Professor slapped with £155 railway fine for getting OFF the train one stop early.

[ainsworth74]

GENUINE POST ON THIS

What is it they say? It's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt?

:roll:

 

[yorkie]

It is unfair, but why ask me, do I have a power to change it?

East Coast have, and did!

I don't agree with quite a few rulkes/laws in life, doesn't mean i complain when I am punished for breaking them

If I asked you to pay £155 for mis-spelling rules, you'd not complain? When can I expect the cheque?

 

[MidnightFlyer]

What is it they say? It's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt?

:roll:

What does that mean?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

If I asked you to pay £155 for mis-spelling rules, you'd not complain? When can I expect the cheque?

Find me the official guidelines, that say mis-spelling infringes the laws of the Forum, and are punishable by fines, and I'll happily pay

 

[DaveNewcastle]

as long as National Express who own East Coast make mega profits!

[click to enlarge]

The UK Government makes a profit?

What is it they say? It's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt?

Thank you.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

lol, I posted it more to say that she thought Nat Ex still owned EC

 

[90019]

What does that mean?

That it's better if people just think you're a fool than knowing that you are when you say something stupid.

 

[yorkie]

lol, I posted it more to say that she thought Nat Ex still owned EC

Yes, we gathered that. You're right; they do look foolish. Sorry if this sounds harsh but I don't want to read about foolish comments there; they do not bring anything to the debate.

Just remember that anything you say on this topic is easy for you to say in your position. £155 is 77 journeys from anywhere to anywhere for you (and starting/finishing short allowed!), with £1 spare! And remember the advise from Dennis in the other thread!

I agree with ainsworth74 that sometimes it is better to not post, than post something daft, and sometimes people should consider before they post 'does this really add anything to this debate?' We're all guilty of this from time to time, some more than others

 

[penaltyfines]

Quite agree.

By posting a reply, you agree to pay a £20 penalty per spelling, grammar and/or punctuation mistake, to me within 21 days.

 

[radamfi]

Does the fact that the professor got a refund in effect acts as a 'test case' and if anyone else gets charged similarly from EC they can point to this incident and say, "He got a refund which surely means that I should get one too?"

 

[YorkshireBear]

What is it they say? It's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt?

:roll:

never heard that before i enjoy it alot

 

[ralphchadkirk]

Does the fact that the professor got a refund in effect acts as a 'test case' and if anyone else gets charged similarly from EC they can point to this incident and say, "He got a refund which surely means that I should get one too?"

It cannot be used as a precedent or as case law because it never got to court. As Yorkie always says - it will be very interesting if a ticketing case did go to court.

 

[John @ home]

Does the fact that the professor got a refund in effect acts as a 'test case'

It appears that the professor did not get a refund as such but declined to pay at the time and was sent a bill which was later cancelled. It does tend to indicate that it is easier to get a train company to cancel a bill than to extract a refund if one has already paid.

I'm sure discrimination will be alleged in some future cases, following the outcome of this one.

 

[penaltyfines]

Quite agree.

By posting a reply, you agree to pay a £20 penalty per spelling, grammar and/or punctuation mistake, to me within 21 days.

Well well well..... :P

 

[blacknight]

So EC have refunded him then?! This begs the question of why you have the condition there if you're not going to hold customers to it?! Just an unbelievable state of affairs - maybe it'd be better for all concerned if they removed the offending condition altogether!

In effect East Coast have now removed this Term & Condition by giving a refund in this case, as you either have the rule & enforce to the hilt regardless of bad publicity or it or as in this case East Coast have made it workable.
This is the trouble with automated gatelines is they may have logic but sadly no commen sense as for the operator just a basic lack of training as a simple as check in the timetable would have confirmed passenger was on the correct service so common sense should have been applied as in days of manned ticket checks.
Rules are for guidance of the wise & the obedience of fools
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

It cannot be used as a precedent or as case law because it never got to court. As Yorkie always says - it will be very interesting if a ticketing case did go to court.

I would certainly keep a copy of this incident for future use should the need arise & show it to gateline staff to save them the time & effort of going to complete a UFN as company will not back them up.

 

[cuccir]

In effect East Coast have now removed this Term & Condition by giving a refund in this case, as you either have the rule & enforce to the hilt regardless of bad publicity or it or as in this case East Coast have made it workable.

...


Rules are for guidance of the wise & the obedience of fools
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
.

Don't those two arguments contradict one another? Rules are for guidance only, but if you don't uphold a rule then it becomes permanently invalid? Unless I misunderstand.

Surely the real problem here is not stopping short, its not advance tickets, its not whether rules should be followed and its not (to a certain extent) the ridiculously high prices of walk on tickets; these are all symptoms of:

* The high price-difference between advance and walk on fares (walk on too high, advance too low)
* The fact that customers can't excess, with some sort of admin fee to discourage habitual chancers, all tickets so that at least any money they've already spent will count towards purchasing new tickets/paying PFs, etc.

 

[Wolfie]

"Since the issue was highlighted, train company East Coast have now cancelled the fee as a 'goodwill gesture'". On the one hand you can see why they would feel they had to do this, but on the other it's a tacit admission on their part that they don't consider the rules to be fair which might do them more harm in the long run.

This is also in Tuesday Mornings Metro...

'Goodwill gesture' my backside. This is an educated informed member of the middle classes - exactly the sort of person who when irate would do court and also make damn sure of a PR disaster for the rail company - some of that has already been seen. Many on here have previously noted TOC's hesitance to expose these 'rules' (which would be horribly counter-intuitive to 'the man on a Clapham omnibus' and also almost certainly fall foul of the Unfair Terms and Conditions of Contracts legsilation) to a considered opinion in court - this is another example of that!

Before we get the usual "you agreed to the T&Cs" routine from the usual suspects let me merely refer to the attempts of the banks (which incidentally also provide a service and no tangible goods to address another favourite arguement in here!) to use this and the clobbering they got over credit card charges etc.

 

[blacknight]

Don't those two arguments contradict one another? Rules are for guidance only, but if you don't uphold a rule then it becomes permanently invalid? Unless I misunderstand.

Surely the real problem here is not stopping short, its not advance tickets, its not whether rules should be followed and its not (to a certain extent) the ridiculously high prices of walk on tickets; these are all symptoms of:

* The high price-difference between advance and walk on fares (walk on too high, advance too low)
* The fact that customers can't excess, with some sort of admin fee to discourage habitual chancers, all tickets so that at least any money they've already spent will count towards purchasing new tickets/paying PFs, etc.

I am saying East Coast as a company as made this rule unenforcable now by their action of cancelling UFN you either back staff & prosecute "offender" or cancel the rule, is terminating journey short the same as break of journey:roll:.
The bit about rules are for guidance of the wise was directed at the staff involved in this case who IMO went OTT so the passenger alighted one stop early WTF must have had a commom sense bypass operation, press reports female member of staff so bypass is standard fit on those models.

 

[attics26]

what do you suggest the AGENCY gateline staff do in future if they wish to impress and possibly obtain employment within the railway - follow the guidelines given during training or use their own discretion when faced with someone who doesnt want to comply with restrictions - and which restrictions should be ignored and which should be complied with? (and does/should this differ depending on age and/or social class of the offender?)

 

[Ferret]

Yup, what East Coast have done here means that condition now effectively ceases to exist. It's a tremendous cock up all round quite honestly!

Like Attics26 says - which terms and conditions need to be abided by and which don't?! This incident and the one involving SWT at Eastleigh have not done anybody any favours. For me, it's time for the TOCs to look at a rewrite of the Advance T&Cs....

 

[blacknight]

Certainly got more than £155 worth of bad publicity if you google story, sometimes discretion plays apart.
I see they have been hung out to dry as East Coast have not backed then in decision made.

 

[clagmonster]

Surely rather than selling a completely new ticket (or UPFN for a new ticket), an excess fare should have been sold in accordance with condition 16:
"If you start, break and resume, or end your journey at an intermediate station
when you are not entitled to do so, you will be liable to pay an excess fare. This excess
fare will be the difference between the price paid for the ticket you hold and the price of
the lowest priced ticket(s) available for immediate travel that would have entitled you to
start, break and resume, or end your journey at that station on the service(s) you have
used."
http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/system/galleries/download/misc/NRCOC.pdf

The advance ticket conditions state that break of journey and ending short is not allowed, but do not state what should happen if you do this, so surely the NRCoC deal with this. Therefore, the UPFN should have been for £155 (FOS Brum-Darlo) less the fare already paid. Maybe this is why East Coast threw it out, rather than admitting that their staff had charged the wrong fare?

In any case, if when booking the ticket the professor was unsure whether he would want to alight at Darlington or Durham, the most sensible thing to do would be to buy a ticket to Darlington, which would presumably cost less or the same as the Darlington ticket and buy a first day single from Darlo-Durham from the guard if needed for £4.80. This of course assume that he read the ticket conditions.

 

[Wyvern]

Yes but the ticket was provided for him by the Uni admin office. I dont suppose he gave it much thought.

 

[nedchester]

Yes but the ticket was provided for him by the Uni admin office. I dont suppose he gave it much thought.

You need to be a Professor of UK Railway ticketing to understand the various terms and conditions that exist (maybe Yorkie would come into this category??!!)

Incidentally this kind of thing has probably been going on for years but with the dawn of barriers at stations people have been caught and excessed (although I suspect many barrier staff just wave people through), only the desperate jobsworth causes bother and the resultant bad publicity.

Still, in future, prof will need to arm himself with a North Road to Darlington single in future!!

 

[Flamingo]

Rules are for guidance of the wise & the obedience of fools
.

Sorry once this old chestnut is mentioned, Goodwins Law (subsection - Rules) now applies!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
New rule for revenue staff - don't charge any passenger in breach of the CoC if they look like they might make a complaint.

 

[attics26]

You need to be a Professor of UK Railway ticketing to understand the various terms and conditions that exist (maybe Yorkie would come into this category??!!)

Incidentally this kind of thing has probably been going on for years but with the dawn of barriers at stations people have been caught and excessed (although I suspect many barrier staff just wave people through), only the desperate jobsworth causes bother and the resultant bad publicity.

Still, in future, prof will need to arm himself with a North Road to Darlington single in future!!

funnily enough gent with durham kx advance bought a darlington dinsdale single to get thru barriers today-but guard noticed him board and challenged him

 

[bnm]

Yes but the ticket was provided for him by the Uni admin office. I dont suppose he gave it much thought.

[tongue in cheek mode]

Then should't he be facing prosecution under the railway byelaw regarding the non-transferability of tickets?

[/tongue in cheek mode]

 

[Andrew Nelson]

TOC Spokesperson on Radio4 this evening trying to justify this. Admitted the T&Cs don't apear on the Tickets. And tried to pretend He ALLWAYS read every T&C on EVERY website ever.

As said earlier, the users of Rail services need to have a Doctorate in the subject.

 

[dan_atki]

[tongue in cheek mode]

Then should't he be facing prosecution under the railway byelaw regarding the non-transferability of tickets?

[/tongue in cheek mode]

[pedant mode]

But the ticket was purchased FOR him, so no transferring has taken place!

[/pedant mode]

:P (Sorry! I'll go back to my hole now...)

 

[bnm]

[pedant mode]

But the ticket was purchased FOR him, so no transferring has taken place!

[/pedant mode]

:P (Sorry! I'll go back to my hole now...)

Touché!

 

[yorkie]

funnily enough gent with durham kx advance bought a darlington dinsdale single to get thru barriers today-but guard noticed him board and challenged him

And what is the guard going to do? Issue a UPFN that is then going to be cancelled? I've linked to previous stories where people joined late, the guard then tried to charge them new tickets, and GNER (as they were then) cancelled the new tickets. Some people will buy a new ticket, and some will challenge it. So far, all the cases that I'm aware of, where people have challenged it, the company has relented (and rightly so).
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Yup, what East Coast have done here means that condition now effectively ceases to exist. It's a tremendous cock up all round quite honestly!

It could be argued that it had already effectively ceased to exist. I recall a topic here just a few weeks ago where I posted various examples, mostly of GNER as they were then, relenting under similar circumstances. This decision is in line with previous decisions and comes as no surprise to me at all.

In a way I'm almost disappointed, as I'd have quite enjoyed seeing East Coast lose in court...