Advice re response letter

[Cussans]

Hi, I’m hoping someone can advise me. I know ignorance is no defence but I unwittingly jumped on a train without a ticket (snow bomb day….we had no idea which train we would manage to catch or even if they would be running and we’d walked nearly 2 miles in the blizzard to get out of our gridlocked village). I rarely travel on trains so I jumped on and before we set off anywhere I attempted to buy the ticket fur £8.50. I could not get signal so it wouldn’t go through. We set off and go straight into a tunnel so I tried to get the ticket as soon as we got out. Unbeknown to me, I now couldn’t buy that ticket as the train had departed so I bought it from the next station and was thankful to see it was the same price, £8.50, and so no harm done. Being thoroughly honest and quick to offer an explanation, the ticket inspector said he would issue a warning instead of an on the spot fine which would be £50 if paid quickly. He went on to say that o would receive a letter to respond to with my explanation. Sure enough, the letter arrived and I explained the same day. Yesterday I received another letter saying that they accept my mitigation and therefore just need to pay £135 IN ADMIN FEES and £3.10 in missed fairs (which wasn’t missed as the journey was the same price.
If they are not going to be lenient on the train, it would have been cheaper to receive a fixed penalty than be ‘let off’, let me explain, accept the explanation and then charge me £135 in fees!!
Feels very unfair and unfathomable…..can anyone offer me any advice??

 

[island]

It's a criminal offence to join a train without a ticket unless one of a few exceptions apply.

We often are told of on-board staff taking a passenger's details in the case of a ticket irregularity and, for conflict avoidance, giving assurances or suggestions about how the matter might be dealt with, but in the end the situation is dealt with more harshly. Unfortunately you don't have any comeback here, for one thing it will be your word vs theirs as to what was said onboard.

Can you confirm which train company you travelled on and the station at which you started your journey. This will help us to identify whether any exemptions might apply to you.

 

[Cussans]

Started at Hudds with TPE. Ticket purchased without a price difference long before we saw anyone checking tickets. I was not trying to fare dodge

 

[Watershed]

Started at Hudds with TPE. Ticket purchased without a price difference long before we saw anyone checking tickets. I was not trying to fare dodge

Unfortunately the problem is that you committed a criminal offence under the Railway Byelaws 2005 (Byelaw 18(1)) as soon as you boarded without a ticket at Huddersfield. Buying a ticket after boarding unfortunately doesn't negate that.

£8.50 appears to the Railcard-discounted single fare from Slaithwaite to Manchester, so I'm assuming that's where you were travelling to. I can't find any equivalent fare of £8.50 from Huddersfield to Manchester; the cheapest walk-up fare valid on the direct train (via Slaithwaite) is £11.00.

Therefore, by buying a ticket from Slaithwaite you saved £2.50 and have thus done what is often referred to as "short faring". It could therefore be alleged that you committed a more serious offence of fare evasion under the Regulation of Railways Act 1889 (section 5(3)(a)).

That being the case, the 'least worst' course of action in your circumstances is therefore likely to be to accept TPE's offer and to pay the settlement. If you refuse the offer, they will undoubtedly prosecute you under the Byelaws or RoRA, which upon conviction would typically lead to a fine of 25-125% of your weekly earnings plus the Victim Surcharge - in addition to Court costs and the fare due (see the Sentencing Guidelines).

The amount of £3.10 will be the fare from Huddersfield to the first stop (Slaithwaite), for which you didn't hold a valid ticket. So you are 'only' paying 60p more for the fare than you should have done if you'd paid the correct fare to begin with.

The admin fee is clearly unreasonable and out of proportion with their costs for dealing with your case are at this stage, but it's a "take it or leave it" offer and they are clearly in a stronger negotiating position than you are, so arguing about it is unlikely to get you very far.

Now perhaps I've got the wrong end of the stick with some of the assumptions I've made above, but my recommendation would essentially remain the same as you would still have committed a Byelaw 18 offence and are liable for prosecution on that basis.

 

[Brissle Girl]

Presumably there were also ticket purchasing facilities at Huddersfield (machines and ticket office), which you would have passed, which will not help any defence, so I think it’s a case of taking the offer and avoiding prosecution.

 

[WesternLancer]

Hi, I’m hoping someone can advise me. I know ignorance is no defence but I unwittingly jumped on a train without a ticket (snow bomb day….we had no idea which train we would manage to catch or even if they would be running and we’d walked nearly 2 miles in the blizzard to get out of our gridlocked village). I rarely travel on trains so I jumped on and before we set off anywhere I attempted to buy the ticket fur £8.50. I could not get signal so it wouldn’t go through. We set off and go straight into a tunnel so I tried to get the ticket as soon as we got out. Unbeknown to me, I now couldn’t buy that ticket as the train had departed so I bought it from the next station and was thankful to see it was the same price, £8.50, and so no harm done. Being thoroughly honest and quick to offer an explanation, the ticket inspector said he would issue a warning instead of an on the spot fine which would be £50 if paid quickly. He went on to say that o would receive a letter to respond to with my explanation. Sure enough, the letter arrived and I explained the same day. Yesterday I received another letter saying that they accept my mitigation and therefore just need to pay £135 IN ADMIN FEES and £3.10 in missed fairs (which wasn’t missed as the journey was the same price.
If they are not going to be lenient on the train, it would have been cheaper to receive a fixed penalty than be ‘let off’, let me explain, accept the explanation and then charge me £135 in fees!!
Feels very unfair and unfathomable…..can anyone offer me any advice??

From the cases we get on here it seems almost always cheaper to accept the Penalty fare on the spot and pay the 50% (£50) prompt payment discount than get into these investigation reports which then come with admin fees of around or grater than £100. Occasionally there have been cases where they have charged a sum equivalent to £50 + fare but that does not seem to have happened here.

Not sure if there is any value in going back to them about the sum asked for, mention the extenuating weather conditions and potential disruption meant you just got on the train and make it clear you never had any intention to avoid payment of the fare and see if they will re-consider. But I note @Watershed 's point on this.

But there must be sites where you can buy a ticket from any station to any other station so having to buy one from a later station en route due to some default setting on your ticket purchasing site of choice is going to make it look like you were seeking to avoid some part of the fare, which is probably not helping your case.

You have my sympathy.

 

[island]

Started at Hudds with TPE. Ticket purchased without a price difference long before we saw anyone checking tickets. I was not trying to fare dodge

You should have purchased a ticket from the ticket office or machine at Huddersfield, which is fully staffed.

For the reasons Watershed gives, it is advisable to pay the sum requested without any further delay.

 

[jp4712]

Huddersfield has barriers that I’ve never seen open even into the evening, how did you get onto the platform?

 

[Cussans]

Barriers were open. I’m a 50 year old woman
Thank you for all the advice guys

 

[Brissle Girl]

Barriers were open. I’m a 50 year old woman
Thank you for all the advice guys

That might have been the case because of the significant weather disruption that you cited in your first post.

Hopefully you’re on board with the advice that the best thing to do is grit your teeth and pay?

 

[furlong]

Asking for £135 strikes me an unjustifiable demand but some train companies have been getting away with this for a long time and nobody has yet managed to stop them - but I wouldn't rule out some future public scandal engulfing some rail companies over this sort of behaviour.

You could try again to appeal to their good nature to reduce it, or you could, as others here suggest, just pay it first, and then attempt to reclaim it through a complaint, or through the courts (throwing good money after bad?) or see if your MP is interested in taking the matter up with them or through the DfT or even in parliament. Or you could give the local newspaper a chance to report it, hoping they'll get enough of the facts correct... "Rail passenger made to pay £138 for £3 journey because tunnel had no phone signal"

 

[Brissle Girl]

... "Rail passenger made to pay £138 for £3 journey because tunnel had no phone signal"

I guess “Rail passenger made to pay £138 for £3 journey because they walked past a ticket office, and ticket machines and boarded a train without a valid ticket” wouldn’t be such a snappy headline, albeit more accurate.

Once the train had departed and they did not have a valid ticket the offence had been committed. It’s a very moot point whether they would have been able to purchase a ticket for that service from Huddersfield even had the tunnel not been there.

 

[Snow1964]

To the Op, did the very bad weather mean at Huddersfield the trains weren't clearly advertised as to if they would be departing on time (or at all), therefore people were wandering in and out, not knowing if they bought a ticket they would get a train.

The very fact the barriers had been left open daytime suggests things weren't normal. Although you did travel first part of journey with no ticket (which is an offence), the circumstances make size of the administrative fee seem like daylight robbery.

Unfortunately I too would be inclined to settle it, even if seems unreasonable as technically an offence was committed. However if due to disruption the train was only advertised at last minute it is unreasonable to expect someone to be able to buy from a machine or ticket office and still catch it, so would seem reasonable grounds for mitigation.