Excessive Admin Charges

shaun_from_Africa

pinkshoes wrote: »

In way way is £35 admin excessive? A person had to go through the database, write the letter, print the letter, put it in an envelope, frank it etc..

usefulmale wrote: »

That is only true if the train company took on an employee specifically to deal with this one complaint.

Fact is, an admin bod on a permanent contract would have done this so the (minimum wage) admin bod would get paid whether there are fines to issue or not.

So, I assume that you think that there is nothing wrong with sneaking into a cinema to watch a film without paying provided that there were empty seats.
After all, the film was already showing and the staff there had already been paid so there was no loss to the cinema owners.

If you bought a property, would you expect solicitor to do the conveyancing work free of charge?
If not, why not?
Wouldn't the solicitor's staff already be employed by the solicitor to do property searches, print the letters, put stamps on those letters and post them and as the office rent, heating costs etc would need to be paid irrespective of them doing the work for you, why should they have the right to charge for the work?

Just because someone was already getting paid to do the administration work involved doesn't mean that the rail company isn't entitled to recoup the costs for the time that it took their employee to process the paperwork as when they were doing this then there was other work that they were not doing.

maman

Tazer wrote: »

He paid the price for flouting the rules, no sympathy here.

I agree. I'm sure all stations I travel from have posters saying it's illegal to travel without a ticket. If the station isn't staffed there's a machine.

P.S. Although I think the boy deserves the fine and will hopefully learn from it, I do think that many admin /booking charges are excessive. Many organisations just add it to the bill as a cash cow IMO.

stragglebod

usefulmale wrote: »

That is only true if the train company took on an employee specifically to deal with this one complaint.


Fact is, an admin bod on a permanent contract would have done this so the (minimum wage) admin bod would get paid whether there are fines to issue or not.


All this 'A person had to go through the database, write the letter, print the letter, put it in an envelope, frank it, electricity costs, heating costs, wear and tear on the chair wheels, cost of a teabag etc...' is just a falsehood and no way justifies a £35 'admin' fee.

The rail company have no obligation to offer a settlement at all.

If the OP's son thinks £35 is too much, he can of course decline to pay. The result will be prosecution, and if he's lucky he'll get another chance to settle before it goes to court, though this time he'll be (probably) looking at low three figure costs.

If he thinks that's unfair he can go to court, and get fined (probably) double or treble that.

usefulmale

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

So, I assume that you think that there is nothing wrong with sneaking into a cinema to watch a film without paying provided that there were empty seats.
After all, the film was already showing and the staff there had already been paid so there was no loss to the cinema owners.

If you bought a property, would you expect solicitor to do the conveyancing work free of charge?
If not, why not?
Wouldn't the solicitor's staff already be employed by the solicitor to do property searches, print the letters, put stamps on those letters and post them and as the office rent, heating costs etc would need to be paid irrespective of them doing the work for you, why should they have the right to charge for the work?

Just because someone was already getting paid to do the administration work involved doesn't mean that the rail company isn't entitled to recoup the costs for the time that it took their employee to process the paperwork as when they were doing this then there was other work that they were not doing.

Dear, oh dear. I am not going to dignify that irrelevant claptrap with a response.

takman

usefulmale wrote: »

That is only true if the train company took on an employee specifically to deal with this one complaint.

Fact is, an admin bod on a permanent contract would have done this so the (minimum wage) admin bod would get paid whether there are fines to issue or not.

All this 'A person had to go through the database, write the letter, print the letter, put it in an envelope, frank it, electricity costs, heating costs, wear and tear on the chair wheels, cost of a teabag etc...' is just a falsehood and no way justifies a £35 'admin' fee.

You obviously have no experience of how businesses work if you really think there is no cost.

It doesn't matter if they are already employed and they already have a computer etc they still have a cost.

Shaun'ss response was spot on in giving examples of services which you have to pay for but where the staff are already employed and being paid.

If you still can't understand it then imagine if the amount of people getting fines suddenly doubled. They would have to hire extra staff and purchase extra equipment to process the fines so it would have a real extra cost for the company. Staffing levels in any business will be determined based on how much work there is to be completed. Just because someone is on a "permanent" contract doesn't mean they can't get rid of them, this is exactly what redundancy is for.

Also you have no idea how the fines are dealt with they may even use agency workers and increase/reduce the staffing levels on a regular basis based on workload.

So the only person posting "claptrap" on here is you. If you can't come up with a logical response to out posts then you really need to accept that you wrong.

shaun_from_Africa

usefulmale wrote: »

Dear, oh dear. I [STRIKE]am not going to[/STRIKE] can't [STRIKE]dignify[/STRIKE] answer that [STRIKE]irrelevant claptrap[/STRIKE] argument with a logical response.

Why is it "claptrap"? considering it uses exactly the same logic as your argument?

arcon5

Lol let's face it, £35 isn't going to be a true reflection of costs. Nobody is going to be writing a letter and putting a stamp on it! It will all be part of an automated system.


Yes the charge is damn right excessive! Is there much he can do about it... probably not.
An expensive lesson for him, irrespective of whether the amount is right or wrong.

marliepanda

arcon5 wrote: »

Lol let's face it, £35 isn't going to be a true reflection of costs. Nobody is going to be writing a letter and putting a stamp on it! It will all be part of an automated system.


Yes the charge is damn right excessive! Is there much he can do about it... probably not.
An expensive lesson for him, irrespective of whether the amount is right or wrong.

It’s supposed to be excessive. It’s supposed to be a fine. It’s supposed to stop people not paying and then appealing pointlessly and then STILL not meeting deadlines.

If it cost them £3 admin costs for a stamp and the time it took to print and put the stamp on then everyone would think ‘I won’t bother for now it’s only a few quid’

George_Michael

arcon5 wrote: »

Lol let's face it, £35 isn't going to be a true reflection of costs. Nobody is going to be writing a letter and putting a stamp on it! It will all be part of an automated system.

And who is expected to pay for the purchase, operation and upkeep of that automated system?

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

Dock his pocket money!