Dodgy ticket

[jon0844]

As a fare paying passenger I can see that when it comes to both the legal and moral argument the outcome is the same.

It is a ticket marked as non transferable and the ticket does not belong to you, so you abide by the rule or don't travel. That's the legal bit.

The moral bit is that you might think you're helping your fellow man (very commendable) but you're depriving the railway of money indirectly (unless the person you gave the ticket to wasn't going to travel otherwise). Given so many people don't appear to have a problem, that suddenly adds up to a lot more than just your generous donation. And yet these same people will gladly moan about the lack of investment, the state of their station and trains.

Also bear in mind that a lot of people that ask for your ticket are then reselling them to fund their various habits, or if not running the risk of being caught by staff or police.

 

[Goatboy]

Either we are talking in moral terms or legal terms, so please stop switching back and forth to trap people. I endorse what wintonian said also.

'Switching back and forth'? I'd made a single post in this thread, I am hardly switching back and forth.

Theft is theft, it doesn't differ to suit peoples argument. Giving somebody a travelcard is not theft. Neither is it fraud. It is, however, illegal.

 

[jb]

Theft is theft, it doesn't differ to suit peoples argument. Giving somebody a travelcard is not theft. Neither is it fraud. It is, however, illegal.

What's your point?

 

[Goatboy]

What's your point?

You've quoted my point.

I'll repeat it for clarity.

'Giving somebody a travelcard is not theft'.

 

[Scotty]

It allows a person the use of a transport network for free, for which they should have to pay for. Getting something for nothing willfully, that should cost something is theft, surely?

 

[Goatboy]

It allows a person the use of a transport network for free, for which they should have to pay for. Getting something for nothing willfully, that should cost something is theft, surely?

No, because that isn't the definition of theft. There are other offences which cover it.

 

[Mark_H]

The moral bit is that you might think you're helping your fellow man (very commendable) but you're depriving the railway of money indirectly

I would agree, depriving the railway of a fare someone else might otherwise have paid is the key point in showing that, morally, the ToC suffer a harm. Restricting the product sold to the right for a single person to travel all day seems reasonable.

 

[Smethwickian]

What exactly does "Network" mean as the ticket type, anyway?

It's Network West Midlands (Centro) all-day bus/train/metro nNetwork ticket - the off-peak equivalent would be the nDaytripper. From rail ticket offices, it would usually be on Network West Midlands blue-and-white ticket stock, but as has already been pointed out, this was from a conductor. Both are also sold on buses and trams so turn up on all sorts of ticket stock.

 

[neilmc]

I can't see anything which indicates that any paper day/7 day tickets for TfL or indeed any other provincial operator I've come across are NOT transferable, although obviously TfL Travelcards loaded on Oyster aren't because the conditions do state that. The Tfl website is very vague about all this, stating in the FAQs (written for visitors):

Can a Travelcard be shared with someone else when travelling together?
No. One Travelcard is required for each person travelling

Well, I think we all realise that, it does NOT say that it can't be shared with someone else when you're NOT travelling together! Unless anyone can show anything to the contrary?

 

[bb21]

Condition 6 of the NRCoC.

Condition 7.6 of the TfL CoC.

Pretty clear on the issues you mentioned.

 

[neilmc]

Oh, and here's another London conundrum:

I always have a PAYG Oyster card with me in London, and so does my son, although he normally cycles to work. After a hard day's clocking up mileage on buses and tubes I return to his house.

"I'm going out to a concert tonight," he says.

"I'll stay in," I say, " but my Oyster PAYG must have reached its daily limit hours ago, use mine instead of yours and you can have some free travel!"

A loophole methinks? I've basically used my PAYG as a day Travelcard and am ... shock, horror ... passing it on!!

Have my son and I suddenly been transformed from the respectable professionals we assume to be into thieving scumbags, lowlifes, conspirators to fraud, stealers from the pockets of honest Londoners, etc so deserving of the site's contempt?

Difficult, eh?

 

[bb21]

Are you deliberately trying to muddy the water here?

One is explicitly permitted by the terms you agreed to at purchase and the other is explicitly forbidden. I'm not sure what else you are trying to say.

Whether you think the two situations are equivalent is neither here nor there.

If you think doing something specifically forbidden is acceptable then it is your prerogative. No one can stop you. Just don't expect to pursuade (the majority of, I suspect) others.

 

[neilmc]

Condition 6 of the NRCoC.

Condition 7.6 of the TfL CoC.

Pretty clear on the issues you mentioned.

Fair enough, but it's not on the TfL website in a place where you'd reasonably expect to find it, like the FAQs. How many visitors would wade through such a document?

 

[46100ROYALSCOT]

I would also say TOCs and the BTP discourage ticket touting, not only as it is against the law but the money is often used on alcohol or drugs, which may cause more anti-social behavior on stations.

Surely this is not ticket touting. ticket touting is the sale of a ticket- in this case no money changed hands. It may not be legal but how many of us can put hand on heart and save they never break the law. I like to think i am relatively law abiding but i have given away a valid ticket when i had finished with it.

 

[jb]

Oh, and here's another London conundrum:

Difficult, eh?

Other than it being identical to the scenario dealt with a dozen posts upthread, yep.

 

[jon0844]

The price cap on PAYG is equivalent to the cost of a travelcard but that doesn't make it a travelcard. In fact, I think there's a thread on here about someone still getting done for not touching in and out after reaching the cap.

So, they aren't comparable even if to Joe Public it might seem the same thing. Ignorance is no excuse and all that.

 

[island]

The price cap on PAYG is equivalent to the cost of a travelcard

No it isn't

 

[jon0844]

In which case it's even less of a comparison for sake of argument!!! I have only ever once reached the cap on Oyster, having always had a season ticket and/or a paper Travelcard.

 

[Starmill]

Just goes to show how naive you can be... I have never, ever heard of this problem before! I didn't realise anyone was in the business of giving away or selling used tickets! You learn something new every day.

I've seen people leave tram tickets on seats and even in the tray of the machine at their destination before and have even been asked a few times if I want a tram ticket! That said, the chance of being intercepted with a resold/transferred Metrolink ticket is literally minuscule.

 

[williamus]

I've been following this thread with real interest. What strikes me is that on a blog where the majority of posters are quite rail/CoC savvy we've had six pages of widely differing views.The issues here will probably never occur to Joe Public, so no wonder it happens so widely.

For me, I'm no saint but I know it's against the CoC to pass on a part-used ticket and I wouldn't give or take one, if only because with my luck I'd be the one person would be stopped and caught out.

Having said that, I have passed on an unused car park ticket before and I now realise that this is no better. Actually it's probably worse in the case of a Local Authority car park where you could argue the receipts directly affect your own council tax.

Now then, if I'm in a restaurant on my own and I have a bottle of wine but only drink three out of thr four glasses it contains and pass the bottle to a neighbouring table (rather than ask for a cork and take it out) how is that different? I'm potentially denying the restaurant owner a drinks sale and therefore affecting his profit. (I do this quite often, so it's not hypothetical)

Leaving the legal issues aside, it's a bit of a moral maze. I never thought this forum would get me to question my drinking habits...

 

[bb21]

You buy the drinks for consumption by anyone. You buy a ticket for the right for you to be conveyed. There is a major difference here.

Whether there is any perceived potential loss is a bit of a red herring. The other person might have bought a bottle of wine had you not given it to him, or he might not. The other person might not have travelled had you not given him the ticket, or he might have anyway. There is no end when speculation is involved.

A line has to be drawn somewhere. The drinks are priced with the fact that it can be given to others taken into consideration. A rail ticket is priced with the fact that it is not transferrable taken into account.

Moral principles are tricky little things. Everyone has a different set and who is to say who is absolutely right?

 

[jb]

You buy the drinks for consumption by anyone. You buy a ticket for the right for you to be conveyed. There is a major difference here.

Perhaps more accurately, the restauranteur sells the drinks for consumption by anyone. They could theoretically elect to sell them for consumption by you only - at least whilst you're on their premises - but, fairly clearly, do not do so.

The railway operator sells tickets on a non-transferable basis (with exceptions, which are priced accordingly). Most importantly of all, it is their decision to do so. As a consumer you essentially have the right to take it or leave it. Specifically, you do not have the right to vary, ignore or otherwise change the terms of the deal just because you feel like it, because of your moral perspective, or for any other reason.

Incidentally, none of this depends on the railway being a "public service" - or even a nationalised industry. Even in the latter case you could claim the terms to be stupid, or immoral, or whatever - and lobby for them to be changed - but you couldn't simply ignore them.

 

[Mojo]

Furthermore with a bottle of wine or a plate of food, "once it's gone, it's gone," so to transfer part of your food to someone else is unlikely to be frowned upon.

I am sure however that an All You Can Eat buffet restaurant wouldn't take kindly to the transfer of a plate from one person to another.

 

[jon0844]

I guess with the bottle of wine, you've paid for the content of the bottle and can share it however you like. Once it's empty, it's empty.

A ticket once used by you is effectively 'empty' but if you hand it on can now be technically 'refilled' at the cost of a ticket now unsold.

A better comparison might be to go to a restaurant with free refill drinks, then share the glass, or a buffet where one person pays but then shares the food out. In these cases, the food/drink isn't transferable (sure, few places would moan about you letting someone have a sip or a small bite to try something, but you wouldn't get far having one buffet meal to serve two or more people!).

 

[michael769]

Comparing a ticket to a drink is not really a valid comparison.

A drink is something physical - goods - whereas train travel is a service (and not physical). While we often think of buying a ticket that is not what we do - we actually buy a service (the right to be conveyed between two places). The ticket is a token provided by the provider so we can confirm the right to travel.

The key difference is that we own physical goods, wheras we never own a service - all we buy is a agreement by the service provided to provide us with a service, you cannot transfer an agreement without an additional agreement by all parties concerned.

One must not lose sight of the fact that we never own the tickets we are given they remain the property of the railway, and as such it is the railway that has the right to diced what is done with it, not the passenger.

 

[island]

Agreed. The better comparison is, as Mojo made, to an all you can eat type meal.

 

[LexyBoy]

Or a Harry Ramsdens / All-you-can-eat mashup. Either buy a plate which allows you, and only you, to eat as much as you like, or pay for what you eat but if you finish the massive fish & chips you're given a plate which allows you to eat anything you like for free, and which you can give to a friend once you're stuffed. But if you don't finish a dish you're charged for the most expensive thing on the menu.

(Is there a name yet for the variant of Godwin's Law for RUK involving shop analogies?)

 

[island]

My head exploded.

 

[ainsworth74]

My head exploded.

Please don't do that again as it's creates an awful lot of mess for the staff to clean up also the paperwork is immense

However I agree with the sentiments, I'm total lost with that analogy, the routeing guide is more understandable!

 

[bb21]

My head exploded.

I'm closing this thread now before anyone else gets hurt and us getting taken to court by the National Accident Helpline.