Tfl letter

[shiningstar]

Hi all,
My friend has been using his wrong debit card for travelling London Underground for 5-6 months and got caught. He accepted at the point and now received tfl verification letter.
He did this bcoz he has 1 baby and 1 partner to feed and at times there was no money for baby food and things. He is not taking any public funds. So due to financial pressure he did this. He is the only one to feed his family.
Plz guide what will be best possible reply to tfl without prosecution.
He is very stressed plz help.
Can he handle this by himself without solicitor? He is willing to pay outstanding fares and all
Thanks

 

[alholmes]

What do you mean by ”using his wrong debit card”. Surely if he’s using any debit card to travel, then as long as he’s touching in and out at the barriers then a fare will be charged?

Or do you mean he’s been using someone else’s card, such as a Freedom Pass, Over-60s Pass, or Zip Card?

 

[shiningstar]

He was using his own card which was blocked. Its his first offence

 

[alholmes]

If the card was blocked how was he getting through the barrier each time?

And it’s not really a first offence. First time caught, maybe, but committing the offence for 5-6 months.

TfL are notoriously difficult to deal with. Unless you have a solicitor (costing maybe £600-£800) they usually prosecute. They never offer out-of-court settlements. Unfortunately, lack of money isn’t an acceptable mitigation.

 

[AlterEgo]

If the card was blocked how was he getting through the barrier each time?

By using the exit function and reach-around tapping: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/got-caught-touching-in-on-exit-gates-for-over-a-year.258324/

Clear and deliberate fare evasion I'm afraid; this person was convicted.

As for the OP's query, I recommend instructing a solicitor if you want even the slimmest chance of success at avoiding prosecution for this. But it's unlikely if it's been going on many months; catching the fare evader will only have been the result of an intelligence-led sting. They have all the evidence, a nice big spreadsheet of all card taps showing the times he ripped them off, and probably CCTV of it to boot. No way they'll be letting off someone doing this with a warning.

 

[shiningstar]

Please tell some solution to settle this out of court. My friend is already taking hypertension tablets for long time which gp prescribed him in 2023. He is really worried how to solve this matter

 

[Puffing Devil]

There is no easy fix. Tfl nearly always prosecute; some solicitors claim to be able to reach settlements out of court, though you'll need to verify those claims independently.

Any solicitor would want a fee of around £1K, with no guarantee of success.

A court appearance may be a chance for a reset and certainly would allow time to pay any fine and compensation at a lower rate than tfl would demand for a first offence. Whilst a criminal record is not a good thing, it's not a major offence and will soon be spent.

 

[shiningstar]

@Hadders please give advice. He is very much worried. What can be done to settle this without prosecution?
Please

 

[ohnoes]

@Hadders please give advice. He is very much worried. What can be done to settle this without prosecution?
Please

Unfortunately I doubt anyone on this forum will be able to prevent a prosecution. That is entirely up to TfL now.

TfL prosecute as the norm.
They do not settle out of court, only offer ‘final warning’ in rare cases.

TfL are currently increasing their detection of fare evasion especially fare evasion using contactless payment cards, which is a priority crime for them. There has been press releases and newspaper articles warning of increased enforcement across media recently.

The TfL prosecution policy is here: https://content.tfl.gov.uk/revenue-enforcement-and-prosecutions-policy.pdf

Your friend should read it to familiarise himself with how TfL decide to prosecute, especially pages 6-9.

Choices your friend has:

A) Take full responsibility for the fare evasion and ask for leniency in the verification letter. (Without mitigating circumstances mentioned in the prosecution policy this is unlikely to sway TfL)

B) Hire a specialist solicitor to negotiate a warning with TfL (expensive and not guaranteed to avoid prosecution)

 

[Titfield]

@Hadders please give advice. He is very much worried. What can be done to settle this without prosecution?
Please

The OP needs to read carefully the TfL Prosecutions Policy particularly the criteria in Section 8 and determine which if any would apply in discontinuing a prosecution. https://content.tfl.gov.uk/revenue-enforcement-and-prosecutions-policy.pdf

Having high blood pressure and taking medication is unlikely IMHO opinion be sufficient to warrant discontinuing the proceedings. A solicitor experienced in these matters may have a better idea of precisely what factors meet the criteria.

The experienced posters on this forum seek to be supportive and provide honest and helpful, factually correct information and guidance. Unfortunately though this also means advising some of those seeking assistance and guidance when their behaviour is highly likely to result in a prosecution. This is one of those cases.

 

[notmyrealname]

Is it worth asking the OP to post a redacted copy of TfL's letter?

 

[shiningstar]

Is it worth asking the OP to post a redacted copy of TfL's letter?

Its the generic verification letter in which he has to accept or deny the offence. He is willing to accept the offence and mention all the circumstances

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 May 2025 ==

Unfortunately I doubt anyone on this forum will be able to prevent a prosecution. That is entirely up to TfL now.

TfL prosecute as the norm.
They do not settle out of court, only offer ‘final warning’ in rare cases.

TfL are currently increasing their detection of fare evasion especially fare evasion using contactless payment cards, which is a priority crime for them. There has been press releases and newspaper articles warning of increased enforcement across media recently.

The TfL prosecution policy is here: https://content.tfl.gov.uk/revenue-enforcement-and-prosecutions-policy.pdf

Your friend should read it to familiarise himself with how TfL decide to prosecute, especially pages 6-9.

Choices your friend has:

A) Take full responsibility for the fare evasion and ask for leniency in the verification letter. (Without mitigating circumstances mentioned in the prosecution policy this is unlikely to sway TfL)

B) Hire a specialist solicitor to negotiate a warning with TfL (expensive and not guaranteed to avoid prosecution)

He is willing to take full responsibility and apologise for his actions

 

[AlterEgo]

Its the generic verification letter in which he has to accept or deny the offence. He is willing to accept the offence and mention all the circumstances

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 May 2025 ==


He is willing to take full responsibility and apologise for his actions

If he does not want to, or cannot afford to appoint a solicitor, he is best advised to reply to the verification letter in this way, but also to prepare for the results of prosecution. It cannot be overemphasised how rare these intelligence-led stops are; TfL will have put loads of resource into making the case against him and are not going to dispose of such serious and repeated offending with a warning letter.

TfL prosecute about 20,000 cases a year.

I expect he will get a postal requisition to attend court and this will probably total one specimen offence (the day he was caught) plus however many offences they have detected from his card taps to be taken into consideration. If it's 6 months of habitual fare evasion this could be a lot of money - possibly even over £1000 just in fares evaded.

In addition to having to pay the fares back, the court will convict him of the offence, and fine him in line with his income. There is also a surcharge to pay, as well as the prosecution costs. As @Puffing Devil says the court will allow payment in instalments over time according to his ability to pay. But I'm afraid that, while we can never say never when it comes to TfL, it is extremely unlikely that with this sort of offence that avoiding court is an option, and a realistic outlook is probably for the best.

 

[Titfield]

Arguably the chances of success with a solicitor in these circumstances are low and therefore he would be better off using those monies to go towards the fine victim surcharge and compensation (fares not paid) that he will be faced with paying.

As far as I know solicitors want paying up front anyway.

 

[Hadders]

TfL take a very serious approach to this sort of thing and given the issue appears to have been going on for several months I expect TfL to prosecute.

I don't think I can really add anything more to what has already been said.

 

[Pushpit]

Please tell some solution to settle this out of court. My friend is already taking hypertension tablets for long time which gp prescribed him in 2023. He is really worried how to solve this matter

Hypertension is very common and not necessarily relevant here, most people with hypertension do not steal from the public. However it may make a difference. I don't want to raise any hope here but there are some limited grounds when TfL will issue a final warning rather than prosecute. Health and mental health is one such area. He appears to be in the No Recourse to Public Funds, which in turn suggests he is a visitor to the UK. If that means a criminal conviction has an unusually bad outcome then TfL may give a warning instead.

I can recall just two cases where this has happened via this forum alone and they came across as very good at presenting their argument. There have been many other successful cases, but all using a specialist solicitor, who presumably is able to put that set of arguments better than most people. It will cost around £750 to pay for the solicitor.

 

[John R]

Hypertension is very common and not necessarily relevant here, most people with hypertension do not steal from the public. However it may make a difference. I don't want to raise any hope here but there are some limited grounds when TfL will issue a final warning rather than prosecute. Health and mental health is one such area. He appears to be in the No Recourse to Public Funds, which in turn suggests he is a visitor to the UK. If that means a criminal conviction has an unusually bad outcome then TfL may give a warning instead.

Indeed, according to NHS Digital a third of adults suffer from hypertension. And regardless it's not a condition that makes someone more likely to commit crime, let alone a crime repeated over a long period. So if I were the investigator I would regard it as being something thrown into the apology with no particular relevance to the case in an attempt to make excuses for their behaviour, rather than owning their actions.