Travel irregularities - Fraud investigation letter

[Rondisimus]

Hello,

I hope you are all doing well.

On the first 1/4/26 I received the following email:

“
Good morning,
We are emailing from the Greater Anglia fraud department. We have been investigating industry data and have been led to believe you are potentially not paying full fares on Greater Anglia services. There appear to be a number of incorrectly purchased tickets showing on your account that are a breach of our terms and conditions and considered fraudulent activity. Please refer to our Revenue Protection and Prosecutions Policy: Revenue Protection & Prosecutions Policy .
Attached is a letter for you to read.
Please respond within 7 days to potentially settle this case.”

I did not respond and carried on with my life.
Today I received this email:
“
Good afternoon,
We have not received any contact from you; you were previously contacted on 01/04/2026.
At this stage we would like to offer you an opportunity to explain these irregularities on your account, and based on your response the decision will be to either offer you the opportunity to repay any funds relating to these journeys (plus our administration fee), (b) to forward your case to our prosecutions department for processing or (c) close your case (if sufficient evidence has been provided and proved).

If we do not hear from you within the next 5 working days, you will lose any opportunity to settle this case with us.”

For some background, I began using greater anglia around 2022 for wherever my placements for University put me including Chelmsford, Harlow, Colchester. Around August 2024 I began using it more consistently for work as I have now been working in Ipswich for almost 2 years now. My journey consists of London Liverpool station to Ipswich and back. For the majority of these tickets I used trainline and the ticket machine at these stations. I always buy the ticket once I arrive at the station and have never been stopped to have my details taken by the onboard inspector. I use a 16-25 railcard (I received the first email whilst I was 24). To the best of my memory since I first starting using Greater Anglia, I have not tried to avoid paying tickets or paying once on the train.

My last 3 journeys I’ve pivoted to using the Derby road ipswich station as it is closer to work. This station doesn’t have a gate but I still pay for the tickets online. I also have started using trainpal although both the station change and app change began after the first email.

I am fairly certain that I have done nothing wrong and am inclined to continue to not respond but the idea of prosecution is concerning me and I would like the advice of people who are more familiar with this situation. If anyone can help me out I would be most grateful

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Hello,

I hope you are all doing well.

On the first 1/4/26 I received the following email:

“
Good morning,
We are emailing from the Greater Anglia fraud department. We have been investigating industry data and have been led to believe you are potentially not paying full fares on Greater Anglia services. There appear to be a number of incorrectly purchased tickets showing on your account that are a breach of our terms and conditions and considered fraudulent activity. Please refer to our Revenue Protection and Prosecutions Policy: Revenue Protection & Prosecutions Policy .
Attached is a letter for you to read.
Please respond within 7 days to potentially settle this case.”

I did not respond and carried on with my life.
Today I received this email:
“
Good afternoon,
We have not received any contact from you; you were previously contacted on 01/04/2026.
At this stage we would like to offer you an opportunity to explain these irregularities on your account, and based on your response the decision will be to either offer you the opportunity to repay any funds relating to these journeys (plus our administration fee), (b) to forward your case to our prosecutions department for processing or (c) close your case (if sufficient evidence has been provided and proved).

If we do not hear from you within the next 5 working days, you will lose any opportunity to settle this case with us.”

For some background, I began using greater anglia around 2022 for wherever my placements for University put me including Chelmsford, Harlow, Colchester. Around August 2024 I began using it more consistently for work as I have now been working in Ipswich for almost 2 years now. My journey consists of London Liverpool station to Ipswich and back. For the majority of these tickets I used trainline and the ticket machine at these stations. I always buy the ticket once I arrive at the station and have never been stopped to have my details taken by the onboard inspector. I use a 16-25 railcard (I received the first email whilst I was 24). To the best of my memory since I first starting using Greater Anglia, I have not tried to avoid paying tickets or paying once on the train.

My last 3 journeys I’ve pivoted to using the Derby road ipswich station as it is closer to work. This station doesn’t have a gate but I still pay for the tickets online. I also have started using trainpal although both the station change and app change began after the first email.

I am fairly certain that I have done nothing wrong and am inclined to continue to not respond but the idea of prosecution is concerning me and I would like the advice of people who are more familiar with this situation. If anyone can help me out I would be most grateful

Welcome to the forum.

For things like this, our headline advice is not to respond: if the railway already had solid evidence that you were fare dodging then they could move straight to taking you to court. So you're already doing the right thing by not replying to them.

That's doubly the case as you say you have done nothing wrong. Should the railway want to take you to court over this, then it's for them to prove that you fare dodged, rather than for you to prove that you didn't. But it's unusual for them to write like this to someone whose behaviour doesn't look like fare dodging (n.b. something looking like fare dodging isn't the same as being fare dodging).

So it might be worth thinking about whether there's anything you have been doing that could be confusing the railway. You have already confirmed to us that you buy your ticket before boarding the train. Have you, perhaps
- made a habit of refunding tickets? That could look like you had travelled but because the ticket had never been checked, you asked for a refund.
- used Advance tickets to somewhere other than the destination shown, or on a different train from the one on the ticket? That is actually a breach of the rules
- bought anytime or off peak tickets using your 16-25 Railcard with an itinerary showing that you would travel after 1000 hrs, but travelled before then? Depending on how much the fare was, this can break the rules.

I think our advice will remain not to respond. But if there do turn out to be irregularities, it's worth knowing in advance in case the railway do try to take matters further.

 

[Rondisimus]

Thank you for the response.

I’ve only attempted to refund once and that’s because that ride was delayed and I got an email saying I might be entitled to compensation so I figured why not (not even sure it worked). I’m not familiar with the term advance tickets but I have pretty much only gone to and from Ipswich/London these past 2 years. I don’t recall travelling before 10:00 am (if that’s what you meant by 1000hr) but I will admit I just book on the app and pay what they tell me to. I suppose I can be more vigilant in that regard but I presume the app doesn’t lie about the price of the ticket. I’ve noticed the ticket bought is always “splitsave” which I’ve interpreted to just mean I have saved by splitting the journey into two but that also always gives me two e-tickets on purchase.

I haven’t deleted both apps and don’t plan to, I haven’t interacted with the history so I should always be able to bring up past journeys and I guess I should do it now just to double check. I was not planning on responding to them regardless but like I said the prospect of court is quite daunting. In any case, I will update the thread if any new developments happen or if I have new questions. I once again appreciate the help and welcome any more advice

 

[AlterEgo]

Thank you for the response.

I’ve only attempted to refund once and that’s because that ride was delayed and I got an email saying I might be entitled to compensation so I figured why not (not even sure it worked).

You need to claim delay repay in that instance, not refund your ticket. The email should have set out how to do that.

Ignore all of their emails about fraud though.

 

[Rondisimus]

You need to claim delay repay in that instance, not refund your ticket. The email should have set out how to do that.

Ignore all of their emails about fraud though.

I just looked through my email because delay repay sounded familiar and found a email where they said my claim was approved (must of missed the notification) so I apologise for the implication of refunding the ticket I believe I got the two mixed up - I have not refunded a ticket before.

I will ignore their fraud emails

 

[WesternLancer]

Thank you for the response.

I’ve only attempted to refund once and that’s because that ride was delayed and I got an email saying I might be entitled to compensation so I figured why not (not even sure it worked). I’m not familiar with the term advance tickets but I have pretty much only gone to and from Ipswich/London these past 2 years. I don’t recall travelling before 10:00 am (if that’s what you meant by 1000hr) but I will admit I just book on the app and pay what they tell me to. I suppose I can be more vigilant in that regard but I presume the app doesn’t lie about the price of the ticket. I’ve noticed the ticket bought is always “splitsave” which I’ve interpreted to just mean I have saved by splitting the journey into two but that also always gives me two e-tickets on purchase.

I haven’t deleted both apps and don’t plan to, I haven’t interacted with the history so I should always be able to bring up past journeys and I guess I should do it now just to double check. I was not planning on responding to them regardless but like I said the prospect of court is quite daunting. In any case, I will update the thread if any new developments happen or if I have new questions. I once again appreciate the help and welcome any more advice

As a general rule never claim refunds for delayed trains unless you opt not to travel.
You will have breached a clause of the refund claim and potentially they could chase you for that.

But always instead claim Delay-Repay in such circumstances.

 

[tatitiliti]

Hello,

I hope you are all doing well.

On the first 1/4/26 I received the following email:

“
Good morning,
We are emailing from the Greater Anglia fraud department. We have been investigating industry data and have been led to believe you are potentially not paying full fares on Greater Anglia services. There appear to be a number of incorrectly purchased tickets showing on your account that are a breach of our terms and conditions and considered fraudulent activity. Please refer to our Revenue Protection and Prosecutions Policy: Revenue Protection & Prosecutions Policy .
Attached is a letter for you to read.
Please respond within 7 days to potentially settle this case.”

I did not respond and carried on with my life.
Today I received this email:
“
Good afternoon,
We have not received any contact from you; you were previously contacted on 01/04/2026.
At this stage we would like to offer you an opportunity to explain these irregularities on your account, and based on your response the decision will be to either offer you the opportunity to repay any funds relating to these journeys (plus our administration fee), (b) to forward your case to our prosecutions department for processing or (c) close your case (if sufficient evidence has been provided and proved).

If we do not hear from you within the next 5 working days, you will lose any opportunity to settle this case with us.”

For some background, I began using greater anglia around 2022 for wherever my placements for University put me including Chelmsford, Harlow, Colchester. Around August 2024 I began using it more consistently for work as I have now been working in Ipswich for almost 2 years now. My journey consists of London Liverpool station to Ipswich and back. For the majority of these tickets I used trainline and the ticket machine at these stations. I always buy the ticket once I arrive at the station and have never been stopped to have my details taken by the onboard inspector. I use a 16-25 railcard (I received the first email whilst I was 24). To the best of my memory since I first starting using Greater Anglia, I have not tried to avoid paying tickets or paying once on the train.

My last 3 journeys I’ve pivoted to using the Derby road ipswich station as it is closer to work. This station doesn’t have a gate but I still pay for the tickets online. I also have started using trainpal although both the station change and app change began after the first email.

I am fairly certain that I have done nothing wrong and am inclined to continue to not respond but the idea of prosecution is concerning me and I would like the advice of people who are more familiar with this situation. If anyone can help me out I would be most grateful

Continue to completely ignore all correspondence from these shysters. Well done for sending nothing so far.

The entire GA Fraud Team belong on the cast of Dodge City.