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Firstly, stop what you are doing. Take no more chances and always buy the right ticket before starting the journey from now on. If you ignore this email and continue what you are doing, you should expect the next step will be that one day, out of the blue, they will decide to host a welcoming...

You could put it to them (with some degree of "niceness") that the amount appears to be substantially higher than that which you believe any court would award and suggest your own calculation of the amount they have lost in line with the way you believe a court would address the matter if...

Well we've often discussed the Post Office but here's another example of a private prosecutor expensively getting things wrong with some informative commentary on the obligations and a few references: https://www.qebholliswhiteman.co.uk/cms/documents/QEB_Hollis_Whiteman_Briefing_Note_09.11.18.pdf

Incorrect. Penalty Fares are both available and intended to be used where there is clear evidence of intent to evade paying the fare. They act as a streamlined alternative to prosecution. A Penalty Fare is imposed on you - you do not "accept" it. No admission of intent is involved but the...

Because the failure might have been due to, let's say just a potential misunderstanding of a private prosecutor's obligations? 1742310054 No part of the railway is entitled to decide the current rules aren't enough of a deterrent and so to invent its own unauthorised system of additional...

...which could provide an opportunity to seek the court's guidance on whatever the remaining points of disagreement were in the settlement discussions. (I.e. if SWR was confident in its position.) (Arguably the failed settlement discussions may need to be disclosed anyway when applying for a...

It is not a fine - only a court can impose any form of penalty. It is purely compensation to put the company back into the financial position it would have been in had the situation not arisen. In your position I'd be discussing with them paying only the difference. (There's even another...

So the train company has got its facts wrong in its letter? Your reply should explain the correct facts and as there is no outstanding fare to pay trust that they will take no further action?

There's no connection. The cost of enforcement is borne by the company (and therefore passengers) as a whole, not only by those who cheat the system - it is baked into all ticket prices. Even if nobody cheated, there'd still need to be enforcement. The "admin" charge to someone cheating is...

The question to ask is: If the passenger had adhered to the law, what ticket would they actually have purchased? I think the starting point is like-for-like and a case has to be argued for anything else. They knew they didn't have the railcard? Then they lose the advantage of the railcard...

The letter alleges you failed to show a valid rail ticket. You say you did show a valid rail ticket (but might have committed an offence by boarding a train without one). Which is it?

I should hope so! Money is better spent preventing avoidable "crime" than detecting it!

The outcome should simply be that train companies settled for the amount they were entitled to receive - no more and no less. Purely to make good their actual loss in each case - no artificially-inflated sums (and I'd argue they can't even include enforcement overheads which should already be...

Not even the Anytime fare any more. If you go back, for example, to the National Rail Conditions of Carriage 2006, that provided direct authority to charge "the highest priced single or (if requested by the passenger) return fare appropriate to the class of travel for the journey you are...

Two wrongs don't make a right! The train company must follow the law. Even the latest contract no longer requires passengers to pay higher fares retrospectively than would have been due if purchased immediately before travel. The train company cannot exploit the desire of a defendant to avoid...

Please provide details of the charge and evidence - e.g. copies of the court paperwork you've received (with any personal details covered up). And how did you get inside Clapham Junction if you didn't tap in there? Was there another part of the journey before that? (They aren't likely to...

Let's pick an example. What was your complete journey on 30th January 2025? That'll probably be one of the cases that looks like "short journey fraud". (And as others have said, in general it can be better to ignore completely fishing trips like this from the outset, as proof can be extremely...

If you want this checking please upload a picture of the rest of the notice - all of it (but covering up any personal details/reference numbers etc.) as there are often errors in the boilerplate text that can provide valid grounds for appeal. Secondly, this was the 13:33 train, issued at 13:46...

Optimising their use of limited resources. Fundamentally it would take up more staff time to do that, reducing the number of other people they can deal with.

If it is collected in any situation that TfL knows could lead to a prosecution, TfL is required to retain it, notify the defence, and review the contents to determine whether there is anything that might undermine its prosecution or help the defence. What that means in practice is that if TfL...