GA Travel Irregularity and short ticketing

[randomised79]

Hello,

I have received an email stating:

```
Good Afternoon,
We are emailing from the Greater Anglia fraud department. We have been investigating industry data and have been led to believe you are potentially not paying full fares on Greater Anglia services. There appear to be a number of incorrectly purchased tickets showing on your account that are a breach of our terms and conditions and considered fraudulent activity. Please refer to our Revenue Protection and Prosecutions Policy:
Attached is a letter for you to read.
Please respond within 7 days to potentially settle this case.
Kind regards,

Revenue Protection Fraud and Investigations Team

attached letter:

Re: Trainline Account
We have been investigating industry data and have been led to believe you are potentially not paying full
fares on Greater Anglia services.
This activity has been highlighted as potentially fraudulent.
We view this as a serious issue, and we have taken this step to contact you, with an outlook to resolve this
matter with you efficiently.

We invite you to respond to this letter within 7 days by email to [email protected]
quoting the reference number [] in the subject field.
```

I am 17 and must travel to get to school 5 days a week.
I usually take a TfL service which then I change for a Greater Anglia service.

I have been stopped once around a year ago for not knowingly travelling without a valid railcard where they took my name and details, otherwise no other action was taken. After that incident I acquired the correct railcard immediately and used it since. My railcard is on the Trainline app.

For 4 years until recently every day I have bought a return ticket on Trainline from my TfL stop to the GA station.
More recently I have been tapping in using my zip card for the TfL section of the journey and tapping out at the station where I change to the GA service, and then travelling using a ticket bought on Trainline for the GA section of the journey.

However I have short ticketed once (1 return journey), regrettably, for the GA section of the journey and may have forgotten to tap in/out a few times for the TfL section of the journey as you do not need to exit the barriers at the interchange station.

I would like to avoid conviction.

Any advice on how to respond or if I should respond at all, and how much substance there is to their claim, is greatly appreciated.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Hello,

I have received an email stating:

```
Good Afternoon,
We are emailing from the Greater Anglia fraud department. We have been investigating industry data and have been led to believe you are potentially not paying full fares on Greater Anglia services. There appear to be a number of incorrectly purchased tickets showing on your account that are a breach of our terms and conditions and considered fraudulent activity. Please refer to our Revenue Protection and Prosecutions Policy:
Attached is a letter for you to read.
Please respond within 7 days to potentially settle this case.
Kind regards,

Revenue Protection Fraud and Investigations Team

attached letter:

Re: Trainline Account
We have been investigating industry data and have been led to believe you are potentially not paying full
fares on Greater Anglia services.
This activity has been highlighted as potentially fraudulent.
We view this as a serious issue, and we have taken this step to contact you, with an outlook to resolve this
matter with you efficiently.

We invite you to respond to this letter within 7 days by email to [email protected]
quoting the reference number [] in the subject field.
```

I am 17 and must travel to get to school 5 days a week.
I usually take a TfL service which then I change for a Greater Anglia service.

I have been stopped once around a year ago for not knowingly travelling without a valid railcard where they took my name and details, otherwise no other action was taken. After that incident I acquired the correct railcard immediately and used it since. My railcard is on the Trainline app.

For 4 years until recently every day I have bought a return ticket on Trainline from my TfL stop to the GA station.
More recently I have been tapping in using my zip card for the TfL section of the journey and tapping out at the station where I change to the GA service, and then travelling using a ticket bought on Trainline for the GA section of the journey.

However I have short ticketed once (1 return journey), regrettably, for the GA section of the journey and may have forgotten to tap in/out a few times for the TfL section of the journey as you do not need to exit the barriers at the interchange station.

I would like to avoid conviction.

Any advice on how to respond or if I should respond at all, and how much substance there is to their claim, is greatly appreciated.

Welcome to the forum.

The first question anyone receiving a letter like this needs to ask themselves is 'is the allegation true?' In your case, you have given us an answer to that question, although it might be worth while thinking about whether you really have short ticketed only once: it's surprisingly easy for one remembered occasion to in fact have been one of several.

Your answer to the above question might not affect your next step, but it will help inform you on how serious your position is, and logically the more times someone has fare dodged, the more chance there is for the railway to have gathered evidence.

The next question is whether you should respond to the letter. Our general advice is that you shouldn't in that in English law you generally don't have to incriminate yourself. I think that's also appropriate for this case in that from what you tell us there is one dubious occasion that you know about but that the railway only suspects. I also note your age: while the railway can prosecute people under 18, it's generally seen as a bad idea.

If you don't respond to the letter, brace yourself for a series of increasingly threatening letters. But it seems to be the view here that unless the railway actually starts court action (whether criminal, where you might get punished for a crime, or civil, where the railway wants the court to tell you to pay back fares) then it's best not to respond.

 

[Egg Centric]

Any advice on how to respond or if I should respond at all,

On what you've told us, no. But make sure you behave impeccably in future particularly now you're approaching 18.

and how much substance there is to their claim

Erm... you tell us?

 

[randomised79]

Hi thanks for the responses, I will take the advice and avoid responding unless they begin any court action.

Would you happen to know if they do decide to pursue court action, would it still possible to settle outside of court before any proceedings take place.

 

[enyoueffsea]

Would you happen to know if they do decide to pursue court action, would it still possible to settle outside of court before any proceedings take place.

Usually, yes. However, it’s worth pointing out that if you do not respond to them you will be seen as not engaging and therefore they are much less likely to offer a settlement out of court.

However, they are extremely unlikely to prosecute you as you are under 18.

My advice is the same, do not respond unless they have any evidence of you short faring (i.e caught by an Inspector).

Stop short faring, ensure you either tap in/out as necessary or buy a ticket. All of these previous incidents will end up coming to bite you when you turn 18 and they inevitably catch you in the act, as they’ll all be put towards the settlement amount.

You’re on their radar now and you need to act impeccably from now on.

 

[randomised79]

Usually, yes. However, it’s worth pointing out that if you do not respond to them you will be seen as not engaging and therefore they are much less likely to offer a settlement out of court.

However, they are extremely unlikely to prosecute you as you are under 18.

Alright thanks, I assume they know that I am under 18 due to my railcard being bought and accessed on the Trainline app which Greater Anglia can access?

I appreciate the advice and I will be sure to proceed properly going forward.

 

[WesternLancer]

Alright thanks, I assume they know that I am under 18 due to my railcard being bought and accessed on the Trainline app which Greater Anglia can access?

I appreciate the advice and I will be sure to proceed properly going forward.

You can’t assume that.

The trainline search will likely just be a tickets purchased check. You can’t assume a forensic check if your other transactions I suspect.

 

[30907]

Usually, yes. However, it’s worth pointing out that if you do not respond to them you will be seen as not engaging and therefore they are much less likely to offer a settlement out of court.

But the OP has not been caught cheating, so they are not in a position to threaten prosecution.

 

[Haywain]

But the OP has not been caught cheating, so they are not in a position to threaten prosecution.

But that's exactly what they are doing, and will continue to do. And if they were to bring a prosecution, which is unlikely as far as we can tell, they may be less wiling to settle with those who do not engage.

 

[enyoueffsea]

But the OP has not been caught cheating, so they are not in a position to threaten prosecution.

I agree, based on the information we have. However, the OP should be informed of the current and future risks if we are advising them not to respond to their correspondence.

In any event their age would prevent a prosecution, as I said above. However, if the OP turns 18 and continues to fare evade and does get caught, they may take this lack of engagement into account.

Also worth noting it was a response to a direct question from the OP about what would happen if the TOC decided to bring about a prosecution.

 

[MotCO]

Presumably GA have no evidence that the tickets purchased were used by the OP, i.e, he/she could have bought them on behalf of someone else. Buying a 'dubious ' ticket is not an offence; using one is.

To the OP: As others have said, please make sure you always buy and use the correct tickets in future, and tap in and out as appropriate. if you have any doubts, please come back here and others will advise.

 

[randomised79]

Thanks all for the feedback, I have learnt my lesson and will buy the correct tickets in the future.

I will avoid responding and wait and hope that this issue is not escalated.

 

[Hadders]

Just to be clear, based on what we've been told Greater Anglia are highly unlikely to be able to secure a conviction but they will continue to write further threatening letters/emails for the forseeable future threatening prosecution, police involvement, fraud etc.