Praise for LNER RPO in Railcard dispute

Not sure I'm posting this in the right place - Mods feel free to relocate it.

Respect to the RPO on the lovely LNER 10:02 Azuma York to KGX on 24 January - yesterday. Not a crowded train and all going well until he came up against a student from the Far East with not a great deal of English. She had a ticket discounted with a Student Railcard which she had on her phone but which is not acceptable - it needs to held in original hard copy. He asked for a form of ID, she claimed to have none. He pointed out that failure to have a valid card meant that the full walk-up fare needed to be paid. She understood enough to offer to pay the difference between discounted and full fare, which the RPO declined, very politely.

The exchanges continued for some miles. She kept offering to pay the difference, he politely but firmly insisted on ID or pay up. At Doncaster he suggested putting her off the train and into the hands of BTP, which focused her mind a bit more. Her story varied between leaving the country for good (thereby making a prosecution pretty much impossible) and returning to York for graduation (in January?). She claimed to have no ID on her, not even bank cards - cue the RPO asking which part of the world didn't use bank cards to pay for things.

Eventually, the RPO's polite persistence bore fruit and she produced bank cards to prove her ID but, with no prospect of a succesful prosecution, he wanted his money for the full fare - she had lied to him with the intention of benefitting from fraud.

Game over, she offered to pay him - which she did with cash, lovely new notes! He took a photo of the card on her phone which she had tried to use - I assume that will be subject to investigation or blocked, he issued a ticket and receipt and was on his way.

I know some RPOs on some routes get a hard time, but this chap was persistent, punctilious and hugely patient and it's good to balance some of the criticism they get. I may have confused some of the sequence and details but the principle remains - a good guy.

Nickt said:

She had a ticket discounted with a Student Railcard which she had on her phone but which is not acceptable - it needs to held in original hard copy.

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Do you mean it was not a digital Railcard, but a photograph of a physical Railcard was held on the phone?

If the had the Railcard on her phone, that suggests it was a digital Railcard which would have been valid, so there must be some confusion.

Nickt said:

He pointed out that failure to have a valid card meant that the full walk-up fare needed to be paid.

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I'm not convinced by this claim.

The internal KnowledgeBase (iKB) says, on the page for 'Excess Prodecures Onboard a Train':

When a ticket is discounted and the holder [has] forgotten [their] Railcard ... the correct course of action is [to use] the value from the discounted ticket as credit towards the correct, undiscounted, ticket(s).

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But there may be more to it than meets the eye, for example the inspector may have suspected fraud, rather than a simple case of not bringing a physical Railcard.

Nickt said:

.. At Doncaster he suggested putting her off the train and into the hands of BTP, which focused her mind a bit more....

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She obviously doesn't know much about how BTP operate then

Nickt said:

I know some RPOs on some routes get a hard time, but this chap was persistent, punctilious and hugely patient and it's good to balance some of the criticism they get. I may have confused some of the sequence and details but the principle remains - a good guy.

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That's great to hear I am not certain if the actions were correct though, but we only have limited third hand information to go on, so we will have to give the inspector the benefit of the doubt.

I have known inspectors act politely but incorrectly; conversely I have also known inspectors act correctly but impolitely.

I overheard a Railcard issue on an LNR train the other day, and it sounded to me like a problem with a digital Railcard caused by the recent issues. Sadly, the guard insisted on a new ticket.

Bletchleyite said:

I overheard a Railcard issue on an LNR train the other day, and it sounded to me like a problem with a digital Railcard caused by the recent issues. Sadly, the guard insisted on a new ticket.

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Yes there have been a lot of problems with digital Railcards recently and some rail staff have been incorrectly penalising customers for failings of the rail industry.

yorkie said:

Yes there have been a lot of problems with digital Railcards recently and some rail staff have been incorrectly penalising customers for failings of the rail industry.

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It was disappointing to hear it, but obviously I didn't attempt to get involved because I could have completely misunderstood.

This is very concerning and certainly not praise for any revenue protection staff. First off, if this was a digital railcard there is a known issue with this at the moment and passengers are entitled to show their purchase confirmation instead. Likewise, there has been a problem with the dispatch of some physical railways. Likewise customers have been given ermission to simply show their confirmation. This can be on a device or a print out.

If it is a case of railcard not available then the "forgotten railcard rules" all for a passenger to buy a new ticket and advise the customer they can send in both tickets (existing and new) along with a copy of their railcard later for a refund of additional ticket later. However, as has been pointed out above, internal guidance allows for an excess to be purchased for the difference between fares which is what the passenger was offering anyway. Given she was indeed offering this up then how could she be said to be avoiding paying her fare.

It is not a requirement to carry ID in the United Kingdom not does this nation issue a national ID card. No person is ever required to produce ID when ask for it, even if that had such on their person. In this circumstance it is not "ID or pay up." Rather it is a new ticket or provision of one's name and address. That address can be anywhere in the world if it is genuinely where the person lives. The fact it might be harder for the TOC to do anything afterwards is not the passengers problem. Under very specific circumstances a passenger is required to give their name and address and that does not need to be a place in the UK if it is not where they live.

It is totally unacceptable and could even amount to discrimination for any member of staff to ask a passenger their nationality/where they are from and which part of the world this is that doesn't use bank cards! There are many nations, quite a lot in the Far East that doesn't use cards on the level we do there. Even in the UK one is entitled to pay cash for everything - totally acceptable. Not acceptable for her to be asked what part of the world doesn't use bank cards! Again, even if you have one on your person you do not need to produce it.

So she has left the UK but has returned to go to a graduation in York in January. Perhaps she has just been to this and is now going home. Again, no one else business other then her's. The conversation as to her personal and private circumstances should never have come to that.

I wonder if LNER has a Data Protection Policy covering the use of customer's data when it is taken as a photograph on a phone. Either way, if the railcard has expired (we don't know) then there is nothing more that can be done. Either way, the fare was paid so there is nothing more the company could do anyway. I do hope that the customer concerned claims a refund from LNER if they were indeed overcharged in any way.

gray1404 said:

I wonder if LNER has a Data Protection Policy covering the use of customer's data when it is taken as a photograph on a phone....

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Keep an eye on this FOI request...
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/procedures_for_lner_ticket_inspe

Dear London North Eastern Railway Limited,

What are your policies regarding ticket inspectors recording, processing and handling sensitive personal data, for example taking a photograph of a Season Ticket with accompanying Photocard?

For example
- are inspectors issued with work devices to store this data
- how long is the data retained for
- is the data secure; who has access to the data?
- if devices are lost/stolen, what measures are in place to ensure the data cannot be recovered by a third party?
- are devices automatically locked when not in use
- for what purposes can you record this data; for example if a ticket inspector is unaware of the contents of the Conditions of Travel, do you deem this sufficient grounds to record this data?
- is the data transmitted or transferred and if so how/why?

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LNER have until 4th Feb to answer; it's clearly a tough one for them as they have answered others in the meantime.

I suspect they just might be looking for justification not to answer it, as laying open their revenue protection procedures rather makes it easier to evade them.

There are many things in the story which, as described, don't sound worthy of "praise" but other posters have covered them, so I will just pick up on this which seems to be almost accusatory:

Nickt said:

Her story varied between leaving the country for good (thereby making a prosecution pretty much impossible) and returning to York for graduation (in January?).

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If the student had been at the University of York (which I admit is an assumption, but a reasonable one) the first January 2020 graduation ceremonies were on Thursday 23rd. The fact that the incident described happened on the morning of Friday 24th, whilst heading away from York, ties in 100% with that.

There is also every chance that after finishing her course the student returned home, only re-visiting the UK for the graduation. Why is explaining such events, in a non-native language, described as her varying her story ?

Renewing my (currently digital) railcard in a few weeks and I was advised by the ticket office to get a plastic one and save myself the trouble. Given GWR's stated ambition to entirely do away with paper tickets on their routes, the inability to get digital railcards to work is a little concerning.

Thanks for sharing the FOI request @yorkie I shall be watching that one with interest.

Yes, explaining the story in one's non native language is difficult and must have been a challenge for the lady. The fact she offered up the fare suggests she was not a fare dodger. On the balance of probabilities, if the same person checking tickets went to the lady's country on a business trip, holiday or to study he would most likely expect and rely on the native's speaking English to accommodate him. The fact a comment was given about what country she is from that does't use card sounds very bigoted to me. I wonder if other minority groups are treated with such discrimination by him on a daily basis during his ticket checks.

Bletchleyite said:

I overheard a Railcard issue on an LNR train the other day, and it sounded to me like a problem with a digital Railcard caused by the recent issues. Sadly, the guard insisted on a new ticket.

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There have most certainly been cases where the railcard app suffered from a known failure, but this wasn't communicated to staff and they insisted that replacement tickets must be bought.

I'm not suggesting that this one was one, it's entirely unclear what was happening.

gray1404 said:

In this circumstance it is not "ID or pay up." Rather it is a new ticket or provision of one's name and address.

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It's worth noting that the information on railcard.co.uk says:

If you’re due to travel shortly, please show the email confirmation of your Railcard purchase together with photo ID, so that staff can validate your discounted ticket and you can continue your journey.

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(My bolding for emphasis.)

transmanche said:

It's worth noting that the information on railcard.co.uk says:

(My bolding for emphasis.)

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Thank you for that, I had overlooked that key details. Thanks for the pointer.

It sounds like in this case the ID not asked for to validate the railcard though as the OP heard mention that the railcard has to be in physical form.

yorkie said:

Yes there have been a lot of problems with digital Railcards recently and some rail staff have been incorrectly penalising customers for failings of the rail industry.

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I've had it myself. 26-30 railcard, so no plastic option (I was on the trial and repeatedly stated that I want a plastic one if it launched - I guess I was the only one). I think it was a GWR RPI coming around, so opened the app on my phone and the railcard was not there. After much fumbling she said she'd let me get it sorted and come back. After a couple of restarts the app finally showed my railcard again, but she didn't come back to take a look

Fortunately the 26-30 is (I think) the only one not available on plastic. Other than if I was entitled to that I wouldn't touch the apps with a bargepole. It's a good idea but as with most railway IT projects the implementation is pitiful (why is it not a simple e-ticket style barcode verified online using logged scans like an e-ticket?) and the passenger is inevitably penalised when it goes wrong.

Nickt said:

Not sure I'm posting this in the right place - Mods feel free to relocate it.

Respect to the RPO on the lovely LNER 10:02 Azuma York to KGX on 24 January - yesterday. Not a crowded train and all going well until he came up against a student from the Far East with not a great deal of English. She had a ticket discounted with a Student Railcard which she had on her phone but which is not acceptable - it needs to held in original hard copy. He asked for a form of ID, she claimed to have none. He pointed out that failure to have a valid card meant that the full walk-up fare needed to be paid. She understood enough to offer to pay the difference between discounted and full fare, which the RPO declined, very politely.

The exchanges continued for some miles. She kept offering to pay the difference, he politely but firmly insisted on ID or pay up. At Doncaster he suggested putting her off the train and into the hands of BTP, which focused her mind a bit more. Her story varied between leaving the country for good (thereby making a prosecution pretty much impossible) and returning to York for graduation (in January?). She claimed to have no ID on her, not even bank cards - cue the RPO asking which part of the world didn't use bank cards to pay for things.

Eventually, the RPO's polite persistence bore fruit and she produced bank cards to prove her ID but, with no prospect of a succesful prosecution, he wanted his money for the full fare - she had lied to him with the intention of benefitting from fraud.

Game over, she offered to pay him - which she did with cash, lovely new notes! He took a photo of the card on her phone which she had tried to use - I assume that will be subject to investigation or blocked, he issued a ticket and receipt and was on his way.

I know some RPOs on some routes get a hard time, but this chap was persistent, punctilious and hugely patient and it's good to balance some of the criticism they get. I may have confused some of the sequence and details but the principle remains - a good guy.

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Plenty of graduations right through the year these days as most universities. Postgraduate qualification graduations very often not in summer.

I find it hard to believe that someone who has successfully completed a UK university course, especially a postgraduate course, does not speak English well enough to discuss train tickets.

They might not be able to participate in debates on this forum such as those regarding the exact meaning of "without having previously paid his fare, and with intent to avoid payment thereof" etc., but I would hope that someone graduating from the University of York had to, during their course of study, use the English language to participate in academic discussion more complicated than railcard validity.

Anyway based on the story as given, the passenger did have a reasonable command of English. I obviously wasn't there so cannot say whether the person might have been feigning a lower English ability than she truly had, or was just not very confident, or whatever. (This reminds me of an incident I observed while waiting to enter the UK at Heathrow: an Indian student was having difficulty explaining himself to the immigration officer, who said something like "you say you are coming to study Engineering, not English! Your English should be better than this. Are these really your credentials")

The whole issue around the railcard on the phone doesn't make sense in the first place, yet the story as given seems to paint the passenger as "trying it on", although I can believe that foreign students and even most Britons may not be fully aware of their rights or the powers of an RPO. (A similar thing happened to me in Germany. I held a Tageskarte and travelled to the end of a line then stayed on the train for the return journey; the conductor said that it was not valid to do that so I had to buy another ticket for €3, which I didn't argue about given my poor German and the conductor either genuinely not speaking English or pretending not to.)

I agree that it was unacceptable for her to be asked about where she was from or to show a bank card. However, if she was really from the Far East and able to afford to study abroad, well in China and Korea cards, or mobile payment methods, are even more ubiquitous among that demographic than in the UK. It would be the South East Asian countries where cards are less common among younger people.

I find it very sad someone wanted to share a little praise for someone and instead has just been told that they are wrong to do so, that the employee is wrong and so on. No one was there to know if the job was done correctly or not, but it feels like people only ever want to criticise. It makes for very depressing reading after a while.

Bletchleyite said:

Fortunately the 26-30 is (I think) the only one not available on plastic. Other than if I was entitled to that I wouldn't touch the apps with a bargepole. It's a good idea but as with most railway IT projects the implementation is pitiful (why is it not a simple e-ticket style barcode verified online using logged scans like an e-ticket?) and the passenger is inevitably penalised when it goes wrong.

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Correct. I will be buying a three year 16-25 railcard at the last possible moment before I hit 25, in order so that I can avoid the digital-only 26-30 as long as possible. There is a digital version of the 16-25 available, but you can only order one or the other.

Apologies for the diversion but it is interesting to read the issues that I feared might haven with the digital cards.

yorkie said:

She obviously doesn't know much about how BTP operate then

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They tend to turn up in 3s or 4s very quickly in the case of ticket disputes! Which is why I wouldn't advocate them being called to deal with anything other than emergencies.

Scott1 said:

I find it very sad someone wanted to share a little praise for someone and instead has just been told that they are wrong to do so, that the employee is wrong and so on. No one was there to know if the job was done correctly or not, but it feels like people only ever want to criticise. It makes for very depressing reading after a while.

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Sometimes stories raise questions and I think the scrutiny is fair in this instance.

Scott1 said:

I find it very sad someone wanted to share a little praise for someone and instead has just been told that they are wrong to do so, that the employee is wrong and so on. No one was there to know if the job was done correctly or not, but it feels like people only ever want to criticise. It makes for very depressing reading after a while.

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If you wish to disagree with anything I have said in a constructive way, you are very welcome to do so.

D365 said:

Correct. I will be buying a three year 16-25 railcard at the last possible moment before I hit 25, in order so that I can avoid the digital-only 26-30 as long as possible.

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You need to buy before your *24th* birthday for a 3 year card.

yorkie said:

If the had the Railcard on her phone, that suggests it was a digital Railcard which would have been valid, so there must be some confusion.

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I’ve had a few occasions where digital railcards had been digitally altered, including one recently by a student from the Far East. The barcode on the railcard can be scanned and will bring up the correct details for the associated railcard. You cannot conclusively say that a digital railcard will always be valid, as people do attempt to circumnavigate the security protections in the app.

Obviously in these cases it is suspected fraud which has its own procedure, which should have been followed if that were the case.

Has anyone considered the possibility that she may of had a photograph of a railcard on their phone? This is actually more common than you may think and not just with students but other railcard users too. A number of passengers I have come across do this because they intentionally leave their railcards at home because they are worried they may loose them. So they take a photograph of it on their phones naively thinking do it this way is acceptable.

The irony here for me is that as time as moved on we are becoming more and more dependant on our mobile phones from communication, entertainment, payment of goods and services. There are literally thousands of apps for all kinds of uses, but what really makes me chuckle is as I do my ticket checks the amount of huffs and sighs I get because passenger x has to stop watching the latest episode of Love Island so they can display their ticket and railcard. It gets to the point of the convenience of having everything on your phone becomes an in-convenience.

If only there was some way a passenger could purchase a ticket on the day of travel from an agent of the railway at the station, and that ticket be in paper form that fits comfortably into your purse, pocket or wallet..

Monty said:

The irony here for me is that as time as moved on we are becoming more and more dependant on our mobile phones from communication, entertainment, payment of goods and services. There are literally thousands of apps for all kinds of uses, but what really makes me chuckle is as I do my ticket checks the amount of huffs and sighs I get because passenger x has to stop watching the latest episode of Love Island so they can display their ticket and railcard. It gets to the point of the convenience of having everything on your phone becomes an in-convenience.

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Then they can’t remember where the app is or which one they used, I’ve got really good at spotting them and pointing them out now. Yes, it’s the one with the blue “R” next to Tinder...

Monty said:

Has anyone considered the possibility that she may of had a photograph of a railcard on their phone? This is actually more common than you may think and not just with students but other railcard users too. A number of passengers I have come across do this because they intentionally leave their railcards at home because they are worried they may loose them. So they take a photograph of it on their phones naively thinking do it this way is acceptable.

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I find this really bizarre. Not your observation of course, but the actual matter itself. So passengers leave their railcards at home at risk of losing it but I expect they wouldn't leave their bank cards behind, which are much more of a hassle if you lose them (ringing the bank, cancelling the card, waiting for a replacement etc).

I don't know anybody that purposely leaves their railcard at home for the mentioned reason but if I did I'd find it very odd.

DanTrainMan185 said:

I find this really bizarre. Not your observation of course, but the actual matter itself. So passengers leave their railcards at home at risk of losing it but I expect they wouldn't leave their bank cards behind, which are much more of a hassle if you lose them (ringing the bank, cancelling the card, waiting for a replacement etc).

I don't know anybody that purposely leaves their railcard at home for the mentioned reason but if I did I'd find it very odd.

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You say that, but i've noticed with the younger generation quite a few of them will rely solely on the contactless app on their phones and leave the bank card at home. I've had quite a few occasions where a passenger attempted to purchase a ticket only for it to be declined (mobile banking apps are still hit and miss in my experience), when you ask that they try the actual card they'll say they left it at home. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Monty said:

You say that, but i've noticed with the younger generation quite a few of them will rely solely on the contactless app on their phones and leave the bank card at home. I've had quite a few occasions where a passenger attempted to purchase a ticket only for it to be declined (mobile banking apps are still hit and miss in my experience), when you ask that they try the actual card they'll say they left it at home. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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You're spot on there, I work in Costa Coffee so I've seen it happen on a number of occasions. And they've gone 'well I've just had my student loan so I've got money, it must be your card machines' whereas in reality, it's because banks will decline a Contactless payment for security reasons.

DanTrainMan185 said:

And they've gone 'well I've just had my student loan so I've got money, it must be your card machines' whereas in reality, it's because banks will decline a Contactless payment for security reasons.

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Exactly. Banks have recently tightened up on this too, introducing 'Strong Customer Authentication' (as mandated by the second EU Payment Services Directive). After five contactless transactions (or transactions totalling around £100, whichever comes first) you'll need to use Chip & PIN to verify that you are the cardholder.

Thankfully, my bank's app gives me a notification to use Chip & Pin (rather than contactless) for the next payment, so I don't get transactions declined.

(This doesn't apply to payments using Google Pay, Apple Pay, or TfL PAYG and other similar transport systems.)