares 'revision'.

 

[WelshBluebird]

But the vast majority of fare evasion does not involve passengers from the small stations going a stop or two who are not given an opportunity to pay

I would say that hugely depends on what routes we are talking about.
Certainly for largely unmanned station lines like the south wales valley lines, I would say the vast majority of "fare evasion" comes from exactly that. People boarding at unmanned stations (which the majority of the valley lines stations are), and the guard not getting around the whole train to sell them tickets.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

"I don't believe that price, the website said it was X amount, I am not paying that"

Not at all "bizarre" in my view. Certainly I have had to correct members of staff quite a few times in terms of prices. Other people who were not aware of the correct prices would have just overpaid.

 

[Statto]

Rail Bye-Law that states that passengers must travel with a valid ticket, unless when boarding from an unstaffed station/or the ticket office is closed with no other way of buying a ticket, then you can buy a ticket fron the Guard on the Train.

 

[yorkie]

Rail Bye-Law that states that passengers must travel with a valid ticket,....

Yes, and the exact policy regarding obtaining a valid ticket varies by operator (and may vary by route). e.g. if you look at the departure boards at Euston or King's Cross, trains where you are encouraged to buy on board and the full range is available say something like "Tickets available on board" (only applicable at KGX), while trains where you must buy before boarding are marked as something like "You must have a ticket before boarding" (LM at EUS and EC at KGX) and the others are not advertised either way, because full fares are sold on board in line with the general policy as stated in the NRCoC.