How do you check the I.D of any rail employee checking your tickets?

Runningaround · 8 Aug 2022

How do you check the I.D of any rail employee checking your tickets can you refuse without proper identification and if you are in breach of ticketing byelaws it'd be a handy delaying tactic?

It's not implausible for someone to buy a card scanner and walk around the trains asking to see your tickets and either ''taking it away for closer attention'', scanning the wallet you share with your bankcards, or in London just the bankcard itself. Add £30 a time and you could earn a lot of money in 10 mins on a bus. And ''cash only'' Physical ticket holders are easy targets as they'll be hunting around into wallets and pockets for the ticket, a quick distraction and theirs your wallet gone. At least with a phone you can hold it with a good grip, and add bio security to it to allow enough time to have it reported, with a printed at home copy, you only need to show that, and can reprint it should they take it.

I've not being checked but use my debit card and I'd expect anyone wanting to see it to provide I.D first.

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ComUtoR · 8 Aug 2022

Runningaround said:
I've not being checked but use my debit card and I'd expect anyone wanting to see it to provide I.D first.

Asking for ID is a bit of a Red Herring.

If I presented you with my TOC ID Pass. Would you even recognise it as official ID ? Could you identify the security features or even check if I was employed at the TOC in question ?

Fawkes Cat · 8 Aug 2022

Runningaround said:
It's not implausible for someone to buy a card scanner and walk around the trains asking to see your tickets

And yet on this fairly well-informed forum, we have never heard of it happening.

The fact that it hasn't happened yet doesn't guarantee that it won't start happening soon, but perhaps suggests that criminals are reluctant to put themselves on a train with limited means of escape should they be caught, and with at least the possibility of CCTV to identify them if they were to try the con.

AlterEgo · 8 Aug 2022

There was a fake RPI on Merseyrail taking £20 notes off people a few years back.

Runningaround said:
How do you check the I.D of any rail employee checking your tickets

You ask to see their ID.

Runningaround said:
can you refuse without proper identification

It might be reasonable to if you had reasonable cause to believe the person wasn't genuine.

Runningaround said:
and if you are in breach of ticketing byelaws it'd be a handy delaying tactic?

Very unwise to use this as a "delaying tactic" as it wouldn't get you off any issues if the member of staff turns out to be genuine and supplies ID.

357 · 8 Aug 2022

The problem with "scanning bank cards and taking £30" is that the money goes into an account either tied to a limited company or registered to an individual.

It would be very easy to track down who's doing this when the chargebacks start.

£30 is a lot of money to a lot of people, and it would only be a matter of time until the scam is shut down and the police get involved.

Haywain · 8 Aug 2022

357 said:
It would be very easy to track down who's doing this when the chargebacks start.

Or even before. It simply takes someone to notice and contact their own bank.

DelayRepay · 8 Aug 2022

357 said:
The problem with "scanning bank cards and taking £30" is that the money goes into an account either tied to a limited company or registered to an individual.

It would be very easy to track down who's doing this when the chargebacks start..

Haywain said:
Or even before. It simply takes someone to notice and contact their own bank.

Someone would notice quickly, given the number of people who get push notifications to their mobile phone when they make a card payment.

It wouldn't even need someone to contact their own bank. The acquirer (companies who provide the facility to collect card payments to businesses), Visa/Mastercard or one of the issuers may well detect this unusual activity if there were a large number of unusual transactions to a new merchant.

Haywain · 8 Aug 2022

DelayRepay said:
Someone would notice quickly, given the number of people who get push notifications to their mobile phone when they make a card payment.

It wouldn't even need someone to contact their own bank. The acquirer (companies who provide the facility to collect card payments to businesses), Visa/Mastercard or one of the issuers may well detect this unusual activity if there were a large number of unusual transactions to a new merchant.

Quite. As a means of stealing money it’s the perfect way to get caught!

jon0844 · 9 Aug 2022

Runningaround said:
It's not implausible for someone to buy a card scanner and walk around the trains asking to see your tickets and either ''taking it away for closer attention'', scanning the wallet you share with your bankcards, or in London just the bankcard itself. Add £30 a time and you could earn a lot of money in 10 mins on a bus. And ''cash only'' Physical ticket holders are easy targets as they'll be hunting around into wallets and pockets for the ticket, a quick distraction and theirs your wallet gone. At least with a phone you can hold it with a good grip, and add bio security to it to allow enough time to have it reported, with a printed at home copy, you only need to show that, and can reprint it should they take it.

I've not being checked but use my debit card and I'd expect anyone wanting to see it to provide I.D first.

How would that work? They'd need a merchant account to be able to take card payments, and once you realised you (and everyone else) would report it. Merchant account suspended, payments halted, and most likely some sort of action taken by the bank/authorities.

As for scanning a smartcard - that's much easier as there are apps that let you do that which have no security implications, because they simply read what's on a card. There CAN be parts that are encrypted and not decoded by said app, but I am not aware of there being anything secret on a ITSO smartcard - at least not read by any staff.

Deafdoggie · 9 Aug 2022

jon0844 said:
How would that work? They'd need a merchant account to be able to take card payments, and once you realised you (and everyone else) would report it. Merchant account suspended, payments halted, and most likely some sort of action taken by the bank/authorities.

You can get a card reader easily and cheaply enough. They are around £20 in Rymans. You can link it to any bank account. Even personal. You can set the name to show what you want i.e. "Onboard Sales"
Any half-decent con artist can set up a bank account easily enough.
The "secret" is to take low amounts that people either don't notice or don't bother about. Just £2 can quickly mount up if you get enough people.
Whilst some people may notice and report it, it'll take a while to get the machine shut down, by then you could have easily done 1,000 people, made £2,000 and be gone to the next scam. Not bad for a few hours work.

Fawkes Cat · 9 Aug 2022

Deafdoggie said:
Just £2 can quickly mount up if you get enough people.
Whilst some people may notice and report it, it'll take a while to get the machine shut down, by then you could have easily done 1,000 people, made £2,000 and be gone to the next scam. Not bad for a few hours work.

If 'a few hours' is less than 10, then this will be one hugely efficient criminal: 1,000 victims in 10 hours is 100 an hour. Even assuming none of the marks argue leading to a longer interaction, that's one scam every 36 seconds.

Fokx · 9 Aug 2022

Deafdoggie said:
You can get a card reader easily and cheaply enough. They are around £20 in Rymans. You can link it to any bank account. Even personal. You can set the name to show what you want i.e. "Onboard Sales"
Any half-decent con artist can set up a bank account easily enough.
The "secret" is to take low amounts that people either don't notice or don't bother about. Just £2 can quickly mount up if you get enough people.
Whilst some people may notice and report it, it'll take a while to get the machine shut down, by then you could have easily done 1,000 people, made £2,000 and be gone to the next scam. Not bad for a few hours work.

The type that you see in Ryman’s (and other high street stores) are obviously a card reader.

Most passengers would be able to identify the chip and pin machine as it’s used by most independent stores like cafes and markets, and even some buskers! but also the fact that if someone hypothetically did program the device to take say £20 off contactless passengers, the amount shows on the screen and I’ve yet to see a passenger physically hand over their bank card during a ticket check

Runningaround said:
If you are in breach of ticketing byelaws it'd be a handy delaying tactic?

Why would you want to delay?

sor · 9 Aug 2022

ComUtoR said:
Asking for ID is a bit of a Red Herring.

If I presented you with my TOC ID Pass. Would you even recognise it as official ID ? Could you identify the security features or even check if I was employed at the TOC in question ?

I'm not even sure TOC employees know what to look for. I don't work in the industry, and was travelling on Greater Anglia using one of their smartcards with a perfectly normal ticket. I happen to have a GWR smartcard too, which has my photo on it, and I keep both in the same GA-issued wallet.

At least once when I've presented it (in such a way as to indicate to scan the GA card) the guard just said "that's alright, thanks" and didn't attempt to scan it. So I wonder if they thought I worked for GWR?

Birmingham · 9 Aug 2022

sor said:
At least once when I've presented it (in such a way as to indicate to scan the GA card) the guard just said "that's alright, thanks" and didn't attempt to scan it. So I wonder if they thought I worked for GWR?

No, they just can’t be bothered (or don’t have the kit) to scan the smartcard.

hkstudent · 10 Aug 2022

I think for better protection, use a credit card, which the fund will only be sent to the retailer after 30 days, so more time to check the balance and report.

I am surprised to see quite a low usage rate of credit cards in the UK compare to the states or even Hong Kong, where most transactions are done by credit card and usage of debit card is near zero.

N.B: using credit cards will give you loads of cashback or aviation mileages, which is another perks

Falcon1200 · 10 Aug 2022

As a matter of interest, what details would a railway employee's ID card be expected to show ? If being presented to members of the public I'm not sure showing the employee's full name would be sensible, in fact do staff name badges not often show only a first name, to avoid possible repercussions from disgruntled passengers ?

hkstudent said:
I am surprised to see quite a low usage rate of credit cards in the UK compare to the states

I am surprised by that statement ! Usage of credit cards is extremely common in the UK, and increasingly cash is not accepted at all. And while I have not been in the US for a few years now, cash was by far the most common means of payment.

CyrusWuff · 10 Aug 2022

Falcon1200 said:
As a matter of interest, what details would a railway employee's ID card be expected to show ? If being presented to members of the public I'm not sure showing the employee's full name would be sensible, in fact do staff name badges not often show only a first name, to avoid possible repercussions from disgruntled passengers ?

Generally their name, photo and employer.

If they're authorised to collect Penalty Fares, they should also have a PF collectors ID bearing the Penalty Fare logo, the logo (and name if not incorporated into the logo) of the "authorising" operator, and their ID number.

Haywain · 10 Aug 2022

CyrusWuff said:
Generally ~~their~~ a name, photo and employer.

Minor correction there, many employers will allow their staff to use an alternative name on company issued name badges and ID but this will be recorded by the company.

357 · 10 Aug 2022

hkstudent said:
use a credit card, which the fund will only be sent to the retailer after 30 days

Not true.

I use Stripe for credit/debit card payments on my website and the funds are available in the account instantly and are transferred to my bank the next day.

Deafdoggie · 10 Aug 2022

hkstudent said:
I think for better protection, use a credit card, which the fund will only be sent to the retailer after 30 days, so more time to check the balance and report.

Utter rubbish. The retailer gets the money instantly. I can spend it in minutes of the customer paying me. No retailer would wait 30 days for payment.
I think you possibly might be getting confused with when the card holder has to pay their bill. But that can be upto 56 days, depending on date of spend and date of bill. But the retailer doesn't have to wait till then to get their money.

Haywain · 10 Aug 2022

hkstudent said:
use a credit card, which the fund will only be sent to the retailer after 30 days,

That suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of how credit cards work. It's the card company extending credit to the holder, not the retailer extending it to the card provider or card holder.

swt_passenger · 10 Aug 2022

If a contactless card is registered with TfL, does a revenue protection inspectors onboard ‘touch in‘ appear soon afterwards in the live journey history? If it does, then people can use this as reassurance that the RPI check must have been legitimate.

(I’m thinking of the situation in the other current thread where the chap has apparently refused to produce his card.)

It does make me wonder though, how many contactless users are actually aware how an onboard check works, I’d assume very few people have ever read the ‘extra‘ conditions of travel for use of Oyster or Contactless on TfL and National Rail services in the London area. Are people suspicious that the onboard check will cause an extra fare to be deducted, and if they’re unsure are RPIs explaining what’s happening if the passenger seems confused?

XAM2175 · 10 Aug 2022

swt_passenger said:
It does make me wonder though, how many contactless users are actually aware how an onboard check works, I’d assume very few people have ever read the ‘extra‘ conditions of travel for use of Oyster or Contactless on TfL and National Rail services in the London area. Are people suspicious that the onboard check will cause an extra far3 to be deducted, and if they’re unsure are RPIs explaining what’s happening if the passenger seems confused?

I imagine that if there were any widespread uncertainty we'd have heard about it in the media by now, especially if it was leading people to refuse inspection.

Really there shouldn't be any problems at all so long as the RPIs can clearly and easily demonstrate that they're legitimate and appropriately authorised.

mmh · 10 Aug 2022

XAM2175 said:
I imagine that if there were any widespread uncertainty we'd have heard about it in the media by now, especially if it was leading people to refuse inspection.

Really there shouldn't be any problems at all so long as the RPIs can clearly and easily demonstrate that they're legitimate and appropriately authorised.

That's not very helpful, given the very first sentence in this thread was "How do you check the I.D of any rail employee checking your tickets"

How is this done clearly and easily as you say?

357 · 10 Aug 2022

I don't like the attitude of some of the inspectors, who seem to think anyone asking questions of the process (such as asking for ID or reluctant to hand over their bank card) are worthy of a PF.

Seen it myself many times.

mmh · 10 Aug 2022

I spy numerous people on this thread who've never had a card number cloned and used. Card fraud very much still exists. Being suspicious is never a bad idea when paying by card.

357 said:
I don't like the attitude of some of the inspectors, who seem to think anyone asking questions of the process (such as asking for ID or reluctant to hand over their bank card) are worthy of a PF.

Seen it myself many times.

Refuse, and when they get shirty continue to refuse and ask them to call for a police officer if they think there's a problem and an offence has been committed.

sor · 10 Aug 2022

Birmingham said:
No, they just can’t be bothered (or don’t have the kit) to scan the smartcard.

given how aggressively they push smartcards for season tickets I'd imagine a lack of kit is unlikely - and besides, anyone can read the card with a smartphone and the appropriate app including GA's one, let alone anything specially issued to rail staff

too long ago to remember if I saw them scan anyone else's card, alas

XAM2175 · 11 Aug 2022

mmh said:
That's not very helpful, given the very first sentence in this thread was "How do you check the I.D of any rail employee checking your tickets"

How is this done clearly and easily as you say?

If you re-read my post you'll see I said that "there shouldn't be any problems at all so long as the RPIs can clearly and easily demonstrate that they're legitimate and appropriately authorised."

In a properly-designed system this would be a core responsibility of the RPI role, such that a reasonable passenger would never have need to question the legitimacy of the inspector.

Now, I've never been a position where I've had cause to question the legitimacy of the inspector either in the UK or abroad, but I can't speak for all the RPI's I haven't had the pleasure of being inspected by - but I remind you of the first part of my post, which holds that incidents of doubt that cannot be resolved on the spot appear to be reported very infrequently.

35B · 15 Aug 2022

Deafdoggie said:
You can get a card reader easily and cheaply enough. They are around £20 in Rymans. You can link it to any bank account. Even personal. You can set the name to show what you want i.e. "Onboard Sales"
Any half-decent con artist can set up a bank account easily enough.
The "secret" is to take low amounts that people either don't notice or don't bother about. Just £2 can quickly mount up if you get enough people.
Whilst some people may notice and report it, it'll take a while to get the machine shut down, by then you could have easily done 1,000 people, made £2,000 and be gone to the next scam. Not bad for a few hours work.

If someone claiming to be from a TOC asked me to tap on a card reader of the sort you can buy at Rymans, I'd be extremely suspicious from the off - and might well be ringing the police myself. There are good reasons why they're used by small retailers but not large companies.

Wallsendmag · 15 Aug 2022

35B said:
If someone claiming to be from a TOC asked me to tap on a card reader of the sort you can buy at Rymans, I'd be extremely suspicious from the off - and might well be ringing the police myself. There are good reasons why they're used by small retailers but not large companies.

That’s not quite true , the M10 PED we’ve just replaced on train was the same model used by PapPal

How do you check the I.D of any rail employee checking your tickets?

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