GWR - Pre Court Settlement Offer

[JungleJane]

Hi all,

So getting straight to the point, I was caught from Reading to London on a train without a valid ticket in March. Network railcard discount applied but did not have one and in this instance I stupidly edited my pdf ticket. I was not fined but interviewed under caution. They then wrote to me several months later with a pre court settlement offer of over £2,000. There was no back up to this huge some but referenced it was because of historic train tickets bought (presumably they accessed trainline account) with network discount. They have obviously assumed, and correctly so that I have never had a network rail card.

Stupidly and regrettably, never had a network rail card. On one hand I think this is a ridiculous payment for being caught once but perhaps that is the lesson I needed and now history has caught up with me. Fortunately I can afford this, or rather I would pay it over having a criminal record. However my question is, do I accept this and cough up or try and be clever to challenge it? For example, just because I have history of having bought a ticket with a discount, doesn't mean that I travelled on that ticket. There have been instances when I bought tickets for other people. The crime is travelling without a valid ticket right, not in buying a ticket!!

Any tips and advise welcome!

Thanks all

 

[Haywain]

do I accept this and cough up or try and be clever to challenge it?

You could try this but the train company could reject it and take you to court instead. It may be worth bearing in mind that having altered a ticket you could conceivably be up on a fraud charge which could have more serious implications for your future than railway specific legislation.

 

[skyhigh]

Stupidly and regrettably, never had a network rail card. On one hand I think this is a ridiculous payment for being caught once

And that's the long and short of it basically. If you're fare evading, you have to be lucky every single time. They only have to be lucky once and they can retrospectively look into your history.

You edited the ticket, you've deliberately evaded a large sum. The investigators are not idiots. If you try to be clever I think a fraud prosecution is a very real possibility. That would have a major impact on your life.

 

[WesternLancer]

Hi all,

So getting straight to the point, I was caught from Reading to London on a train without a valid ticket in March. Network railcard discount applied but did not have one and in this instance I stupidly edited my pdf ticket. I was not fined but interviewed under caution. They then wrote to me several months later with a pre court settlement offer of over £2,000. There was no back up to this huge some but referenced it was because of historic train tickets bought (presumably they accessed trainline account) with network discount. They have obviously assumed, and correctly so that I have never had a network rail card.

Stupidly and regrettably, never had a network rail card. On one hand I think this is a ridiculous payment for being caught once but perhaps that is the lesson I needed and now history has caught up with me. Fortunately I can afford this, or rather I would pay it over having a criminal record. However my question is, do I accept this and cough up or try and be clever to challenge it? For example, just because I have history of having bought a ticket with a discount, doesn't mean that I travelled on that ticket. There have been instances when I bought tickets for other people. The crime is travelling without a valid ticket right, not in buying a ticket!!

Any tips and advise welcome!

Thanks all

By editing your pdf ticket IIRC you have committed a more serious crime (possible fraud) than simply using the discounted tickets unedited.

You have also done this repeatedly and they have the evidence (your online purchases to show this - I assume you would have no proof of actually having a railcard during those time - so you would be expecting a court to believe you bought those tickets for someone else to use - who had a card - can you produce such a person to make statement at a court to say so? or that you bought the tickets but never used them to travel - no one is going to believe that are they) - I am sure they can also easily access your purchase records. They can also access Railcard ownership records to see if you have ever had one

They will win in court - at least with the case you were caught on - so the court fine for the time you were caught might be your worst case scenario - you can work out what that would cost if you look at sentencing guidelines in relation to your income. You would have to estimate how serious a criminal conviction will be for you ref your current and future employment prospects. Long term reduction in salary if say you could not get a promotion would soon balance £2k even on low wages.

But a fraud conviction I think has a heavier sentence, plus I expect probs for things like mortgage or other financial services access, the increased costs of such things as a result might also be a factor to consider.

You can presumably work out how many times you have done this and thus how reasonable the £2k settlement request is vs your history of evasion.

You could ask them how they break down the £2k if you want to understand it more - but you may run the risk of them simply withdrawing the settlement offer (they are under no obligation to offer one to you) and then you are on the way to a court case.

My hunch is that you would be best paying the £2k to resolve the matter (plus the c£30 to buy a Network Railcard if you have any money left over...)

Hopefully others will be able to clarify ref if things like editing the pdf ticket puts you at risk or being found guilty of a more serious crime with a heavier penalty.

 

[AlterEgo]

“Having been caught repeatedly defrauding the railway of thousands of pounds by dishonestly editing my tickets, should I be clever?”

Well you could make a start at it by paying the settlement, or you’ll risk ending up in court on a fraud charge. Open and shut case.

 

[Hadders]

Welcome to the forum.

I agree with what other forum members have said. Only you know how many times you have done this and whether the settlelent you've been offered reasonably covers the evaded fares plus the train company's reasonable costs in investigating the matter.

Personally I think you've been very lucky to be offered a settlement at all, and I would pay it sharpish to prevent the matter escalating to a court summons, where the consequences are likely to be much more serious.

 

[WesternLancer]

Welcome to the forum.

I agree with what other forum members have said. Only you know how many times you have done this and whether the settlelent you've been offered reasonably covers the evaded fares plus the train company's reasonable costs in investigating the matter.

Personally I think you've been very lucky to be offered a settlement at all, and I would pay it sharpish to prevent the matter escalating to a court summons, where the consequences are likely to be much more serious.

Yes, I think the OP is fortunate to be dealing with GWR than say Chiltern or TfL as GWR seem more predisposed to settling matters compared to say Chiltern (or at least the rhetoric from TIL as chiltern's enforcement contractor would have you believe).

 

[Egg Centric]

The OP's question is such a 'no brainer' that I almost think he or she has been posting it on behalf of a friend to say "see! everyone agrees with me!"

Either way - of course pay the £2k. Absolute common sense.

The only exceptions I can think of would be:

1. You are terminally ill and likely to die before found guilty
2. You are leaving the country, never to return

 

[Deafdoggie]

There have been instances when I bought tickets for other people. The crime is travelling without a valid ticket right, not in buying a ticket!!

The only way they would accept that is if these people testified in court. If this isn't true you and they are committing perjury, this carries an automatic prison sentence. You may disagree, but I don't think it's worth it.

 

[SteveM70]

However my question is, do I accept this and cough up or try and be clever to challenge it? For example, just because I have history of having bought a ticket with a discount, doesn't mean that I travelled on that ticket. There have been instances when I bought tickets for other people. The crime is travelling without a valid ticket right, not in buying a ticket!!

If you want to go down the route of challenging their £2k number by claiming sometimes the tickets were bought for someone else, you make life a lot harder for both you and GWR because you'd be expected to demonstrate which tickers were bought for your own use and which for someone else's, slowing down the process and creating additional work for GWR. If you did that, I'd not be remotely surprised if GWR then thought "why bother with this hassle, let's just go to court", and as others have said that would be far worse for you.

Pay the settlement, and don't do it again

 

[JungleJane]

Thank you all for your constructive and non judgemental answers

I am going to pay. Lesson learnt.

 

[Master29]

And that's the long and short of it basically. If you're fare evading, you have to be lucky every single time. They only have to be lucky once and they can retrospectively look into your history.

You edited the ticket, you've deliberately evaded a large sum. The investigators are not idiots. If you try to be clever I think a fraud prosecution is a very real possibility. That would have a major impact on your lif

And now having the means to pay the £2k up front makes this look even worse really.

 

[Cloud Strife]

The only way they would accept that is if these people testified in court. If this isn't true you and they are committing perjury, this carries an automatic prison sentence. You may disagree, but I don't think it's worth it.

Just one thing: perjury is not an automatic prison sentence. A fine can also be given.

Having said that, it's very clear from perjury cases that the case won't be taken up unless it's severe. Merely blaming someone else for something, for instance, is not likely to result in a perjury case.

 

[Haywain]

Just one thing: perjury is not an automatic prison sentence. A fine can also be given.

Having said that, it's very clear from perjury cases that the case won't be taken up unless it's severe. Merely blaming someone else for something, for instance, is not likely to result in a perjury case.

That may be so, but it still isn't to be recommended.

 

[Adam Williams]

So, do people committing fraud by editing the visible text on the eTicket normally just scroll past the whopping great big 2D barcode on the page without even giving a second thought as to what it's encoding? :P

 

[Haywain]

So, do people committing fraud by editing the visible text on the eTicket normally just scroll past the whopping great big 2D barcode on the page without even giving a second thought as to what it's encoding? :P

Yes, because they think that if the barcode doesn’t scan they’ll just show it someone using the mark one human eye who won’t notice the alteration.

 

[WesternLancer]

So, do people committing fraud by editing the visible text on the eTicket normally just scroll past the whopping great big 2D barcode on the page without even giving a second thought as to what it's encoding? :P

I've been on a good few trains where the guard just looks at the tickets by eye - either does not have the required barcode reader or deems it too slow to use I suppose. So it's possible some people have never experienced the bar code being checked maybe.

 

[Undiscovered]

So, do people committing fraud by editing the visible text on the eTicket normally just scroll past the whopping great big 2D barcode on the page without even giving a second thought as to what it's encoding? :P

It can be tricky to line up the reader and then you have to see exactly what the screen says before deciding to accept or reject the ticket.
On a busy train, you might scan every other ticket and eyeball the rest. Play the law of averages.

LNER discovered a scam recently where someone was selling Photoshopped tickets. Essentially, you gave them the money for a cheap ticket, then it was edited to give you a first class upgrade, remove the visibility of a Railcard discount, change an advance ticket to an anytime, doughnutting, shortfaring, etc etc, all relying on the MK1 eyeball checking the ticket.

When QR readers were introduced, a couple of tickets were being pinged like this, as the QR code exactly shows the true ticket. Initially thought of as being a few chancers. Then, as it was more investigated, it uncovered a huge, criminal operation, somewhere in the region of £20k of fraudulent tickets, and possibly County Lines related.

We received instructions soon after to flag any instances of photoshopped tickets immediately to our RPI teams. They take this very seriously and will comprehensively investigate it.

 

[jon0844]

It's vital to scan the codes to see the history, and I hope the scanners are being rolled out to all staff to nip this problem in the bud.

Of course the next thing will be people finding a way to hack the encryption and generate valid Aztec codes that show as valid tickets.

 

[Egg Centric]

Of course the next thing will be people finding a way to hack the encryption and generate valid Aztec codes that show as valid tickets.

IF it's been specced right (I've no idea) this shouldn't be possible without an "inside job". I have noticed that the train split tickets I get all have the first few bytes the same and the rest are not immediately (i.e. at a glance) obviously showing any sort of pattern whatsoever (as opposed to many things e.g. Tesco Cumberland Sausages from the hot counter where you can see the weight and price in them and it's a standard mod 10 checksum).

A good way to tell would be if the spec has been fully published and it basically just involves signing a message. If it's literally a symmetric key then yeah of course it's going to be hacked at some point.

If the spec is kept secretive I'd be a bit worried about the security...

 

[crablab]

It's asymmetric apparently, with each retailer signing with their key and public keys rolled out to TOCs etc. who need to validate. Don't know if it's signed or just encrypted. Presumably there is an indicator for the correct key to use, rather than brute forcing.

Spec isn't public which is unfortunate. The encryption should be sufficient if done properly, and a public spec would help assure that.

 

[Egg Centric]

It's asymmetric apparently, with each retailer signing with their key and public keys rolled out to TOCs etc. who need to validate. Don't know if it's signed or just encrypted. Presumably there is an indicator for the correct key to use, rather than brute forcing.

Spec isn't public which is unfortunate. The encryption should be sufficient if done properly, and a public spec would help assure that.

Thanks - I assume the common bytes are the retailer ID then (which I'd guessed but makes sense).

In that case I think we can reasonably assume any genuinely convincing dodgy tickets would have to be inside jobs OR the ticket issuing infrastructure hacked. Of course on or both will probably happen one day...

 

[crablab]

They do have unique identifiers in a central database, so it's not as simple as making an Aztec that will decrypt & decode properly Of course that is an issue for offline readers, but that's a more limited threat nowadays.

 

[Egg Centric]

They do have unique identifiers in a central database, so it's not as simple as making an Aztec that will decrypt & decode properly Of course that is an issue for offline readers, but that's a more limited threat nowadays.

I may be wrong but I should have thought given the size of the ticketing ecosystem and the need to be able to sell tickets if said centralized database has availability issues there is very likely some kind of timestamping/counter mechanism and some kind of leeway for tickets of a certain vintage to not yet be in the DB. Obviously there are ways of making this difficult to get away with it but it sounds like the wrong side of diminishing returns...