Suddenly got terrifying legal letters re: train penalty fare!

dzug1

Glasseye wrote: »

Also, the train company has a monopoly over that line; there's no competition or alternative.

Wrong yet again


There are two companies competing on that line, plus a bus company

peachyprice

Glasseye wrote: »

I mean at the point of purchase (at a machine or online) it's obviously completely effortless to pretend you have a railcard when you don't and I'm not sure if people here reaslise this, but many, many people do this, and many of them get away with it, and the rest waste everyone's time and money.

And there in lies the rub

You tried it and got caught, now you're all woe is me, rules are wrong, I'm so special.

esuhl

peachyprice wrote: »

You tried it and got caught, now you're all woe is me, rules are wrong, I'm so special.

Looks like someone got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning!

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

And my Buck of Face still has no hard hitting social media complain on this matter.

OP, is the court date set. We have a direct service to Brighton from my abode, nd lots of time on my hands!

d123

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth wrote: »

OP, is the court date set. We have a direct service to Brighton from my abode, nd lots of time on my hands!

Make sure you remember to have your railcard with you when you travel .

pinkteapot

OP. I admire your desire for fairness. However, you agreed to abide by the rules in place at the time you travelled.

By all means, campaign to get the rules changed for the future. You cannot have a rule change applied retrospectively.

I used to commute by train and had a season ticket. My home station didn't have a ticket barrier so I didn't physically need the ticket until I arrived at the other end. One day I arrived and realised I'd forgotten my ticket. I had to pay a penalty fare at the barrier. I paid up because I'd made the mistake. It wouldn't even have occurred to me to refuse to pay! Annoying, yes. But entirely my own fault. You have to take responsibility for your actions.

Jeff_Bridges_hair

esuhl wrote: »

And this news article suggests that penalty fares are a civil (not criminal) matter, and they make it sound like your chances of winning the prosecution against you quite good. (But I'm not a lawyer!)

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/10-ways-to-avoid-penalty-fares-on-trains-6762684.html

I would be very wary of following all the advice in the Standards article - a lot of it has been debunked well before.


You/it are correct in that it is a civil matter to start with - that is what the penalty fare system is - to penalise those who make an innocent mistake such as the OP has - and its £20 or TWICE the standard single fare between the two points on the journey. HOWEVER, there are the bylaws in place which means that the company can cancel the civil penalty fare through non payment and then proceed through the courts using either the bylaws or regulation of the railways act to prosecute - in other words criminal.


Now the bylaws offence is easy for them to prove as its simple in the fact they did not produce their railcard when requested for the journey they had taken - as per the rules of having a railcard http://www.network-railcard.co.uk/terms/ - forgetting it simply means you do not have a valid ticket for travel. Sometimes this will lead to a non recordable offence which will not show up on any checks.


If they went for a full blown RoRA(not likely) offence then that would end with a recordable offence that will show up on checks.




OP - make yourself aware of the NCoC here http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/static/documents/content/NRCOC.pdf
So as I said don't believe everything in that standard article as the railways have had many MANY years dealing with this sort of offence and no national campaign will change that no matter how you feel about it because the public will just say that you should've checked you had your railcard.


The railway isn't going to change the way it operates railcard schemes so that people can just leave them at home - because if they did then they would simply take away railcards full stop.


Id pay what they are asking and the matter will go away quickly - representing yourself in court is also a bad idea and getting a brief will be very expensive too - please check that rail forum that someone posted before they will also give you the same advice that many have done on here.

eskimo26

Reminds me of cousin who got pulled aside, felt it wasn't fair refused to pay on principle and wanted his day in court.

Well he argued passionately and lost and ended paying god knows how much more. He seemed satisfied though so I guess the extra money, time and who knows what else [points?] was smaller then his ego [he has a huge ego].

OP sounds less egotistic and more naive and idealistic, i'm guessing young and possibly a student? Wants to change the world by butting his head up against it.

Glasseye

eskimo26 wrote: »

Reminds me of cousin who got pulled aside, felt it wasn't fair refused to pay on principle and wanted his day in court.

Well he argued passionately and lost and ended paying god knows how much more. He seemed satisfied though so I guess the extra money, time and who knows what else [points?] was smaller then his ego [he has a huge ego].

OP sounds less egotistic and more naive and idealistic, i'm guessing young and possibly a student? Wants to change the world by butting his head up against it.

Why are you talking about me instead of to me?

wealdroam

Glasseye wrote: »

Why are you talking about me instead of to me?

Could be because your last post indicated that you had effectively abandoned
this thread:

Glasseye wrote: »

I'm getting a bit tired of some of the repetition here so I'm going to call it a day on this thread unless anyone's interested in talking about developing ideas for systemic change to actually help stop this growing problem - thanks once more to those who tried to be of use.