Consequences of Giving False Details

[John Burrows]

Moderator Note - split from:

Ignorance is not an excuse...but come on

I took the train to work for the first time in around 8 years today. this commute is a 6 minute journey from Littleborough station to Rochdale. I got to Littleborough station around 3 minutes before the train was to depart. Attempted to pay for a ticket at the ticket machine, the machine would...

www.railforums.co.uk

They have no right to search for it (I never said they did), but they can use sources such as the electoral roll to validate details given. Not to mention giving false details is another offence.

Hence why it's poor advice to say that you can just give fake details with no comeback.

Hi. I've looked and looked for this information.
What happens if you give a plausible, but fake name and address?
What happens if you give a real name and matching address that aren't yours?
What if you give an address abroad?

Thanks.

 

[skyhigh]

It sounds a little as if you're trying to research the best way to fare evade without getting caught...

 

[Fermiboson]

Moderator Note - split from:

Ignorance is not an excuse...but come on

I took the train to work for the first time in around 8 years today. this commute is a 6 minute journey from Littleborough station to Rochdale. I got to Littleborough station around 3 minutes before the train was to depart. Attempted to pay for a ticket at the ticket machine, the machine would...

www.railforums.co.uk

Hi. I've looked and looked for this information.
What happens if you give a plausible, but fake name and address?
What happens if you give a real name and matching address that aren't yours?
What if you give an address abroad?

Thanks.

All are the same criminal offence. The TOC will quickly find out that, and probably track you down anyways via the ticket, and now instead of paying a £150 out of court settlement you get in addition to a byelaws offence an RoRA 5(1) charge, something like £800 fines and a criminal record.

 

[Sultan]

Moderator Note - split from:

Ignorance is not an excuse...but come on

I took the train to work for the first time in around 8 years today. this commute is a 6 minute journey from Littleborough station to Rochdale. I got to Littleborough station around 3 minutes before the train was to depart. Attempted to pay for a ticket at the ticket machine, the machine would...

www.railforums.co.uk

Hi. I've looked and looked for this information.
What happens if you give a plausible, but fake name and address?
What happens if you give a real name and matching address that aren't yours?
What if you give an address abroad?

Thanks.

Fake, but plausible name and address? Only a cash purchase from a ticket machine would not leave a digital trail for them to find you. If they take details of your ticket, they can see if you purchased it online (and collected it), or the credit card details (name and last 4 digits) if purchased from a machine /office. But even then, they may have facial picture of you purchasing and with AI on the increase, facial recognition to spot you next time.

Real name / address but not you? Shows how much you want to avoid payment. Similar to above but more likely to go to court.

Address abroad? Same as above. May even involve British transport police attending before you can leave.

so always give your correct details!

 

[6Gman]

Hi. I've looked and looked for this information.
What happens if you give a plausible, but fake name and address?
What happens if you give a real name and matching address that aren't yours?
What if you give an address abroad?

Thanks.

If someone gives a fake name and address the railway will contact that name & address.
If it's totally fictional they will get no response - they may have it returned by the post office and they may then recognise it as fake and drop the matter. The inspector or conductor may have noted some characteristic that could cause issues in the future for the miscreant. Railway staff do speak to each other.

If the passenger gives someone else's name and address then that person will then be contacted and will have the hassle of sorting it out. Creating difficulties for other people is the behaviour of a **** (I'd probably break Forum rules if I used the appropriate word).

If someone offers an address abroad the railway official might well press them on the matter to see if there's a UK address that can be used.

Fake addresses are unwise if the next station stop is an hour away. I saw two lads offer such an address to a Train Manager and snigger after she'd left. They hadn't realised that google is widely available these days, so as 22 Manton Street, Tarporley CH8 3DF doesn't exist they found the British Transport Police waiting for them at Crewe . . .

 

[John Burrows]

It sounds a little as if you're trying to research the best way to fare evade without getting caught...

All are the same criminal offence. The TOC will quickly find out that, and probably track you down anyways via the ticket, and now instead of paying a £150 out of court settlement you get in addition to a byelaws offence an RoRA 5(1) charge, something like £800 fines and a criminal record.

Fake, but plausible name and address? Only a cash purchase from a ticket machine would not leave a digital trail for them to find you. If they take details of your ticket, they can see if you purchased it online (and collected it), or the credit card details (name and last 4 digits) if purchased from a machine /office. But even then, they may have facial picture of you purchasing and with AI on the increase, facial recognition to spot you next time.

Real name / address but not you? Shows how much you want to avoid payment. Similar to above but more likely to go to court.

Address abroad? Same as above. May even involve British transport police attending before you can leave.

so always give your correct details!

If someone gives a fake name and address the railway will contact that name & address.
If it's totally fictional they will get no response - they may have it returned by the post office and they may then recognise it as fake and drop the matter. The inspector or conductor may have noted some characteristic that could cause issues in the future for the miscreant. Railway staff do speak to each other.

If the passenger gives someone else's name and address then that person will then be contacted and will have the hassle of sorting it out. Creating difficulties for other people is the behaviour of a **** (I'd probably break Forum rules if I used the appropriate word).

If someone offers an address abroad the railway official might well press them on the matter to see if there's a UK address that can be used.

Fake addresses are unwise if the next station stop is an hour away. I saw two lads offer such an address to a Train Manager and snigger after she'd left. They hadn't realised that google is widely available these days, so as 22 Manton Street, Tarporley CH8 3DF doesn't exist they found the British Transport Police waiting for them at Crewe . . .

Thanks for the answers! I tried asking this in the ticket office but they got so angry I couldn't even finish asking, presumably because they agreed with @skyhigh .

It does seem that I've identified a gap of unenforceability, not that I would use it. Still I'd rather that than the cashless, omnipresent video surveillance with facial and gait recognition that is approaching.

 

[Fermiboson]

Thanks for the answers! I tried asking this in the ticket office but they got so angry I couldn't even finish asking, presumably because they agreed with @skyhigh .

It does seem that I've identified a gap of unenforceability, not that I would use it. Still I'd rather that than the cashless, omnipresent video surveillance with facial and gait recognition that is approaching.

Assuming good faith for the moment, I do wonder what exactly you expected to achieve by 1. asking this on a public forum and 2. presenting the answer to this question in public. Yes, I’m sure that if enough knowledgeable people wanted, we could even have an entire fake ticket and railcard printing operation, complete with hacking into the TOCs’ databases to add in the fake tickets and railcards, etc. so they become indistinguishable from real tickets and railcards. Similarly, I’m sure it won’t be impossible for a truly dedicated fare evader to set up a network of fake names, addresses, cards and phone numbers to avoid being caught, yknow, the way scammers do. But what is the point of discussing that sort of possibility?

If you try to do it, there are two outcomes possible: 1. You land yourself a place in the history books as the fraudster genius who decided to save 3 pounds per day on his commute to an office job instead of making millions off the inheritance of grannies; or 2. You accidentally use a card one time, the BTP turns up to your house, and you earned yourself a nice vacation to your closest detention facility.

This is not a gap of unenforceability so much as illustrating the fact that yes, people can in fact commit crimes. People have free will and they use that free will to do stupid things.

 

[Deafdoggie]

I think the answer is yes. If you did it, just once, you'd likely get away with it. Depending on the journey.
But, like all crimes and and all criminals, you won't do it once. You'll get away with it. Congratulate yourself on how easy it was and do it again. Then you'll be buoyed with confidence and do it again & again.
Now you might be lucky (in which case you'd be better off buying a lottery ticket) and get away with it for a while. But eventually it'll catch up with you. Then you have to ask yourself "was it really worth it?"
But, if having a criminal record is of no consequence to you and you have several thousand pounds ready to pay the fares and court fine, then by all means give it a go.
But, ultimately, don't play the railways for fools, they'll work out what is going on and they will catch up with you.

 

[Cloud Strife]

To answer the question properly:

What happens if you give a plausible, but fake name and address?

Nothing. They have no way of verifying an individual's actual address, so if it doesn't show up on whatever database they choose to query, there's nothing they can realistically do. They could ask for the police to attend, but it's very unlikely that they're going to show up over this, especially if a name and address has been offered.

What happens if you give a real name and matching address that aren't yours?

Nothing. There's no requirement to carry photo ID, all they can do is take your word for it.

What if you give an address abroad?

I've asked this question before. The general consensus is that the railway simply has to take your details and let someone else deal with the problem. My Polish ID card doesn't have my address on it, and I can legally reside anywhere in the EU/EEA/CH with it, so I could easily give them an address in Spain where they would never find me. I'm not even under any obligation to show them my Polish ID card, nor my British passport.

Having said this, there is a tendency for them to demand a UK address. The correct course of action in this case is to simply repeat your foreign address.

 

[Bertie the bus]

What happens if you give a real name and matching address that aren't yours?

Hopefully, if there is any justice in the world, something very unpleasant. Dropping someone else in it for something you've done in pretty low.

 

[WesternLancer]

Hopefully, if there is any justice in the world, something very unpleasant. Dropping someone else in it for something you've done in pretty low.

We have had cases of this before on the forum. Someone essentially giving the name and address details of someone they know (eg another person from their college for example - thus landing that person with a load of strife). For example it would be very easy to give the name and address of another person who living in the same 300 room student hall of residence as you, even if that was just the name off an envelope left in a communal letter box of a previous resident.

I think this is the reason why the ticket checking staff try to take some basic descriptions of the person they are reporting for not having the correct ticket (a recent one here last week seemed to be little more than describing the person as 'female, dark hair' however) so that presumably, if an innocent person having received the paperwork alleging the ticket irregularity comes back and says 'this was not me, I was not travelling on a train on x date' the victim of this can send in some photo id of themselves which might indeed show that they do not meet the description of the person taken by the railways staff at the point the ticket was checked.

This will no doubt also be the reason why we hear of cases on the forum of railway staff being very insistent to the point of being forceful on seeing photo ID even when there is no requirement to have any in the UK. Again a recent one on the forum involved a chap ending up giving the address on his driving licence even though he knew it was out of date and stressed to the ticket inspector the address was wrong, but it was taken anyway...

I suspect people giving false names and addresses, and people giving names and addresses of other people are common tactics of the slightly more savvy fare evaders.

 

[CarrotPie]

I've asked this question before. The general consensus is that the railway simply has to take your details and let someone else deal with the problem. My Polish ID card doesn't have my address on it, and I can legally reside anywhere in the EU/EEA/CH with it, so I could easily give them an address in Spain where they would never find me. I'm not even under any obligation to show them my Polish ID card, nor my British passport.

Having said this, there is a tendency for them to demand a UK address. The correct course of action in this case is to simply repeat your foreign address.

So if you do get caught, and you don't live in the UK, what happens?

 

[Bertie the bus]

I suspect people giving false names and addresses, and people giving names and addresses of other people are common tactics of the slightly more savvy fare evaders.

There is nothing savvy about trying to implicate a completely innocent person for something you have done. It is scummy, not savvy. There is also nothing savvy about being dishonest (fare dodging) and then compounding it with more dishonesty (false details). That is called being a fundamentally dishonest person, not savvy.

 

[Fermiboson]

There is nothing savvy about trying to implicate a completely innocent person for something you have done. It is scummy, not savvy. There is also nothing savvy about being dishonest (fare dodging) and then compounding it with more dishonesty (false details). That is called being a fundamentally dishonest person, not savvy.

A savvy fare evader simply indicates a fare evader good at fare evasion. It does not confer any moral value upon the act.

 

[Cloud Strife]

So if you do get caught, and you don't live in the UK, what happens?

So, they have two real options: either take your word for it, or they can ask the police to attend so that they can confirm your identity, although they have no power of detention and the police are very unlikely to show up in this circumstance.

This will no doubt also be the reason why we hear of cases on the forum of railway staff being very insistent to the point of being forceful on seeing photo ID even when there is no requirement to have any in the UK.

I wouldn't agree, for the sole reason that I'm not obliged to carry any. They can insist all they want, they're still not getting it. Even if the police turn up, they can only detain you for 24 hours if you don't agree to give them your details, and then they must charge or release you. The police arresting anyone for a ticketing offence would be front page news, and I suspect that their superiors would be less than happy to get dragged into such a mess.

For example it would be very easy to give the name and address of another person who living in the same 300 room student hall of residence as you, even if that was just the name off an envelope left in a communal letter box of a previous resident.

I've never done it and I wouldn't do it, but I know several people from my university who routinely gave a rather hated person's details. The victim in this case was a notorious bully who liked to play unfunny jokes on people, including theft, and I can't say I was sorry when the police turned up to take him to court after he ignored numerous letters.

I suspect people giving false names and addresses, and people giving names and addresses of other people are common tactics of the slightly more savvy fare evaders.

I know someone who did this for the entire time at university, and he explained how it worked. Essentially, he made out to be a foreign student who was studying in the UK. By giving a foreign name and a UK address, they never questioned him further, and they didn't have any doubts when he looked in his pocket for his address because it was quite natural for a foreign student not to know their address. They couldn't verify his address, and as he was always very cooperative, they were quite happy to take his details. As the communication between prosecution/investigation departments and those on the front line was non-existent, he knew that nothing would happen, even if he was caught again by the same person.

By the last count, he had been caught upwards of 40 times, yet the dots had never been connected as his journey usually involved three TOCs at irregular times.

 

[Fermiboson]

I know someone who did this for the entire time at university, and he explained how it worked. Essentially, he made out to be a foreign student who was studying in the UK. By giving a foreign name and a UK address, they never questioned him further, and they didn't have any doubts when he looked in his pocket for his address because it was quite natural for a foreign student not to know their address. They couldn't verify his address, and as he was always very cooperative, they were quite happy to take his details. As the communication between prosecution/investigation departments and those on the front line was non-existent, he knew that nothing would happen, even if he was caught again by the same person.

By the last count, he had been caught upwards of 40 times, yet the dots had never been connected as his journey usually involved three TOCs at irregular times.

And it seems we have arrived at the crux of the problem, both for innocent people taking huge financial losses and serial fare evaders getting away with stuff.

 

[WesternLancer]

A savvy fare evader simply indicates a fare evader good at fare evasion. It does not confer any moral value upon the act.

Indeed - this was my point. I would not advocate fare evasion or personation in any scenario. With luck eve a good fare evader will get caught in due course.

 

[John Burrows]

I don't really have any relevant knowledge to contribute, but just wanted to say thanks for the informative posts!

 

[rg177]

From experience of issuing PFNs/MG11s, usually here's the scenarios that would play out...

• You put on a convincing act first time round and get away with it. If you never fare evade or do anything wrong ever again, then not a lot will happen
• You put on a convincing act first time, then get cocky and do it again. Both our legal team and colleagues get suspicious. A bigger picture is built up and eventually the book is thrown at you big time
• You put on an absolutely terrible act. I ask if you'd like a Penalty Fare (a civil matter) or want to keep digging a deeper hole. This usually put off the more casual ones
• You put on an absolutely terrible act and keep digging a hole. Usually the police would be called for an ID check (but would likely never show up). Again, you'd probably get away with it that one time, never again.

I didn't know a single person that persistently gave false details and ultimately got away with it. A lot goes on behind the scenes to quash this.

Of course, if you do something worse than fare evasion, none of the above applies.

 

[Fermiboson]

I didn't know a single person that persistently gave false details and ultimately got away with it.

Well, you wouldn’t, by definition.

 

[tiptoptaff]

Are we really letting this forum become a handbook on how to avoid getting prosecuted for blatant fraud? Because IMO, that is exactly the crux of this thread.

 

[AlterEgo]

I didn't know a single person that persistently gave false details and ultimately got away with it.

How would you know about the ones that got away? That’s just survivorship bias.

Are we really letting this forum become a handbook on how to avoid getting prosecuted for blatant fraud? Because IMO, that is exactly the crux of this thread.

It’s not exactly the sort of wheeze you need to be Brain of Britain to execute. The UK chooses to be an ID-less society and must live with the consequences. The quicker people realise that so much of everyday life is smoke and mirrors the better, in my view.

 

[rg177]

How would you know about the ones that got away? That’s just survivorship bias.

Perhaps I should have worded it a little differently - that nobody on our radar ultimately did. So that took a PFN not being paid and escalating for several months, then legal flagging it to us.

Either their card was "marked" so to speak (we had plenty of ways to communicate with each other how/why a passenger wasn't to be trusted - not something to dig into deeply on a public forum) and they'd have to never put one foot wrong ever again.

Or, as was more likely, they weren't so lucky the next time around.

And, ultimately, it isn't Joe Public that you have to convince with your dodgy details, it's someone who's seen and heard it all before.

Contrarily, I did once have an exasperated (but persistent) evader pull out a letter from the bank with his address on after he'd been accused of making up where he lived. He was always quite jovial with me after I managed to put a stop to that - even if that didn't stop him killing a few trees with the number of PFNs he was accumulating and not paying

 

[Fermiboson]

Are we really letting this forum become a handbook on how to avoid getting prosecuted for blatant fraud? Because IMO, that is exactly the crux of this thread.

You could get a pretty good idea of the patterns of behaviour that RPIs look for by trawling through the disputes subforum. Any sufficiently large collection of information can be considered dangerous. And as #25 says, giving a false address isn’t exactly a special brainwave. In fact, I can say already just from personal knowledge of occurrences that 16-20 year olds buying child tickets is something people get away with on a regular occurrence (and cost the railway a lot more) far more often than any sort of address fraud, because not having an ID as a child is perfectly normal, and many 16-20 year olds look younger than they are; I’ve had a ticket office try to sell me child tickets before, for example, and I’m over 18.

Also, this thread is pretty explicit in that you could maybe do it once, but very seldom will you get away with it for any significant length of time. If everyone did fare evasion once and then stopped, it would still cost the railway less than the current level of fare evasion.

 

[island]

I wouldn't agree, for the sole reason that I'm not obliged to carry any. They can insist all they want, they're still not getting it.

This is the type of behaviour known as "failing the attitude test" and is a good way of rapidly depleting any goodwill a ticket inspector may have. Use with great caution and only if you are certain that you are in the right.

 

[LowLevel]

I think much of it will depend where and when of course. You've got quite a chance of fading into the background in places like London.

Where I work forget the revenue inspectors - if you annoy the guards you're stuffed though if you actually need to be able to reliably use the train and prefer not to be honest about it

 

[Hadders]

The OP’s question has been answered and we’re starting to drift off-topic and I to speculation so it’s time to bring this to a close.

Thanks to everyone who contributed.