123r234
Member
Hi new to this forum, wanted some advice on this situation please:
I was travelling with a 16-25 railcard today to London Victoria from my home station in Kent. The railcard expired in 2022 December and I altered the date to make it 23. I understand this is wrong and accept that, not to excuse but cost of living is tough and as a recent graduate even tougher financially. Unfortunately today a ticket officer scanned the railcard to discover it is expired. I offered to pay the difference for my journey but was issued an MG11 and was told SouthEastern would be in touch in regards to this to potentially prosecute. I was fully cooperative with giving my details and honest with the officer about how frequently I’ve used it. I’ve only used it around 2/3 times maybe 4 maximum this year. And maybe a maximum of 10 last year. Again not to excuse my actions but to give some context, I wasn’t using it every week etc excessively. At times I was using it to travel into university.
How can I resolve this as quickly as possibly without prosecution/ a criminal conviction? How likely are Southeastern to settle it out of court. As its not just general fare evasion, I understand altering the railcard has taken me to the grey area of fraud. I am worried it will result in a criminal conviction and really want to do everything to avoid that. I’m just at the beginning of my postgrad career and do not want a stupid decision based on my current financial hardship to affect my future. What can I do to get them to settle vs prosecute me? I can’t really afford a settlement amount, I’m guessing it will be 1k plus- but I can take out a credit card loan etc and would gladly take that over prosecution.
Please can anyone advise, I would be very grateful.
I was travelling with a 16-25 railcard today to London Victoria from my home station in Kent. The railcard expired in 2022 December and I altered the date to make it 23. I understand this is wrong and accept that, not to excuse but cost of living is tough and as a recent graduate even tougher financially. Unfortunately today a ticket officer scanned the railcard to discover it is expired. I offered to pay the difference for my journey but was issued an MG11 and was told SouthEastern would be in touch in regards to this to potentially prosecute. I was fully cooperative with giving my details and honest with the officer about how frequently I’ve used it. I’ve only used it around 2/3 times maybe 4 maximum this year. And maybe a maximum of 10 last year. Again not to excuse my actions but to give some context, I wasn’t using it every week etc excessively. At times I was using it to travel into university.
How can I resolve this as quickly as possibly without prosecution/ a criminal conviction? How likely are Southeastern to settle it out of court. As its not just general fare evasion, I understand altering the railcard has taken me to the grey area of fraud. I am worried it will result in a criminal conviction and really want to do everything to avoid that. I’m just at the beginning of my postgrad career and do not want a stupid decision based on my current financial hardship to affect my future. What can I do to get them to settle vs prosecute me? I can’t really afford a settlement amount, I’m guessing it will be 1k plus- but I can take out a credit card loan etc and would gladly take that over prosecution.
Please can anyone advise, I would be very grateful.