Train Fare Fine

Magsmad1058

My 18 year old grandson travelled to the Reading Festival recently and bought a GWR ticket in advance.  When he arrived at the station he was stopped, along with many other teenagers and told that he had the wrong ticket which had saved him £18 but he has now received a penalty notice of £108.05 if he pays within 30 days. The letter he received states that the penalty pays 'towards the costs' of recovering what he owes.'  It goes on to say that if it is not resolved 'this could have a significant effect on your personal and professional life.'  It also states that if he docent pay bey the date specified it will increase to £180 plus the original underpayment.  This is a disgusting way to treat a young person who has made an error when purchasing a ticket. Any advice please?  

carly

There is an appeals procedure , probably mentioned on the penalty fare invoice. If not, easily accessible by Google.  He will need to have a good reason why he did not purchase the correct ticket. 

tacpot12

In what way was his ticket wrong? 

Mark_d

So many young people seem to travel on trains without tickets or without the correct tickets...and when caught they try to make excuses, or quickly buy tickets on their phones.

Your grandson may have made an honest mistake but had he and the other teenagers gotten away with 'saving' £18 each, who do you think would end up paying?  It's the customers who go to the trouble of ensuring they travel with the correct tickets.

MyRealNameToo

Magsmad1058 said:

My 18 year old grandson travelled to the Reading Festival recently and bought a GWR ticket in advance.  When he arrived at the station he was stopped, along with many other teenagers and told that he had the wrong ticket which had saved him £18 but he has now received a penalty notice of £108.05 if he pays within 30 days. The letter he received states that the penalty pays 'towards the costs' of recovering what he owes.'  It goes on to say that if it is not resolved 'this could have a significant effect on your personal and professional life.'  It also states that if he docent pay bey the date specified it will increase to £180 plus the original underpayment.  This is a disgusting way to treat a young person who has made an error when purchasing a ticket. Any advice please?  

Travelling without the right ticket is a strict liability criminal offence with a maximum sentence of 3 months in prison. It's not equivalent to overstaying in a car park or sneaking into a cinema without paying. Ignorance is not an excuse for strict liability offences as the prosecution dont have to prove intent. 

Yes, fines contribute to the cost of paying for the revenue inspectors, prosecuting those that dont pay the fines. If people didnt try and travel without a ticket or the wrong tickets then none of these costs would be necessary. Why should fare paying customers who do buy the right tickets have to cover these costs?

Not paying for a single ticket is unlikely to end up in a criminal prosecution but in principle it can and with a custodial sentence possible it will prohibit you from ever working in certain careers, will limit your ability to travel in some countries etc. 

It does feel like you are missing the opportunity of a life lesson here and are approaching it from 

daveyjp

Never assume a Penalty Fare has been given correctly, some train companies hand them out like confetti.  However he is now in a legal process which could lead to a criminal conviction, something for an 18 year old to definately avoid.

There are therefore two options.

Pay it and move on.
Go through the legal process to appeal, for that you will need to provide far more detail and I advise a visit to:

https://www.railforums.co.uk/forums/disputes-prosecutions.152/

UnsureAboutthis

daveyjp said:

Never assume a Penalty Fare has been given correctly, some train companies hand them out like confetti.  However he is now in a legal process which could lead to a criminal conviction, something for an 18 year old to definately avoid.

There are therefore two options.

Pay it and move on.
Go through the legal process to appeal, for that you will need to provide far more detail and I advise a visit to:

https://www.railforums.co.uk/forums/disputes-prosecutions.152/

I'm not sure why some people have to behave like some of the others on threads when someone is just seeking help/advice.

When I was reading through the comments, I nearly gave up and was pretty sure the OP would not return. 

You make very good comments, as we should never assume the person with authority has always got it right.

We can all make mistakes and I rarely travel on public transpaort even though I got recently a free travel pass -  couple of times we used it was - just to try a train, day out as we'd not been on one for a long time and I was worried about getting pulled up ie going too far on the free pass or travelling outside the allowed times/etc.

Yes, learn from it and move or but if feeling very strongly about it, challenge it - but that can create extra worry/etc.

I hope it works out.

Nasqueron

Mark_d said:

So many young people seem to travel on trains without tickets or without the correct tickets...and when caught they try to make excuses, or quickly buy tickets on their phones.

Your grandson may have made an honest mistake but had he and the other teenagers gotten away with 'saving' £18 each, who do you think would end up paying?  It's the customers who go to the trouble of ensuring they travel with the correct tickets.

Why the hostility towards people based on age? Why do you think they were trying to evade a fare when they bought tickets but seemingly the wrong ones, easily done with the myriad of options we have now.

UnsureAboutthis

Nasqueron said:

Mark_d said:

So many young people seem to travel on trains without tickets or without the correct tickets...and when caught they try to make excuses, or quickly buy tickets on their phones.

Your grandson may have made an honest mistake but had he and the other teenagers gotten away with 'saving' £18 each, who do you think would end up paying?  It's the customers who go to the trouble of ensuring they travel with the correct tickets.

Why the hostility towards people based on age? Why do you think they were trying to evade a fare when they bought tickets but seemingly the wrong ones, easily done with the myriad of options we have now.

I completely agree
As I said, you can easily get confused even when being very careful

The "hostility"  I noted in several posts is unnecessary.  It's the last thing any thread starter needs. 

katejo

What was actually wrong with the ticket? Was it for a train at a specific time and he tried to use it at a different time? Or was he using a young person's Railcard during a peak period? 

Magsmad1058

Thank you to those people who haven't been rude and judgmental.  Snotty comments such as teaching him a life lesson are both unwarranted and unwelcome.  If you can't simply give advice as requested then don't bother to respond. My grandson paid with ApplePay and apparently the discount that should have ended when he turned 18 a few weeks ago was still applied by the system.  If  his date of birth was on the system why was the discount still automatically applied after his 18th birthday?    Had the system indicated that there was a problem or indeed declined payment of the discounted amount then my grandson would have paid the correct fare. I would add that the letter he received is written in an extremely frightening and intimidating manner.  It does not even mention how to appeal or to how to explain the circumstances of the error.   Having seen this in a recent newspaper article I was minded to ask for advice in my original post.   'The current Rail Minister (as of mid-2025) is Peter Hendy, who, along with the ORR, has acknowledged the need to improve the ticketing system and enforcement to avoid penalizing passengers who make honest errors.'