Has anyone ever been "done" for not signing their railcard?

bramling said:

surely no staff would be daft enough to do that?

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You overrate people.

Back in the days before I got my status pass, I (and my late wife) would *always* present staff/spouse id, staff/spouse railcard and priv ticket all at the same time without being asked; it never occurred to us to do anything else. It seems bizarre to object to this. The guard has no way to know how long you've been working for the railway or how honest you are.

duffield said:

Back in the days before I got my status pass, I (and my late wife) would *always* present staff/spouse id, staff/spouse railcard and priv ticket all at the same time without being asked; it never occurred to us to do anything else. It seems bizarre to object to this. The guard has no way to know how long you've been working for the railway or how honest you are.

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Evidently opinions differ on this, however personally I feel it’s a little presumptuous to be making a point of asking a fellow member of staff to display all their documentation. I get that there’s a chance something might not be in order, however personally I’d be inclined to have bigger fish to fry in the grand scheme of things.

From what I understand the encounter I referred to was on the Stranraer line so not exactly the heart of the empire, but to me it seems to contrast sharply with what one normally gets which is that the slightest hint of a PRIV or any kind of staff pass and the guard will be straight onwards.

We have had reports in the disputes section on here of people misusing, staff travel facilities, usually by borrowing, (With or without knowledge) a partner's or family members documents, so it does happen.

Busaholic said:

As a retailer whose card machine required me to take the card and put it into the machine

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As a retailer you shouldn't be taking the card from the cardholder

philthetube said:

We have had reports in the disputes section on here of people misusing, staff travel facilities, usually by borrowing, (With or without knowledge) a partner's or family members documents, so it does happen.

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The thing is that in the case of PRIV tickets I believe in all cases purchasing them requires a photo to be shown, it’s not possible to buy such tickets from a machine for example. So the only easy way to misuse that I can see is for them to be passed on, which ultimately goes uncomfortably close to the member of staff responsible for the PRIV (I accept that a dependent could also presumably pass a ticket on in this way). Personally I’d feel more comfortable filing this in the “I’d rather not know” box.

bramling said:

Evidently opinions differ on this, however personally I feel it’s a little presumptuous to be making a point of asking a fellow member of staff to display all their documentation. I get that there’s a chance something might not be in order, however personally I’d be inclined to have bigger fish to fry in the grand scheme of things.

From what I understand the encounter I referred to was on the Stranraer line so not exactly the heart of the empire, but to me it seems to contrast sharply with what one normally gets which is that the slightest hint of a PRIV or any kind of staff pass and the guard will be straight onwards.

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For priv passes, they do indeed get a cursory brief inspection and a wave of the hand and I move on.

For priv tickets I always show mine with my pass and I don't understand why anyone would be so arrogant as to a) not do so in the first place and b) to take offence at being asked for it, the same as any other discount pass and ticket.

They offer a significant discount and can be and are misused - not all railway employees are honest (see the GWR deputy director who has just been done for mass fraud).

As for rather not know - I value my facilities and I have no time for misuse of them in terms of lending them to 3rd parties or whatever. The most recent time I've known a priv be withdrawn by someone at our depot (it's fairly unusual and big news when it happens) was a Male retired staff member giving a female friend his boxes to go on holiday with. That is taking the mick.

I have always been trained by old school people and work very much in that vein and the first rule is respect your colleagues and particularly with regards to putting people in positions of responsibility in uncomfortable situations by your own omission.

bramling said:

Out of interest, how much of this happens in reality?

I'd imagine the most common is people using a PRIV to buy a daily ticket and then using it to travel to work, which from what I see round here isn't something anyone is too bothered about (not as far as active staff go at any rate, perhaps not the case with dependents). Aside from that, barring genuine mistakes like using an expired PRIV, the only obvious thing I can think of is using a PRIV at the booking office and then handing the tickets to someone else to use - surely no staff would be daft enough to do that?

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I would suggest that the letter recently sent out to active staff regarding incorrect use of travel facilities that RDG are bothered about it! For the record retired staff also got a not disimilar letter! In fact I know of a retired member of staff that was spoken to at the gate in Glasgow Central around 8.00am in the morning asking where he was going and what was he doing!

bramling said:

The thing is that in the case of PRIV tickets I believe in all cases purchasing them requires a photo to be shown,

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Retired or redundant staff do not have photo ID with their PRIV cards.

CEN60 said:

I would suggest that the letter recently sent out to active staff regarding incorrect use of travel facilities that RDG are bothered about it! For the record retired staff also got a not disimilar letter! In fact I know of a retired member of staff that was spoken to at the gate in Glasgow Central around 8.00am in the morning asking where he was going and what was he doing!

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I've never quite understood the rationale for this one. I can understand they don't want dependents using the discount for work journeys, but I don't get why it should be an issue for active staff. We'd be talking about a pretty small number of people, essentially those who go to work via a different TOC to their own, and who don't quite do it enough to warrant a season - which they're entitled to at full PRIV discount. So essentially the railway is gaining revenue it might not have had at all if the person would otherwise be making the journey by car.