My daughter, 16, entered East Croydon with her Oyster card. She had been invited to a bowling event in Crawley and had never been there before. When she arrived, she tried to exit the station using her Oyster card but there was an error and she needed assistance. She then learned then that she was a couple of stops out of the Oyster card zone. She explained that this was a genuine mistake and wanted to pay the difference but she was issued with a fine that said 'prosecution'.
We appealed by letter posted by Royal Mail the day after this happened. A copy of the challenge was emailed too as well as proof of her having entered East Croydon with her Oyster (and hence paid to travel) and having been unable to exit at Crawley. In short, we provided a full explanation of the situation and the proof that she'd been travelling with a ticket, she had just exceeded the Oyster zone by two stops out of ignorance.
No answer to the appeal was ever received. We tried phone calls and emails. We tried Twitter DMs. We were told that the slip or ticket number issued was not found anywhere. We persisted because we feared the worst happening at a later stage. Nobody could explain the situation or give us an update. Emails were forwarded by Thameslink to other employees that still didn't offer any clarification or didn't even know what was happening. Everybody was either totally clueless or totally unwilling to help.
Three and a half months later, a letter with an escalated fine and a threat to take legal action against a child has arrived. We still can't get in touch with anyone as Thameslink prosecution phones are never answered and their customer services assistants say we should write (even though we already did and never got an answer).
To summarise:
1) Child fined for not having entered East Croydon Station with a ticket - even though SHE HAD entered using her Oyster card
2) No explanation or answer to emails or calls or letter
3) No answer to appeal/challenge letter to say if this had been successful or unsuccesful even though proof of having a ticket was provided
4) First communication from Thameslink received three and a half months later is an escalation of the fine and a threat to take legal action
5) Still unable to get through to anyone
Also, a key unanswered question remains: why does a child get issued a prosecution slip at a station when she tried to use an Oyster card, a slip with only an email address and an address and no other info, but is told she has to pay a fine, yet nobody says how much the fine is or how to pay it. I think I have entered Kafka's "The Castle"...
What can anyone do at this point? We are losing faith in humanity and basic common sense and reason altogether.
We appealed by letter posted by Royal Mail the day after this happened. A copy of the challenge was emailed too as well as proof of her having entered East Croydon with her Oyster (and hence paid to travel) and having been unable to exit at Crawley. In short, we provided a full explanation of the situation and the proof that she'd been travelling with a ticket, she had just exceeded the Oyster zone by two stops out of ignorance.
No answer to the appeal was ever received. We tried phone calls and emails. We tried Twitter DMs. We were told that the slip or ticket number issued was not found anywhere. We persisted because we feared the worst happening at a later stage. Nobody could explain the situation or give us an update. Emails were forwarded by Thameslink to other employees that still didn't offer any clarification or didn't even know what was happening. Everybody was either totally clueless or totally unwilling to help.
Three and a half months later, a letter with an escalated fine and a threat to take legal action against a child has arrived. We still can't get in touch with anyone as Thameslink prosecution phones are never answered and their customer services assistants say we should write (even though we already did and never got an answer).
To summarise:
1) Child fined for not having entered East Croydon Station with a ticket - even though SHE HAD entered using her Oyster card
2) No explanation or answer to emails or calls or letter
3) No answer to appeal/challenge letter to say if this had been successful or unsuccesful even though proof of having a ticket was provided
4) First communication from Thameslink received three and a half months later is an escalation of the fine and a threat to take legal action
5) Still unable to get through to anyone
Also, a key unanswered question remains: why does a child get issued a prosecution slip at a station when she tried to use an Oyster card, a slip with only an email address and an address and no other info, but is told she has to pay a fine, yet nobody says how much the fine is or how to pay it. I think I have entered Kafka's "The Castle"...
What can anyone do at this point? We are losing faith in humanity and basic common sense and reason altogether.