Caught short ticketing by Southeastern

[belladonna]

Hello.
I'm feeling very ashamed to say that I have been caught 3 days before by Southeastern railway staff for travelling with short tickets for more than 3 months. I know I have made a mistake but I'm feeling very anxious and stressed about it. Please can anyone help me? What will happen next? I didn't receive any letter yet ? I am ready to pay all the penalty fees.. will they give me a chance to pay penalty fees first instead of directly sending me a court paper? Please help me

 

[Titfield]

South Eastern will write a letter to you asking for your comments on the time you were stopped for short faring.

Normally You should be able to settle this out of court if you write a short, concise reply to the letter.

You may wish to consider the advice forum member @Hadders gives in these circumstances.

I suggest mentioning the following in the reply:

- That you are sorry for what has happened
- What you have learned from the incident
- That you are keen to settle the matter without the need for court action
- Offer to pay the outstanding fare and the train company's administrative costs in dealing with the matter

Post a draft of your reply in this thread and forum members will be happy to proof read it for you. Don't use AI to generate the letter, we can spot them a mile off!

South Eastern Railways will normally offer an out of court settlement costing around £150 plus the fares avoided at the full Anytime rate. You will normally have to pay this in full within a few days of it being offered.

However the situation is made more complicated by your having short fared on a number of occasions. They will investigate your online booking activity to ascertain the number of times you have done this. They will then decide whether to ask you to comment on those occasions - which would normally result in a greater administration fee plus the cost of all the fares avoided or they may decide to take you to court.

Once you have received the letter please upload on here (with all personal details including the reference number obscured) so advice tailored to you circumstances can be given.

 

[SEuser1607]

Hello.
I'm feeling very ashamed to say that I have been caught 3 days before by Southeastern railway staff for travelling with short tickets for more than 3 months. I know I have made a mistake but I'm feeling very anxious and stressed about it. Please can anyone help me? What will happen next? I didn't receive any letter yet ? I am ready to pay all the penalty fees.. will they give me a chance to pay penalty fees first instead of directly sending me a court paper? Please help me

Please try to not worry and stress too much but I know this is difficult as exactly the same has happened to me over these past few months.
I was stopped at London Bridge at the end of April, received a letter at the beginning of June asking for more details and my response as per above to which I wrote a letter and sent back via email. This then took several weeks unfortunately and only today I received my out of court settlement letter and fine to pay.
So unfortunately a long process to resolve but hopefully gives you some idea as to how this will potentially work for you.

 

[Blinkbonny]

Yes. There is a very good chance that you will be able to settle this by paying a largish sum of money.
Not great, but better than the alternative! (That is, going to court and also paying a largish sum of money! )