National Express threatening court action Help!!

robt_2

silkyuk9 wrote: »

yes she did travel on a theoretically unvalid ticket, but if you can verifiy simply there and then who you are and the train company can also say, 'yes its you' is it just common sence to say 'please do not forget your railcard again otherwise you will incur a cost'

Nothing theoretic about it. It was invalid

silkyuk9

robt wrote: »

Nothing theoretic about it. It was invalid

i knew i shouldn't have put the word theoretical in my last reply!

David333

Is the argument here not about the legality of travelling without your railcard (that's obviously a breach of the regulations) but about the regulations themselves...? In this particular case, the fine has to be paid, but on so many train stations nowadays your ticket and railcard will be checked four or five times on one journey: when you buy the ticket, when you go onto the platform, on the train, possibly again on the train if the train crew changes, and then on leaving the train at your destination.

All this money is spent employing people to check you have the right ticket for a journey which so often feels less reliable, less comfortable, and more expensive than any journey you'd undertake on continental Europe for example.

Maybe we can rephrase the initial discussion as: in an age when such technology exists to verify that you have a railcard, why the need for such regulations and the expensive, heavy-handed methods used to enforce them...?

silkyuk9

David333 wrote: »

Is the argument here not about the legality of travelling without your railcard (that's obviously a breach of the regulations) but about the regulations themselves...? In this particular case, the fine has to be paid, but on so many train stations nowadays your ticket and railcard will be checked four of five times on one journey: when you buy the ticket, when you go onto the platform, on the train, possibly again on the train if the train crew changes, and then on leaving the train at your destination.

All this money is spent employing people to check you have the right ticket for a journey which so often feels less reliable, less comfortable, and more expensive than any journey you'd undertake on continental Europe for example.

Maybe we can rephrase the initial discussion as: in an age when such technology exists to verify that you have a railcard, why the need for such regulations and the expensive, heavy-handed methods used to enforce them...?

Thank god someone thinks on the same line as me.

Thankyou so much for being a 'common sence' kinda person!!!!

alanrowell

David333 wrote: »

but on so many train stations nowadays your ticket and railcard will be checked four or five times on one journey: when you buy the ticket, when you go onto the platform, on the train, possibly again on the train if the train crew changes, and then on leaving the train at your destination.

Edinburgh to London the ticket gets checked precisely once - on the train somewhere between Dunbar & Berwick

brightonman123

in contrast, does anyone carry their driving licence counterpart (the letter bthat comes with the photocard) with them, at all times?

'officiailly' (i haven't checked this, but beleive its true..), the card isnt properly valid without it..

silkyuk9

brightonman123 wrote: »

in contrast, does anyone carry their driving licence counterpart (the letter bthat comes with the photocard) with them, at all times?

'officiailly' (i haven't checked this, but beleive its true..), the card isnt properly valid without it..

This is exactly my point, if you were stopped and had to produse your driving licence on the spt and could not produse the counter part, would you just be happy to pay an on the spot fine of £60 and forget about it or would you challenge it?

Lots would pay the fine because in court you would end up paying over £300.

i hope some of those who were not to helpful in their replies answer to this.

Voyager2002

silkyuk9 wrote: »

Hi.

My daughter (16) traveled from york to Glasgow using national express train service. She bought the return ticket using her young persons card.

on the return journey a guard asked for her ticket and her card, she could not find her card and thought she had lost it. the guard said he would report it and asked for her name and address, he said she would have to pay the difference or go to court.

incidently she found her card but as a matter of fact it was at home and she had forgot to take it.

any way, today we have received a letter saying the national express want £17-50 within 7 days or court action would follow.

We have rung them up explaining that she did have a card but she had misplaced it but has located it. they were not interested. We could even give them the card id number to prove that she really did have a card.

still they are not bothered. They want the money, we have been told that regardless of were the card is if she cannot provide it on the train when requested then she is travelling on an invalid ticket.

We got no joy, it seems that they are not interested at all.

Can anyone help here or are we just flogging a dead horse and have to pay the £17-50.

Cheers

To answer the practical question, pay the money. Otherwise, you WILL be taken to court (it is a criminal matter, not a civil one, so there is no question of passing it over to debt collectors). And the law is absolutely clear, so the court would convict her and you would have to pay the two hundred pounds. And while the offence is minor, details of this conviction would make it more difficult for your daughter to enter certain professions such as accountancy and law. And I am afraid that this IS what would happen: the railway by-laws do not give the court discretion, no matter how strongly you argue that what has happened was unfair.

As for the broader question of fair or unfair treatment: your daughter was caught travelling without the correct documents (discounted ticket together with discount card). In that situation, the standard train company procedures allow the inspector to charge a hefty "standard" fare of fifty pounds or more. The inspector was as lenient as the rules allow, since he gave her the opportunity simply to pay for the valid ticket that the rules state she should have bought before boarding the train.

If train companies were to put in place procedures to check their records whenever this kind of situation arises, the extra administration costs would run into millions. I do not think that it is reasonable to expect them to do this. As it is, Stagecoach have incurred considerable administration costs for a very small amount of money, when they could easily have treated your daughter far more harshly than they have.

silkyuk9

Voyager2002 wrote: »

To answer the practical question, pay the money. Otherwise, you WILL be taken to court (it is a criminal matter, not a civil one, so there is no question of passing it over to debt collectors). And the law is absolutely clear, so the court would convict her and you would have to pay the two hundred pounds. And while the offence is minor, details of this conviction would make it more difficult for your daughter to enter certain professions such as accountancy and law. And I am afraid that this IS what would happen: the railway by-laws do not give the court discretion, no matter how strongly you argue that what has happened was unfair.

As for the broader question of fair or unfair treatment: your daughter was caught travelling without the correct documents (discounted ticket together with discount card). In that situation, the standard train company procedures allow the inspector to charge a hefty "standard" fare of fifty pounds or more. The inspector was as lenient as the rules allow, since he gave her the opportunity simply to pay for the valid ticket that the rules state she should have bought before boarding the train.

If train companies were to put in place procedures to check their records whenever this kind of situation arises, the extra administration costs would run into millions. I do not think that it is reasonable to expect them to do this. As it is, Stagecoach have incurred considerable administration costs for a very small amount of money, when they could easily have treated your daughter far more harshly than they have.

point taken.

peediedj

i know she,s only human and everyone forgets things,but the terms and conditions state she has to carry the card and produce it with the ticket whether she used it to buy the ticket in the 1st place is irrelevant,why give yourself grief and stress over it,pay up the £17.50,tell your daughter to be more careful in future and both learn from it and move on