ircas late: impossible to pay

Hello.

On 9 Dec I boarded a Northern Rail train in Marple for travel to Manchester
Piccadilly intending to buy a ticket on the train. Tickets were not sold and
at Piccadilly I was issued a Failure to Pay Notice. Fair enough.

I was told that it would take a couple of days for the details of my notice to
be uploaded to IRCAS so that I could pay. As of today, two weeks later, the
data has not been uploaded. Presumably IRCAS will not be open for the
next few days. If my data is not uploaded so that I can pay online, I will
incur a fine of £40 on 30 Dec.

I have twice spoken to IRCAS staff who assured me that my details would be
uploaded by today.

What can I do?

I am a new member of this forum but have previously appreciated the sensible advice offered on this forum. Thank you in advance for anything you can tell me now.

I had this problem a few weeks ago and when I asked the woman on the phone (I got fed up and she offered to enter it manually for me) she said that if they aren't entered by the deadline (3 weeks after issue?) then you don't get the admin fee added on for a bit longer.

This is all from personal experience and might not reflect what happens to yourself.

Thanks, Wikipedia. Very reassuring message.

This morning my data was logged, so I paid. But your experience suggests that their excuse, that the heavy Christmas mail load was the problem, was doubtful.