Caught with invalid ticket on Wycombe to Bicester journey

[Ashbaig]

Hello lovely people I need some advice
I bought a wrong ticket from Bicester to high Wycombe while travelling from Wycombe to Bicester
Upon challenged , I bought a ticket from Chiltern railway app and showed to the inspector , and since I made a mistake I said I am happy to pay the fine , instead he said since I scanned your wrong e ticket I need to report it because i will be audited and my manager will ask me why didn't I report it , he said you will receive a letter to share your side of story and don't worry it's not a report of prosecution and he crossed all the court related questions , it's been 2 days I haven't received any letter yet shall I contact their fraud team myself and try to clarify the situation or just wait ! What are the consequences?

 

[L401CJF]

Hello lovely people I need some advice
I bought a wrong ticket from Bicester to high Wycombe while travelling from Wycombe to Bicester
Upon challenged , I bought a ticket from Chiltern railway app and showed to the inspector , and since I made a mistake I said I am happy to pay the fine , instead he said since I scanned your wrong e ticket I need to report it because i will be audited and my manager will ask me why didn't I report it , he said you will receive a letter to share your side of story and don't worry it's not a report of prosecution and he crossed all the court related questions , it's been 2 days I haven't received any letter yet shall I contact their fraud team myself and try to clarify the situation or just wait ! What are the consequences?

You could be waiting months for a letter, these things take time to process so I would wait.

To help the experts to help you, if you could explain what ticket you actually held, what journey was being made, and what the actual problem was with the ticket (what was wrong with it for them to take it further?) then they can advise accordingly.

 

[Ashbaig]

You could be waiting months for a letter, these things take time to process so I would wait.

To help the experts to help you, if you could explain what ticket you actually held, what journey was being made, and what the actual problem was with the ticket (what was wrong with it for them to take it further?) then they can advise accordingly.

I bought a single anytime day ticket on a Sunday from High Wycombe to Bicester before boarding the train but didn't show it to the inspector once I realised it's wrong one , then I bought correct one on the spot but they said you bought it after bought it after boarding the train it's either 100£ fine on spot or we log a report I said I am happy to pay the fine but he goes my manager removed that option now I will have to log a report

 

[WesternLancer]

I bought a single anytime day ticket on a Sunday from High Wycombe to Bicester before boarding the train but didn't show it to the inspector once I realised it's wrong one , then I bought correct one on the spot but they said you bought it after bought it after boarding the train it's either 100£ fine on spot or we log a report I said I am happy to pay the fine but he goes my manager removed that option now I will have to log a report

So to try and clarify (please correct any below that I have got wrong):

1) Before boarding the train you bought an Anytime SINGLE ticket from High Wycombe to Bicester

2) This was bought by mistake because your journey was from Bicester to High Wycombe

3) You therefore had the wrong ticket when asked to show your ticket on board, this was then pointed out by the member of staff who checked your ticket (or did you realise yourself?)

4) You then bought a new ticket from Bicester to High Wycombe when you became aware of your mistake.

5) I suspect this new ticket was not accepted by the staff member because you bought it after boarding the train (tho they gave the reason that they had already scanned your incorrect ticket) - boarding a train without the correct ticket is technically a ticketing offence - it is not permitted to buy your ticket one you are on board. The ticket scanners can detect that the ticket was bought after the train departed the station concerned and this probably alerts the staff to check the ticket further.

6) The member of staff declined to issue you with a Penalty Fare (what you are calling a £100 fine), but has instead reported you for investigation. This is not great news but some staff are unable to issue Penalty Fares.

- You will need to wait for a letter from them in hard copy assuming you have a correct address. This letter could take some weeks to arrive. You MUST check your post for this as you will get no more than 14 days to respond to it - a failure to respond is highly likely to result in the railway company (or an organisation called TIL who Chiltern Trains contract these issues out to) escalating your case to court and the next you will know about it could be a court summons. You need to avoid this happening.

- you will get good advice here on how to respond to this letter - which will look like a threat to prosecute but will give you a chance to explain your side of the story ie in this case that you made a basic mistake when buying the ticket and did not notice when you got on the train.

It is important now to keep a copy / screen grab or whatever of the tickets you bought as this will:
a) show you paid for your fare, or attempted to and will back up your story of it being an error
b) help show you did not have an intention to avoid paying the fare for the journey

Head back here for more advise as and when you need it - esp when you get the letter.

If you are going to be away from the address you gave them, make sure someone can check your hard copy post.

 

[Ashbaig]

So to try and clarify (please correct any below that I have got wrong):

1) Before boarding the train you bought an Anytime SINGLE ticket from High Wycombe to Bicester

2) This was bought by mistake because your journey was from Bicester to High Wycombe

3) You therefore had the wrong ticket when asked to show your ticket on board, this was then pointed out by the member of staff who checked your ticket (or did you realise yourself?)

4) You then bought a new ticket from Bicester to High Wycombe when you became aware of your mistake.

5) I suspect this new ticket was not accepted by the staff member because you bought it after boarding the train (tho they gave the reason that they had already scanned your incorrect ticket) - boarding a train without the correct ticket is technically a ticketing offence - it is not permitted to buy your ticket one you are on board. The ticket scanners can detect that the ticket was bought after the train departed the station concerned and this probably alerts the staff to check the ticket further.

6) The member of staff declined to issue you with a Penalty Fare (what you are calling a £100 fine), but has instead reported you for investigation. This is not great news but some staff are unable to issue Penalty Fares.

- You will need to wait for a letter from them in hard copy assuming you have a correct address. This letter could take some weeks to arrive. You MUST check your post for this as you will get no more than 14 days to respond to it - a failure to respond is highly likely to result in the railway company (or an organisation called TIL who Chiltern Trains contract these issues out to) escalating your case to court and the next you will know about it could be a court summons. You need to avoid this happening.

- you will get good advice here on how to respond to this letter - which will look like a threat to prosecute but will give you a chance to explain your side of the story ie in this case that you made a basic mistake when buying the ticket and did not notice when you got on the train.

It is important now to keep a copy / screen grab or whatever of the tickets you bought as this will:
a) show you paid for your fare, or attempted to and will back up your story of it being an error
b) help show you did not have an intention to avoid paying the fare for the journey

Head back here for more advise as and when you need it - esp when you get the letter.

If you are going to be away from the address you gave them, make sure someone can check your hard copy post.

Yes all the details mentioned above are correct, and no I only realised it once they asked me to show the ticket ,

Another thing is there were two other passengers who had wrong ticket but instead of giving them a fine or write a report they just gave them two correct tickets , when I asked why didn't you just sold me a new ticket instead of threatening to write a prospecton report he said i don't know what the situation is with these two we also sell tickets on board ! When I knew those two customers had the we tickets as they were arguing before,
He also asked me to show him my phone when i denied giving my address do they have any authority to do that ?

 

[WesternLancer]

Yes all the details mentioned above are correct, and no I only realised it once they asked me to show the ticket ,

Another thing is there were two other passengers who had wrong ticket but instead of giving them a fine or write a report they just gave them two correct tickets , when I asked why didn't you just sold me a new ticket instead of threatening to write a prospecton report he said i don't know what the situation is with these two we also sell tickets on board ! When I knew those two customers had the we tickets as they were arguing before,
He also asked me to show him my phone when i denied giving my address do they have any authority to do that ?

Hard to comment on the other passengers tickets without knowing more detail of course - but I can see why it would have seemed unfair.

He also asked me to show him my phone when i denied giving my address do they have any authority to do that ?

Basically yes.

You have an obligation ( in law IIRC) to show your ticket to railway staff - if your ticket was on your phone then you have an obligation to show that.

You also have a legal obligation to state your name and address correctly when asked by railway staff (dates back to 19th century railway laws) - refusing to do this is a legal offence.

Not wishing to jump to conclusions but it may not have helped by you refusing to give an address etc - staff could have considered that you 'failed the attitude test' as it is referred to on these forums, and maybe that influenced his course of action.

But also I suspect the coded tickets when scanned flag up that the ticket is wrong in some way, that is then registered on the device and can be audited by a manager as the staff explained, that manager will then expect that the staff took action about the error, and might ask him why he did not - ie either issuing a Penalty Fare or 'Reporting for investigation' - a Ticket Irregularity Report I think they are called. Looks like you ended up with the latter.

You will get good help on here about how to reply best when they write to you. Basically you need to wait f0or that letter now.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

He also asked me to show him my phone when i denied giving my address do they have any authority to do that ?

This may sound a little harsh, but if I have understood you correctly then you may have committed two offences here - and there's another point that I'll go on to in a moment.

He also asked me to show him my phone

If your ticket was on your phone, then the railway officer has the right to see it - see railway byelaw 18 (2) (in bold below):

18. Ticketless travel in non-compulsory ticket areas​

1. in any area not designated as a compulsory ticket area, no person shall enter any train for the purpose of travelling on the railway unless he has with him a valid ticket entitling him to travel
2. a person shall hand over his ticket for inspection and verification of validity when asked to do so by an authorised person
3. no person shall be in breach of Byelaw 18(1) or 18(2) if:
   1. there were no facilities in working order for the issue or validation of any ticket at the time when, and the station where, he began his journey or
   2. there was a notice at the station where he began his journey permitting journeys to be started without a valid ticket or
   3. an authorised person gave him permission to travel without a valid ticket

The officer has the right to see your ticket: if your ticket is on your phone then you need to show them your phone so that they can see/read/scan your ticket. If you look at other threads, you'll see there's some debate here as to whether the officer has the right to take your phone (whether to just look at it or to take the ticket away from you) but for the moment I think it's fair to say that it's not absolutely clear that they can't take it off you.

i denied giving my address do they have any authority to do that ?

If you're saying that you refused to give your address then byelaw 23 kicks in:

23. Name and address​

1. any person reasonably suspected by an authorised person of breaching or attempting to breach any of these byelaws shall give his name and address when asked by an authorised person.
2. the authorised person asking for details under Byelaw 23(1) shall state the nature of the breach of any of these byelaws in general terms at the time of the request.

(byelaws sourced from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/railway-byelaws/railway-byelaws)

More relevantly, it sounds like you didn't co-operate with the railway officer. We tend to call this 'failing the attitude test': your attitude was to get stroppy and make the railway officer's day difficult - so they decided not to be helpful to you. This may well be why you seem to have been reported for prosecution while the other two passengers were able to resolve things by just buying the right ticket.

 

[WesternLancer]

Yes all the details mentioned above are correct, and no I only realised it once they asked me to show the ticket ,

Another thing is there were two other passengers who had wrong ticket but instead of giving them a fine or write a report they just gave them two correct tickets , when I asked why didn't you just sold me a new ticket instead of threatening to write a prospecton report he said i don't know what the situation is with these two we also sell tickets on board ! When I knew those two customers had the we tickets as they were arguing before,
He also asked me to show him my phone when i denied giving my address do they have any authority to do that ?

I think best thing to do at this stage it wait to see what they write to you with - then head back here for more advice on how to respond to that in due course.

All rather frustrating for making a basic mistake buying the ticket the 'wrong way round' which is the kind of thing that can quite easily happen.

 

[Hadders]

Moderator Note:

Advice in this section of the forum needs to concentrate on assisting the OP's specific case. Discussion about who should be able to issue Penalty Fares, and advantages of buying tickets at a station rather than online are interestinga and worthy of discussion but this should be in a separate thread to avoid this thread going off topic.

Thanks.

 

[furlong]

I bought correct one on the spot but they said you bought it after bought it after boarding the train it's either 100£ fine on spot or we log a report I said I am happy to pay the fine but he goes my manager removed that option now I will have to log a report

Regarding the "£100 fine on the spot" - if that was a reference to a Penalty Fare, then the "manager" was correct to remove the option. Whether or not it was bought before boarding is irrelevant. All that matters is whether or not a valid ticket was "produced" when the inspector asked. (You might still have breached a byelaw when you boarded the train, but Penalty Fares are nothing to do with the byelaws.)

 

[island]

Regarding the "£100 fine on the spot" - if that was a reference to a Penalty Fare, then the "manager" was correct to remove the option.

Indeed. I can't find the thread at present but it has quite correctly been pointed out that a Penalty Fare cannot legally be issued where a passenger presents a ticket that is "valid" with respect to being for the right journey, time, category of passenger etc. but has been purchased subsequent to the departure of the train. The inspector's options were to do nothing, issue a ticket, or report for prosecution.

 

[Ashbaig]

Regarding the "£100 fine on the spot" - if that was a reference to a Penalty Fare, then the "manager" was correct to remove the option. Whether or not it was bought before boarding is irrelevant. All that matters is whether or not a valid ticket was "produced" when the inspector asked. (You might still have breached a byelaw when you boarded the train, but Penalty Fares are nothing to do with the byelaws.)

Thanks for your comment, what does that mean what kind of letter I should expect and how long do they take to write .

Indeed. I can't find the thread at present but it has quite correctly been pointed out that a Penalty Fare cannot legally be issued where a passenger presents a ticket that is "valid" with respect to being for the right journey, time, category of passenger etc. but has been purchased subsequent to the departure of the train. The inspector's options were to do nothing, issue a ticket, or report for prosecution.

But he said it's not report for prosecution, and crossed all the prosecution or court related questions in front of me , was he lying ?

 

[Papyrus]

But he said it's not report for prosecution, and crossed all the prosecution or court related questions in front of me , was he lying ?

Was he wearing a camera while saying this stuff?

 

[island]

But he said it's not report for prosecution, and crossed all the prosecution or court related questions in front of me , was he lying ?

I was not there so can’t comment on what was said, but we do know that ticket staff will sometimes be economical with the truth in order to secure passenger compliance or de-escalate a situation.

 

[Ashbaig]

Hello lovely people, it's been more than 3 months I still haven't received any letter should I be worried?

Was he wearing a camera while saying this stuff?

Np he wasn't

 

[Hadders]

Chiltern do seem to have a backlog at the moment and are taking quite a long time to respond. As long as you gave your correct contact details I would just waity for their letter.