Train fine issued despite valid ticket

Quentin

If you aren't a hector, what is your interest in this? (Which you reckon we should all know without being told!)

You did say:

It would amaze you how may times a day we hear 'the machine beeped' when we catch people

verybigchris

geordieracer wrote: »

...It would amaze you how may times a day we hear 'the machine beeped' when we catch people...

Maybe it's time to check the machines then?

geordieracer

Quentin wrote: »

If you aren't a hector, what is your interest in this? (Which you reckon we should all know without being told!)

You did say:

Im not an RPI at all.. but i do go out sometimes with them.. And yes whilst oyster has given benefits to most on the rail network it has indeed increased fraudulent travel due to a lot of stations not being barriered and thus people using the excuse all the time.

verybigchris
Quote:
Originally Posted by geordieracer
...It would amaze you how may times a day we hear 'the machine beeped' when we catch people...
Maybe it's time to check the machines then?

All oyster readers at none barriered stations are monitored by TFL themselves and are owned and operated by them. Railway stations with barriers and the oyster readers on them are monitored there and then by station staff and are notified when they are not working correctly and can then be fixed or put out of use and Cubic informed.

Billicks

geordieracer wrote: »

Im not an RPI at all.. but i do go out sometimes with them..

I don't believe for a minute that ticket inspectors have social lives.
(please don't bite on that)

fivetide

geordieracer wrote: »

Not really - it depends on the facts.

did you have a valid ticket for your journey? No.

there you go. It would amaze you how may times a day we hear 'the machine beeped' when we catch people - im not saying you done this on purpose but on the railway its a LOT.

disagree with this. The appeal has been rejected by someone who has been given a little bit of power and enjoys wielding it.

Commonsense would say "ok, here's a chap who has just topped up the card for the journey, he's not done this before and has had an Oyster card since XXXX and is a regular? user of the system. In this case, benefit of the doubt and appeal upheld, here's your £20 back less the fare and some advice on making sure it connects next time"

Not the black and white downright miserable approach that has been taken. I serioisly wonder why people do these jobs when it clearly makes them so unhappy!

5t.

Stigy

I have to agree with Geordieracer here. I work in the rail industry and report people for offences (Just to make my position clear!).

Billicks, you can say you'll be better off going elsewhere for advice till the cows come home, but you'll get more accurate advice from those that work in the industry day in, day out. Biased? Maybe. Accurate? definitely. Oyster Cards are a means of carrying electronic credit which, unless verified at the entry point of your origin, is invalid. The Ticket Barriers at Wimbledon must have been open when you approached, as your Oyster Card wouldn't have let you through as it stands.

Oyster has a lot to answer for, and whereas (as far as I'm aware) all Tube Stations are barriered, not all National Rail stations are. Therefore, certainly in crowds, it's not always easy to know whether the reassuring beep you hear when you swipe your card is actually your beep, or somebody elses, and with no barriers to stop you entering/exiting at alot of stations, mistakes can be made quite easily!

I don't remember whether the wide-isle ticket gates at Wimbledon are manual or automatic ones. If manual, it's not unheard of for staff to just usher people through regardless of their travel status.

I forget whether you got a print-out from a tube station, as this would show if it was a fault with the system or not. I don't like Oyster Cards, and find them very complex, especially if making a journey accross london using different routes etc. Unfortunately though, in the eyes of the Railway the onus is on the traveller to know what they're doing.

This does seem like an unfortunate set of circumstances, but what you have to remember is that SWT/Southern or whomever else operates those lines of route, don't know you from Adam, and even if it's a failure in the system somewhere, without proof, what's to suggest you're not a persistant fare evader who's just very good at fare evading? Unfortunately, rightly or wrongly, in this line of work you have to treat everybody as you see them, and trust me, not all fare evaders fit the stereotype!

I'm not an RPI by the way.

geordieracer

fivetide wrote: »

disagree with this. The appeal has been rejected by someone who has been given a little bit of power and enjoys wielding it.

Commonsense would say "ok, here's a chap who has just topped up the card for the journey, he's not done this before and has had an Oyster card since XXXX and is a regular? user of the system. In this case, benefit of the doubt and appeal upheld, here's your £20 back less the fare and some advice on making sure it connects next time"

Not the black and white downright miserable approach that has been taken. I serioisly wonder why people do these jobs when it clearly makes them so unhappy!

5t.

god your an ignorant so and so arent you. It may be black and white but at least there is no grey area to muddy the waters.

Stigy

fivetide wrote:

disagree with this. The appeal has been rejected by someone who has been given a little bit of power and enjoys wielding it.

Commonsense would say "ok, here's a chap who has just topped up the card for the journey, he's not done this before and has had an Oyster card since XXXX and is a regular? user of the system. In this case, benefit of the doubt and appeal upheld, here's your £20 back less the fare and some advice on making sure it connects next time"

Not the black and white downright miserable approach that has been taken. I serioisly wonder why people do these jobs when it clearly makes them so unhappy!

5t.

In addition to my other post...

For the record, just because somebody has no previous, doesn't mean they aren't a persistant fare evader. To spell it out, not everybody gets caught. Not suggesting Billicks is a fare evader, but nobody here knows him/her, we are on an Internet Forum, and it would ne very naive to think otherwise. The appeal was done by somebody who knows what they're doing, and with your attitude, the railways would be rife with only the sterotypical fare evaders being Penalty Fared (wrong in itself) :beer:

Also bear in mind that the Penalty Fare is meant as a deterrent, and I don't believe the RPI/A actually thought Bilicks was evading their fare, otherwise they should have been reported for consideration of prosecution. Realistically though, fare evaders are often Penalty Fared as the staff cant be bothered to Report them, or whenever they get caughty out they pay £20 up-front and the staff don't take their details, thus not looking like a fare evader due to having no previous.

I think in this case it was an issue with either Billicks or the system, either of which was a genuine mistake and I'm sure Billicks has no previous, otherwise I'm sure s/he'd just pay up.

To sum up;

Don't get caught and pay £20 up-front = Stays off raydar and PFs issued time and time again. Just looks like a first offender.

Quentin

geordieracer wrote: »

god your an ignorant so and so arent you.

So says the arrogant (and now blasphemous) hector, who won't declare his interest (as we should all know it from elsewhere)!

fivetide

geordieracer wrote: »

god your an ignorant so and so arent you. It may be black and white but at least there is no grey area to muddy the waters.

Blimey you are a rude so and so aren't you? What a way to counter a stereotype!

All I'm saying is there should be space for commonsense.

Stigy has made a better fist of a response, especially re: the first offender bit but from what he says the issue is that the staff do not do their job properly in the first place so determining first time offenders is not possible.

Why should the OP be punished for the fact that those who are being paid to do a job are not doing it? Surely you can check back the records and find amount spent v journeys on the network etc and make an informed decsion if and only if those who are really evading fares are properly reported in the first place?

5t.