WMT Digital Fraud Team

[Haywain]

Anyone that wants to use it I believe.

Sorry, I meant all online railcard retailers - is it a comprehensive central database?

 

[Adam Williams]

Sorry, I meant all online railcard retailers - is it a comprehensive central database?

My understanding is that it is

 

[Bletchleyite]

IMO the bigger problem here is why people aren't renewing their railcards consistently. I would blame railcard retailers who don't send out renewal notifications properly for this (I never got one for my 16-25) rather than messing with the purchase flow.

Easiest fix to that is to have payment by Direct Debit and just automatically send out the renewal. I'm amazed they don't, almost everything else like this in life is done by Direct Debit because people don't actively consider if they need it each time so are more likely to renew.

 

[Adam Williams]

Easiest fix to that is to have payment by Direct Debit and just automatically send out the renewal. I'm amazed they don't, almost everything else like this in life is done by Direct Debit because people don't actively consider if they need it each time so are more likely to renew.

Agreed.

Though I suppose you still have people losing their eligibility for certain age-based railcards over time, and you wouldn't be able to automatically renew.

 

[Watershed]

I'd say enter Railcard number *and* expiry date. Even if nothing is done with it it does force you to look at the card, ensure it's the right one, ensure it's not expired etc.

On the apps, where doing that may be a faff, if you could enter that once when it remembers it, then it would warn you and remove the Railcard if it had expired.

Exactly. All perfectly straightforward stuff in the grand scheme of things, but there seems to be little interest in doing anything about it. It's almost as if the industry wants people to get in trouble when they forget to renew their Railcard.

Personally I'd say entering either the Railcard number or expiry date ought to suffice - either would ensure that the discount is no longer applied once the Railcard expires, which would avoid a lot of the trouble people seem to get into because Trainline remembers the last Railcard you entered. And as others have said, if you entered a false expiry date and didn't actually have a Railcard, that's fairly strong evidence of intent to avoid payment.

Of course, these fraud teams rely mostly on circumstantial evidence like "this guy has done ten refunds this month!" and would be unable to mount a criminal prosecution solely on that basis. They'd need to actually catch someone travelling, perhaps on CCTV or, better still, in person - or more likely simply get a naive person to confess. They're hardly dealing with hardened criminals.

Indeed. It's often rather weak evidence which wouldn't stand up in Court, but equally most people are far too scared of the prospect of defending themselves in Court (even if it came to it). I can't recall reading of many prosecutions resulting from the GA Delay Repay "fraud" roundup a year or two back, which says it all.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Agreed.

Though I suppose you still have people losing their eligibility for certain age-based railcards over time, and you wouldn't be able to automatically renew.

Those entitled to 16-25s because of being a student couldn't, but assuming age is proven the first time one of the young age based ones is issued then it could automatically renew up to that age, same with 26-30.

16-17s should probably just be sold as a two year card and only sold as one year if you're in the second year.

All the others could auto-renew. OK, a Family might be a bit useless if your kids have aged off the top, but the issue of the card is still permitted, you could in theory use it for other peoples' kids.

 

[Adam Williams]

Those entitled to 18-25s because of being a student couldn't, but assuming age is proven the first time one of the young age based ones is issued then it could automatically renew up to that age.

I guess what I mean is people not realising they are no longer entitled to a railcard and assuming they still have one past their 26th birthday.

Personally I'd say entering either the Railcard number or expiry date ought to suffice

Just expiry date is a bit less friction, so I'd be less against that sort of proposal. I'd still want the requirement to be introduced universally at the same time, however, to avoid any sales channel/specific retailer having the advantage of a frictionless booking flow without that step.

 

[Haywain]

I can't recall reading of many prosecutions resulting from the GA Delay Repay "fraud" roundup a year or two back, which says it all.

At the speed the court process moves at it could be years before you do, if it happens.

 

[WesternLancer]

Making customers go through the tedious process of typing in a railcard number before purchase is a non-starter (and exactly what I meant by "terrible from a User Experience perspective") unless every retail channel is required to do it in the same way - TVMs included.

But doing it once with your chosen ticket platform would not be unreasonable I'd tend to think, said platform then 'remembers' those details until you have a new card. I suspect most people buy thier tickets from the single retailer they have decided they prefer to use after all.

 

[Gaelan]

But doing it once with your chosen ticket platform would not be unreasonable I'd tend to think, said platform then 'remembers' those details until you have a new card. I suspect most people buy thier tickets from the single retailer they have decided they prefer to use after all.

The "official" way to buy a ticket is to search on the NRE website, then get sent to the website of the TOC operating the service to make the purchase. Although I suppose, in that case, NRE could save the details and forward them on to the retailer along with the itinerary.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Making customers go through the tedious process of typing in a railcard number before purchase is a non-starter (and exactly what I meant by "terrible from a User Experience perspective") unless every retail channel is required to do it in the same way - TVMs included.

We've had this thread already, but for the common use case of "I have a railcard on the Railcard app, I buy my tickets with another app, and they are both on the same phone", it should be possible to do inter-app communication using a custom URL scheme. It won't be a 100% fix but it would stop a lot of unwitting mistakes, and the perfect is the enemy of the good etc. etc.

It would require the Railcard app developers to invest some time into building this, but I would hope that the increased number of Railcards renewed would ultimately make it at least revenue-neutral.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The "official" way to buy a ticket is to search on the NRE website, then get sent to the website of the TOC operating the service to make the purchase. Although I suppose, in that case, NRE could save the details and forward them on to the retailer along with the itinerary.

Does anyone ever do that?

The vast majority of people use Trainline. Those who don't either have one site they like (be that their local TOC* or Trainsplit or similar) or Google the name of the TOC they're planning to travel on, in some cases because they don't know they can sell each others'.

* I pretty much always use the LNR (WMT) app for walk-up travel. Not because it's specifically good, but just because there's nothing gained by having 10 or more installed, they all do the same thing, just pick one you like. If I used LNER more than once a century I'd probably pick that one for the seat picker.

 

[Doubleplus]

Exactly. All perfectly straightforward stuff in the grand scheme of things, but there seems to be little interest in doing anything about it. It's almost as if the industry wants people to get in trouble when they forget to renew their Railcard.

Personally I'd say entering either the Railcard number or expiry date ought to suffice - either would ensure that the discount is no longer applied once the Railcard expires, which would avoid a lot of the trouble people seem to get into because Trainline remembers the last Railcard you entered. And as others have said, if you entered a false expiry date and didn't actually have a Railcard, that's fairly strong evidence of intent to avoid payment.

I've read before how eager The Trainline are to promote the value of their database and how their super technology is able to detect irregular travel details which can be shared with their industry colleagues. Perhaps a solution would be that if Trainline detect they've sold a railcard ticket to someone who doesn't have a railcard, that Trainline should become obligated to pay the shortfall to the train operating companies.

Fairly sure that such an incentive would very quickly bring Trainline's sale of incorrect tickets down to pretty much zero.

I understand the concerns that providing railcard details might be "a faff", but it doesn't have to be complicated - and from a user experience perspective, the journey of "Enter your railcard number and expiry date so that you can get 33% off the cost of this and future tickets" is quite straightforward and easy to justify. Nobody is going to abandon a purchase and say that it's too much trouble, after all.

Does need a little thought about how to ensure that railcard discounts aren't given on ticket purchases made for other people, but that shouldn't be insurmountable.

 

[SCDR_WMR]

Making customers go through the tedious process of typing in a railcard number before purchase is a non-starter (and exactly what I meant by "terrible from a User Experience perspective") unless every retail channel is required to do it in the same way - TVMs included.

It's hardly terrible to have to input this data once into your account, after all, Trainline's app stores the Railcard as is the place the vast majority of my passengers show me their Railcard. So they must have put it in there anyway - the issue is companies not assisting by flagging up expired cards like most places do with bank cards for instance.

If you have to input it every time, it would be terrible.

 

[Doubleplus]

Making customers go through the tedious process of typing in a railcard number before purchase is a non-starter (and exactly what I meant by "terrible from a User Experience perspective") unless every retail channel is required to do it in the same way - TVMs included.

The TVMs - at least in my part of the world - do display a full-screen message, to the effect of "Please confirm that you are in possession of a valid XYZ Railcard by pressing OK" or similar, if you attempt to purchase a railcard discounted ticket. Is that not the same nationally?

 

[Adam Williams]

The TVMs - at least in my part of the world - do display a full-screen message, to the effect of "Please confirm that you are in possession of a valid XYZ Railcard by pressing OK" or similar, if you attempt to purchase a railcard discounted ticket. Is that not the same nationally?

So why not have online retailers do the same?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Apr 2023 ==

It's hardly terrible to have to input this data once into your account

Once per retailer (and whenever you want to buy tickets for a friend with a different railcard).

What you're suggesting will encourage further retailer-lock-in once people have started using one retailer, because it'll be a faff to start using another.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Apr 2023 ==

Perhaps a solution would be that if Trainline detect they've sold a railcard ticket to someone who doesn't have a railcard, that Trainline should become obligated to pay the shortfall to the train operating companies.

Why is this all of a sudden the retailer's fault?

If a customer buys a TOC-restricted ticket and then travels on the wrong train, maybe we should bill the retailer for that too? How about child tickets? Should the retailer pay the difference between a child and adult ticket? Maybe we should have the passenger upload a photo of their birth certificate during the purchase flow?

Ridiculous suggestions. What ever happened to individual responsibility?

 

[Doubleplus]

Why is this all of a sudden the retailer's fault?

Ridiculous suggestions. What ever happened to individual responsibility?

It's a mischievous suggestion I admit, but comes from the (I think justified) frustration that Trainline seems perfectly happy not to add any checks or warnings to their app, which would prevent the inadvertent purchase of invalid tickets, while at the same time subsequently reporting such sales to their industry colleagues for prosecution. (And an extra share of the profits, too, I shouldn't wonder.)

 

[AdamWW]

I know what you're getting at, but this team are not dealing with first time offenders. Mostly very calculated and planned, long term evasion.

In these instances I feel it is fair to ignore the deliberately short tickets and charge full whack for each occurrence. Pay correctly once, or attempt to cheat the system and pay twice.

Whilst the Railcard issue is more of a grey area - I e. TL sharing details of people using expired railcards for instance is morally wrong (it should just remove that Railcard or grey it out etc), if it's a long term evasion issue, there needs to be a deterrent in my eyes.

I'm not disagreeing with the above, but going back to your initial comment: "I didn't realise just how much is being lost even at a single TOC" I'm suggesting that if a TOC says, say, they've reclaimed £50k from "fare dodgers", even if that is just the total of fares charged and not admin fees etc., it is a larger number than the actual revenue originally lost.

Of course if the irregular activity they've found is only the tip of the iceberg they might be losing more.

 

[Wallsendmag]

The "official" way to buy a ticket is to search on the NRE website, then get sent to the website of the TOC operating the service to make the purchase. Although I suppose, in that case, NRE could save the details and forward them on to the retailer along with the itinerary.

What on earth makes you think that?

 

[Adam Williams]

Does anyone ever do that?

No. A vanishingly small number of people, I'd say.

NRE isn't fit for purpose either, so I don't know why you'd want to subject yourself to having to use it (and deal with its ads) when buying tickets.

 

[Wallsendmag]

I've read before how eager The Trainline are to promote the value of their database and how their super technology is able to detect irregular travel details which can be shared with their industry colleagues. Perhaps a solution would be that if Trainline detect they've sold a railcard ticket to someone who doesn't have a railcard, that Trainline should become obligated to pay the shortfall to the train operating companies.

Fairly sure that such an incentive would very quickly bring Trainline's sale of incorrect tickets down to pretty much zero.

I understand the concerns that providing railcard details might be "a faff", but it doesn't have to be complicated - and from a user experience perspective, the journey of "Enter your railcard number and expiry date so that you can get 33% off the cost of this and future tickets" is quite straightforward and easy to justify. Nobody is going to abandon a purchase and say that it's too much trouble, after all.

Does need a little thought about how to ensure that railcard discounts aren't given on ticket purchases made for other people, but that shouldn't be insurmountable.

Sounds fair to me

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Apr 2023 ==

I know the Digital and innovation team at LNER at looking at automated ways of discovering fraud with some success as well.

 

[Gaelan]

What on earth makes you think that?

"Official" in the sense that, if someone who knows little about the UK railway system (say, me a few years ago) goes looking to buy tickets, it's a reasonably likely they'll end up at the NRE website, especially if they're familiar with the term "National Rail" or the double-arrows logo. After that, they may well get the memo that they can just book on the TOC website of their choice for any tickets (or discover a third-party retailer), but I suspect there's a non-zero number who stick with NRE out of habit.

 

[AdamWW]

Enforcement of break of journey restrictions (which generally aren't enforced unless someone takes the mick i.e. using it to evade a fare) is another possibility. Unfortunately BoJ isn't defined any more, so I'm just waiting for a TOC to define it as "changing trains unnecessarily" and sending letters out.

I would hope that a digital fraud team would be looking for evidence of real fraud, not something that so far as know carries a maximum penalty of being charged for a ticket that would have allowed the break of journey (and not even automatically an anytime ticket).

I'm totally fine with that. I just worry that, given the railway's tendency to go after easy targets, that I'll end up with one of those letters because e.g. I went off-route, or worse the system thinks I went off-route, and staff on the ground accepted it but in 6 months' time it comes back to bite.

I don't know to what extent strict liability can be applied after the event. Presumably failure to show a ticket can't apply, but maybe boarding a train with the intention to travel without a valid ticket does? But this wouldn't apply to going off route.

I'm also uncomfortable with the idea of being able to retrospectively penalise someone for multiple journeys they believed were valid but weren't, when if they had been told so during the first one they wouldn't have done it again.

A more proportionate remedy/disincentive might be for the TOC to offer the offender a chance to extend their Railcard - from its expiry to the interception date - at a special rate of, say, £10 a month. This would be instead of any applying any fare correction.
The downside is that the TOCs would miss out on the ongoing windfall revenue of this low-hanging fruit.

Yes. I think that rather than making everyone buying railcard tickets with a TVM bash in their number on touch screen, it would be far more appropriate to take the view that as someone failng to renew a railcard is resulting in - at most - £30 loss of revenue, therefore large penalties and threats of prosecution are not appropriate. I do not think I will get many people in the industry to agree though.

Besides which...presumably entering the wrong number would result in an invalid ticket and potentially large penalties.

The "official" way to buy a ticket is to search on the NRE website, then get sent to the website of the TOC operating the service to make the purchase. Although I suppose, in that case, NRE could save the details and forward them on to the retailer along with the itinerary.

I have never seen anything to suggest that by going directly to an accredited ticket seller I am somehow doing something illicit, and find it hard to see why that would be the case.

 

[Adam Williams]

Yes. I think that rather than making everyone buying railcard tickets with a TVM bash in their number on touch screen, it would be far more appropriate to take the view that as someone failng to renew a railcard is resulting in - at most - £30 loss of revenue, therefore large penalties and threats of prosecution are not appropriate. I do not think I will get many people in the industry to agree though.

Besides which...presumably entering the wrong number would result in an invalid ticket and potentially large penalties.

This would be a far better place to solve the problem, IMO.

 

[Gaelan]

I have never seen anything to suggest that by going directly to an accredited ticket seller I am somehow doing something illicit, and find it hard to see why that would be the case.

Certainly I don't mean to imply that! I was responding to the statement that most people book all their tickets from the same seller, pointing out that there's probably some number who use NRE and therefore buy from a variety of TOCs.

 

[AdamWW]

Yes. I think that rather than making everyone buying railcard tickets with a TVM bash in their number on touch screen, it would be far more appropriate to take the view that as someone failng to renew a railcard is resulting in - at most - £30 loss of revenue, therefore large penalties and threats of prosecution are not appropriate. I do not think I will get many people in the industry to agree though.

Thinking about this a bit more, I wouldn't want to make the argument that if someone deliberately avoids buying a ticket then it shouldn't be taken seriously if it was for a low value ticket.

The difference here to me is that:
1) If someone is caught without a low value ticket there's a good chance it's not the first time they've done it. On the other hand if someone travels repeatedly without an invalid railcard they've only avoided renewing it once
2) In the case of an expired railcard, it's much more likely to be an honest mistake than someone failing to buy a ticket.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Apr 2023 ==

Certainly I don't mean to imply that! I was responding to the statement that most people book all their tickets from the same seller, pointing out that there's probably some number who use NRE and therefore buy from a variety of TOCs.

Ah yes that's a good observation.

Though even then, unless the retailer has a guest option I imagine someone might well then go instead to one they'd used before and have already gone through the hassle of making an account on.

 

[Haywain]

it would be far more appropriate to take the view that as someone failng to renew a railcard is resulting in - at most - £30 loss of revenue, therefore large penalties and threats of prosecution are not appropriate. I do not think I will get many people in the industry to agree though.

Based on that argument, there wouldn't be any point in anyone renewing a railcard because they would know they could continue to buy discounted tickets and the worst that would happen would be paying £30 if they happen to get caught.

 

[AdamWW]

Based on that argument, there wouldn't be any point in anyone renewing a railcard because they would know they could continue to buy discounted tickets and the worst that would happen would be paying £30 if they happen to get caught.

I do not agree.

There is a middle ground between on the one hand just asking for the £30 and on the other hand demanding thousands in anytime singles for previous journeys + hundreds in admin fees.

 

[setdown]

Are any of the e-ticket retailers fairly up-front with the passengers that their journey history will be examined and investigated for potential fraud purposes?

 

[etr221]

Why is this all of a sudden the retailer's fault?

Because they have sold a ticket that, on its own, is not valid, without any effort to ensure that the purchaser holds the railcard to make it valid.

If a customer buys a TOC-restricted ticket and then travels on the wrong train, maybe we should bill the retailer for that too? How about child tickets? Should the retailer pay the difference between a child and adult ticket? Maybe we should have the passenger upload a photo of their birth certificate during the purchase flow?

In these cases a valid ticket has been sold - even if it is being misused.