Edited Version
Formal Letter of Complaint
To Whom it may concern
Please accept this letter as a formal complaint against the Appeal Service.
I believe that the Appeal Service is in breach The Railways (Penalty Fares) Regulations 2018 in numerous situations.
The Appeals Service must abide by these regulations to the letter yet they seem to changing them to suit their own requirements.
In my case the Appeals Service has breached the following -
Issue 1
Schedule 2-6. Where an Appeal Panel receives an appeal under regulation 16 or 17, it must decide whether to allow or not allow the appeal before the end of the period of 21 days beginning with the day on which the appeal is received.
I appealed on the 01/04/2019, 2 weeks later I received this letter. See Attachment 1.
"If you have not received a response within 3 weeks of the date of this letter please contact us at the
address above, or through the website www.appealservice.co.uk."
Allowing the Appeals Service a total of 5 weeks to review my appeal.
Then on the 4th May I received another letter denying my appeal. See Attachment 2.
"Payment of £43.80 must be received within 14 days of the date of this letter. Full payment options and information
including, what will happen if you do not pay, are detailed with this response."
As you can see the response to my 1st Appeal under Section 16 was not within the stated 21 days, by responding to an appeal under section 16 over the 21 days this is in breach of Schedule 2 Section 6.
The operator, in this case As Appeals has not satisfied the appeals requirements above.
14.—(1) Where, at any time, an operator does not satisfy the appeals requirements the operator must ensure that a collector authorised by the operator does not charge a penalty fare on the operator’s behalf.
Therefore in this case the appeal should have been accepted.
There is no regulation allowing As Appeals to extend this 21 days in the regulations.
Issue 2
After further reading I realised that the amount charged for the fine was more than the regulation states to charge
9.—(1) Where a penalty fare is charged under regulation 5(1) to a person travelling by, present on, or leaving a train, the amount of that penalty fare is £20 or twice the full single fare applicable, whichever is greater.
I was charged £43.80 as advised in the above, but the correct penalty charge was actually £42.80, this alone should have been enough for the appeal to be granted yet the appeals service decided that the penalty charge would be reduced to the correct charge and that the penalty charge stands. Please see below for the letter. Attachment 3.
"I acknowledge the points raised by yourself and this case has been fully reviewed. Being confident that AS have
followed the correct procedure, I can confirm that our initial decision remains and payment of the outstanding
balance of £42.80 is now due. The Penalty fare amount has been reduced by £1.00 as the penalty fare should of
been charged at £42.80."
Nowhere in the regulations does it allow for the appeals service to amend a penalty charge, they even state in the letter stating that
"AS follow a Code of Practice compliant with the criteria set out in the Railways (Penalty Fares) Regulations 2018"
which they clearly dont.
Nowhere in the regulations does it allow for the appeals service to admend a penalty charge, they even state in the letter stating that "AS follow a Code
of Practice compliant with the criteria set out in the Railways (Penalty Fares) Regulations 2018" which they clearly dont.
Issue 3
Full payment options including, what will happen if you do not pay, are detailed in this response.
Schedule 2 Section 12 states
Where an Appeal Panel notifies its decision not to allow an appeal under regulation 17 it must provide the appellant with a statement that—
(b)the operator will be entitled to commence court proceedings to recover the penalty fare if the appellant does not—
No details are in the letter stating that the operator will be entitled to commence court proceedings to recover the penalty fare if I do not pay the fine.
This is of serious concern as the appeals service are not complying with the these regulations and therefore no penalty charge can be issued to anybody at the moment. Any historical fines that have had their appeals denied would be due a refund if the response was not within 21 days. They have substituted their own variation of the appeals procedure, including extending the time limit, an entitlement to vary the amount of the penalty charge notice and not informing the appellant of their payment options or entitlement of the operator to commerce court proceedings
Please note this letter has been sent to the following
Think thats better?
Yes not going to send until I get the 3rd appeal denied
lol