Threatened to be prosecuted

[assistance]

Hi, please could I get some advice. Yesterday I was given a ticket by a stranger that said they would not need it, so I could use it. It was an off peak day return first class from Waterloo.
At the end of the day when I was going to travel, I scanned it and it didn’t work. I asked the ticket guards for some help. They scanned the ticket and found it to be an old used ticket that had been used multiple times, with the date changed to yesterday. They immediately surrounded me and told me I couldn’t move, that I had forged a ticket. I was very confused and told them I didn’t know, and I had not used it before and that i was sorry. If I could please buy another ticket as I will miss my train. They refused and then proceeded to take my details down, name, address, turned on their camera and told me I would be sent a letter. I was genuinely traumatised and not sure what will happen now.

 

[AlterEgo]

Was this an e-ticket you'd show on your phone? Did you pay anything for the ticket? Where were you travelling to?

 

[assistance]

I showed it on my phone, the person said I could take a screenshot of the ticket as they wouldn’t be using it. I thought they were being very kind.
I was travelling from Waterloo to Southampton.

 

[AlterEgo]

I showed it on my phone, the person said I could take a screenshot of the ticket as they wouldn’t be using it. I thought they were being very kind.
I was travelling from Waterloo to Southampton.

Why would a *stranger* do that *for free*? That makes no sense and SWR won't believe that.

The train company has scanned the ticket and knows who bought it; they will have the information from the retailer. They will audit the purchases.

 

[assistance]

Ok, that’s good then right? They will be able to see the original purchase owner?

 

[AlterEgo]

Ok, that’s good then right? They will be able to see the original purchase owner?

Well it's good for them, it makes no difference to your circumstances. I suggest you think carefully about how believable your version of events is. Did you get past the barriers at Waterloo or were you apprehended there?

 

[Sun Chariot]

Ok, that’s good then right? They will be able to see the original purchase owner?

You are still likely to face investigation for attempted travel without paying (due to an attempted usage of a ticket that was not yours to use).
Sadly, as the old saying goes, If something looks too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true.

As your details were taken, you may receive a letter in the coming 12 weeks, with details of what action will be taken against you and, if relevant, a financial settlement offer.
By all means come back to this thread, once you receive that letter, so that we can assist you and advise you.

 

[assistance]

Oh ok. No, I asked them for help at the barriers.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Apr 2026 ==

You are still likely to face investigation for attempted travel without paying (due to an attempted usage of a ticket that was not yours to use).
Sadly, as the old saying goes, If something looks too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true.

As your details were taken, you may receive a letter in the coming 12 weeks, with details of what action will be taken against you and, if relevant, a financial settlement offer.
By all means come back to this thread, once you receive that letter, so that we can assist you and advise you.

Thank you.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Apr 2026 ==

I didn’t realise you couldn’t travel with a ticket from someone else, or even to question the gesture. I’ve learnt many lessons and feel very stupid. I will continue to co-operate with the train company.

 

[WesternLancer]

Oh ok. No, I asked them for help at the barriers.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Apr 2026 ==


Thank you.

Whilst it is fresh in your mind I would suggest that you make some notes of a description of the person that approached you with this ticket - as when the railway investigate you (which will be easy for them to do of course as you gave your details - not giving your details to railway staff when requested would have been a separate offence, just so you know) - you can seek to be co-operative with the railway in helping to describe who it was that is behind an attempt to cheat the railway out of fares income - which might be of help to them if they can trace the original buyer of the ticket and seek to take action against them - ie you are witness to to this and that might be of help to them.

That's separate to the issue of being tempted to use a ticket you knew you did not buy (but say you genuinely believed you could use when offered by a stranger)

In due course it is likely that the railway will contact you, probably by letter but maybe by e-mail etc - when that happens it would be best to return here for advice on how best to respond to them, though generally honesty is the best policy - as the saying goes.

 

[assistance]

Thank you. I’ve never been in any kind of trouble before, and I feel so nauseous. Thank you for the advice.

 

[AlterEgo]

Thank you. I’ve never been in any kind of trouble before, and I feel so nauseous. Thank you for the advice.

How did you actually come to possess the ticket? Did they email you or text you the screen grab?

 

[Sun Chariot]

How did you actually come to possess the ticket? Did they email you or text you the screen grab?

OP's post 3 has: "...the person said I could take a screenshot of the ticket as they wouldn’t be using it".
So I guess it was merely "phone-to-phone". You make a good point abour the OP's initial contact - @assistance so how did this person make their initial contact with you (i.e. leading up to them showing you their "ticket"?)

If I was offered the return part of a Day Return, First Class, for a distance as big as London to Southampton, I'd certainly be suspicious as to why someone isn't going back and / or isn't seeking to refund their unused part (if it's possible for a D.R.).

 

[WesternLancer]

Hi, please could I get some advice. Yesterday I was given a ticket by a stranger that said they would not need it, so I could use it. It was an off peak day return first class from Waterloo.
At the end of the day when I was going to travel, I scanned it and it didn’t work. I asked the ticket guards for some help. They scanned the ticket and found it to be an old used ticket that had been used multiple times, with the date changed to yesterday. They immediately surrounded me and told me I couldn’t move, that I had forged a ticket. I was very confused and told them I didn’t know, and I had not used it before and that i was sorry. If I could please buy another ticket as I will miss my train. They refused and then proceeded to take my details down, name, address, turned on their camera and told me I would be sent a letter. I was genuinely traumatised and not sure what will happen now.

Of course as you will appreciate it the staff's initial instinct will be that it was you who forged it - but when / if they investigate you you will have the chance to explain what actually happened.

People forging digital tickets is a thing that some people do and we see cases on here where people have been caught forging a ticket for their own use (there was a thread the other day IIRC)- so no doubt staff see this with some degree of regularity I imagine.

the ticket QR code scanners are set up to reject or alert staff to tickets that have been previously used / where they were scanned / and can also indicate where / how they were bought / bank details of payment used etc etc - the codes on the tickets hold a lot of information esp when combined with ticket check scanning info

 

[assistance]

Thank you. I am a stupid girl for getting myself into a situation like this. I have learnt a lot about both myself and rules I should always be aware of. Thank you for the advice.

 

[WesternLancer]

Thank you. I am a stupid girl for getting myself into a situation like this. I have learnt a lot about both myself and rules I should always be aware of. Thank you for the advice.

You will get good advice and help from here if they contact you further about this, which you should assume is possible or even likely.

That could take some weeks or even months so keep an eye on your post and e mail and spam for at least 7 months.

Make arrangements to get post if you move address eg a Royal Mail forwarding set up.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

It's our general approach to assume that people who are asking for our help are being honest - because if we don't know the truth, how can we give good advice? But in the interests of us giving good advice, I think it needs to be pointed out that

I was given a ticket by a stranger that said they would not need it, so I could use it. It was an off peak day return first class from Waterloo.

and

I showed it on my phone, the person said I could take a screenshot of the ticket as they wouldn’t be using it. I thought they were being very kind.
I was travelling from Waterloo to Southampton.

aren't at all plausible: they're very much on a level with 'the dog ate my homework' / 'I left it on the bus' / 'a big boy stole it from me and ran away'. As @AlterEgo has pointed out, why on earth would a stranger do this? If they thought it would be of value to you, why didn't they sell it to you and make something back on the deal?

We would like to give you the best advice, so it is important to tell us what actually happened.

Of course, it could just be that I have a suspicious mind and I'm seeing untruths where there are none. But in my experience, railway ticketing officers have similarly suspicious minds. So do magistrates: while in court it is for the prosecution to prove their case, that's to 'beyond reasonable doubt', and a story of the 'dog ate my homework' type will be treated as unlikely without considerable proof. So if what you have told us is true, you need to record everything you can to prove your story in detail now.

 

[WesternLancer]

Thank you. I am a stupid girl for getting myself into a situation like this. I have learnt a lot about both myself and rules I should always be aware of. Thank you for the advice.

Occurs to me to ask, where were you planning to travel to? Also Southampton or somewhere en route.

Where were you offered this ticket? Somewhere in the station? By the barrier line? Whereabouts in the station?

How come you didn’t already have a ticket before you got to the station? Of course people do buy tickets at the last minute before travel and that’s totally legitimate, but these days I find many people buy tickets well before they travel or even on the day before leaving home. Do you tend to do that yourself?

 

[furlong]

Yesterday I was given a ticket by a stranger that said they would not need it, so I could use it. It was an off peak day return first class from Waterloo.

Please expand on this:
How did you meet the stranger?
Where did this happen?
Who spoke first?
How did the conversation go?
Did they tell you any more about the ticket, the journey or themselves?
What do you think motivated the stranger into doing this?
Where had the person come from?
Would any CCTV have captured the conversation or the person?
Write down for yourself a description of the person as best you can remember them. This might be useful later if a potential culprit is identified by the investigators.

 

[assistance]

I tend to buy the morning ticket in, then buy the return later in the evening when I know work is finished. As it’s always the same price mostly, and that way I know I can make the train. I was going to Southampton. That’s why I was confused when the ticket didn’t work, I asked for help and then asked if I should buy another ticket. I genuinely didn’t think I was doing anything wrong.
But I can see that my actions, even if true and I didn’t intend to mislead anyone, the reactions here are similar to the staff. I have to face the consequences and learn from this. But I am grateful for the advice. I will explain honestly in the letter what I did, and comply with what they tell me.

 

[Sun Chariot]

I tend to buy the morning ticket in, then buy the return later in the evening when I know work is finished. As it’s always the same price mostly, and that way I know I can make the train. I was going to Southampton. That’s why I was confused when the ticket didn’t work, I asked for help and then asked if I should buy another ticket. I genuinely didn’t think I was doing anything wrong.
But I can see that my actions, even if true and I didn’t intend to mislead anyone, the reactions here are similar to the staff. I have to face the consequences and learn from this. But I am grateful for the advice. I will explain honestly in the letter what I did, and comply with what they tell me.

The question five of us have asked you - on posts 11, 12, 16, 17 and 18 - I haven't seen you answer yet; namely:
how did this person make their contact with you (i.e. from a first moment, leading up to them showing you their phone's screen with the "ticket")?

 

[furlong]

Also, very important, did they tell you explicitly that the ticket had not already been used in either direction?
Which way round was the ticket i,e, would you be using the outward or return portion of it.

Please answer the questions as we are trying to work out what defences you might have if they tried to prosecute you.

(If you're making any of this up, we won't bite! Just tell us the real story so we can help you properly.)

 

[assistance]

I was flirting with a man I met earlier. We were just talking, in the convo I told him that I commute to Southampton, that’s it’s very tiring - at some point he said he had a ticket I could use. Looking back now, I don’t think I could have been more stupid.

 

[WesternLancer]

One bit of advice (and this would need to be done ASAP) is that if the OP can identify the general location where this happened at the station they should probably at least try request CCTV images in order to substantiate their story if asked about this by SWR. The OP would need to do this now because by the time SWR write to her about this which could be some weeks or more time, the CCTV would probably have been deleted, so can't be obtained to help verify the OPs version of events - although of course it won't have recorded the nature of any conversation that happened, it might at least show that some sort of interaction with another person happened.

 

[Sun Chariot]

OK, a few more questions @assistance

1) Post 19 you stated: "I tend to buy the morning ticket in, then buy the return later in the evening when I know work is finished ... and that way I know I can make the train".

- Are you saying that, every single time you make the morning commute from Southampton to London, you don't know if you will be returning home that same day due to your work? Or do you mean you buy a London-Southampton ticket for a specific-timed train, once you know you'll be able to get that train?

- Do you buy the ticket whilst standing in Waterloo station concourse? Or before you physically get to Waterloo station?


2) Post 22 you stated you were in converaation with a man who then showed you his "ticket" for Southampton.

- Did that happen before you went into Waterloo station, for your Southampton-bound journey?

- If that happened at Waterloo station, then how come you hadn't already bought your own ticket to Southampton?


3) Post 22:
- You stated "I told him that I commute to Southampton" but post 19 you told us you buy your morning ticket to Waterloo. Does Post 22 mean you told him you commute home to So'ton?
- Your "I told him that it's very tiring" can be distegarded, as you were still travelling the sane distance and service that you would have done, had you bought your ticket.

 

[johnny_t]

OK, so as you'll be aware, there seems to have been a very odd sequence of events. I say the below, not to try and sound sceptical, but that you need to make sure that you have a very good explanation of how the below happened...

1) You travel in from Southampton to London on a single, and then travel home on another single.
2) You told some man about this.
3) He happened to have a ready-to-go forgery of exactly the ticket you needed that evening on his phone, which he was not going to be using, and he let you have it.

Again, I'm not saying that your story is nonsense, but it sounds like nonsense, and that is why you need to work through all the bits of the story to get plausible explanations before you start to put it down on paper. The questions people are asking here will occur to the revenue teams, or any normal person.


In theory, there's nothing to stop someone else buying a ticket for you (though I'm not sure about the technical legalities of different people using the outward and return portion)

 

[saismee]

Again, I'm not saying that your story is nonsense, but it sounds like nonsense, and that is why you need to work through all the bits of the story to get plausible explanations before you start to put it down on paper. The questions people are asking here will occur to the revenue teams, or any normal person.

And to be clear, I don't think anyone here (or at SWR) believe/will believe the story. OP, please be 100% truthful or the experts on this forum won't be able to help you as they need accurate information to give you the best advice.

 

[WesternLancer]

Ref the way the OP says she buys tickets - it can be the case that people believe 2 singles are cheaper way to get tickets (even when they are often not) and that you have to select travel on particular trains, so if you don't know what train you can get people do this - the whole rail industry ticket selling system pretty much conspires to make people think this even if it's not (as experts on here know) always the case - or even often the case - esp if you are travelling to work in what would be peak times.

I spend a fair bit of my time telling many of my personal friends they buy tickets in ways that restrict their times of travel and don't save themselves any money or even spend more in doing so.

So I am happy to give the OP the benefit of the doubt on this aspect of her story.

 

[davp]

The single fare is £57 and return is £111. If there is any uncertainty as to whether you'll be taking the train it's not worth sinking the extra £54 for the sake of £3.

The OPs account is sequenced and consistent, and weird and improbable things do happen to people. They have ended up trying to use an invalid ticket and then sought help from barrier staff with this. If I knew I had an invalid or altered ticket I'd need some nerve to ask the barrier staff to help me when the gates rejected it.

The OP will know if they have acted in good faith. If they have it would seem they need to wait and see if SWR contacts them, which may take a while, and then come back here for some help if they do, before making any response to SWR. In the meantime they probably want to think about making some notes in detail as to how they came to have the ticket, especially as it may not appear to be the most plausible account to SWR.

 

[saismee]

If I knew I had an invalid or altered ticket I'd need some nerve to ask the barrier staff to help me when the gates rejected it.

I've seen it multiple times. Some people must think we're stupid or don't care (which is accurate for a lot of barrier staff, to be fair).

 

[assistance]

Thank you for the note. I will do that.
For travelling in, I don’t come into London often for work. So I usually get the 8:30 trains in which cost around £40-50. I then would get a single back after 19:00 which is usually around £30. I had looked at day returns but it always seemed more expensive.
I did not know the ticket was wrong, and that is why I went to the staff and asked for help and if they could tell me what is wrong with the ticket. I gave them my phone to look at it. When they told me the ticket was old and not the right date, 6 staff members surrounded me, in a semi circle with the wall behind me (one turned on his camera). Told me if I moved they would call the police now. They asked for my name, did not believe me, so took pictures of my ID and rail card (which I gave them), they did not believe the address I gave them was correct, so took pictures of my bank statements and a bill. Things escalated so quickly when I asked for help. I co-operated with them and will do. But I can see that no matter what I say, no one believes me. I genuinely did not act in bad faith, but I will follow through with the next steps.