Help! Excessive settlement fee?

[Aditrainuser]

Hi all,

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I have just received this letter after previously failing to show my railcard for one journey in Jan (I have never been caught without a railcard before and I have never been given a warning). I understand that this makes the ticket I purchased invalid and that I will have to pay for the full fare but the amount they have charged me seems a little excessive for just one ticket? Does anyone know if I will be able to knock this down or if I have the right to ask for a breakdown of their supposed evidence? Can anyone advise me on what my next steps should be, is it worth writing them a letter and if so what should the letter say?

 

[methecooldude]

Hi all,

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I have just received this letter after previously failing to show my railcard for one journey in Jan (I have never been caught without a railcard before and I have never been given a warning). I understand that this makes the ticket I purchased invalid and that I will have to pay for the full fare but the amount they have charged me seems a little excessive for just one ticket? Does anyone know if I will be able to knock this down or if I have the right to ask for a breakdown of their supposed evidence? Can anyone advise me on what my next steps should be, is it worth writing them a letter and if so what should the letter say?

It looks to me that they looked at your purchasing history and are charging you for fares with a railcard.

If you have (or more, had, on the day of travel) a valid railcard, you should send them a picture of such (screenshot if digital) which should sort that out.

What was the journey you were doing when your details were taken?

 

[Snow1964]

Did you previously have a railcard, but it has expired. Or did you have a valid railcard (but had forgotten it). If you had forgotten it, have you within last year already sent in a copy.

Appears they have used the reference numbers on your ticket to investigate a rail purchasing history (an app or web account), and added up all the journeys they can find.

They work on assumption the account is just yours, but if it is used for whole family (perfectly ok) they lump in everyone's journeys. So if buying account is used by multiple family members, you need to say so and request a breakdown as they have falsely included irrelevant journeys.

 

[bagels]

How much should the original ticket been?

 

[Aditrainuser]

Yes I’ve had several railcard in the past and I even have one now. But I surprised they would look at this rather than just the ticket in question.

How much should the original ticket been?

It would have been £30 max for the discount ticket so maybe £50 max full price

It looks to me that they looked at your purchasing history and are charging you for fares with a railcard.

If you have (or more, had, on the day of travel) a valid railcard, you should send them a picture of such (screenshot if digital) which should sort that out

It’s tricky because I have since emptied my inbox for emails around 2021 which would have an receipt of digital railcard past that point so I’m not sure I will have evidence of my later railcards but I am not sure how this is relevant to the ticket they first stopped me about back in Jan so it seems like they are setting me up to fail.

 

[bagels]

Wow that is excessive. Sounds as if they’ve dug up your old purchases and assumed you used a wrongful discount on them too. I’d contact them asap, you can always request an itemisation or breakdown of the penalty to figure out why it’s so high? Im sure one of the experts on here will be able to clarify for you with better knowledge but I don’t think requesting a breakdown is unreasonable?

 

[Gloster]

You say that you ‘have never been caught without a railcard before’, but once you were stopped the railway will have investigated such of your past purchasing history as is available to them, which is probably more than you realised, and are charging you for journeys that they believe were not correctly paid for. The normal charge is the full Anytime Single fare for each and every journey that they believe you made without having paid the correct fare, i.e. a return journey will be two single fares, with no allowance for any fare paid or any valid railcard held. They then add on their investigation costs: for South Western Railway £254.00 sounds about right.

If the journey that you were making when you were stopped was the only one you have ever made without having paid the correct fare, then you may have grounds to challenge this. However, if you have made other journeys without the correct fare being paid, you need to calculate if the sum asked by South Western Railway is about correct. Be aware that they probably hold more information on your ticket purchases than you realised and if you try to get out of paying what you owe them without sound evidence that you did not in anyway dodge the fares, they are likely to withdraw the offer and take you to court.

EDIT FOR CLARITY: If there is no short faring or other offence and it is only a question of South Western Railway believing that you purchased tickets with a railcard discount when you did not have a valid railcard, then the full Anytime Single fare would be demanded for these journeys. If you can show that you did have a valid railcard for all other occasions (than the one where you were stopped) then there is no offence. Are you sure that you did not at some point buy tickets with a railcard discount between the expiry of one railcard and the purchase of another, even if this gap was entirely inadvertent?

 

[Aditrainuser]

Wow that is excessive. Sounds as if they’ve dug up your old purchases and assumed you used a wrongful discount on them too. I’d contact them asap, you can always request an itemisation or breakdown of the penalty to figure out why it’s so high? Im sure one of the experts on here will be able to clarify for you with better knowledge but I don’t think requesting a breakdown is unreasonable?

I will try to ask. Is it normal for them to immediately look at your entire purchasing history? I think I have been doing this journey on and off since 2018 and probably had a railcard the majorly of the time except over Covid. Is it normal for them to assume I just haven’t ever used a railcard, seems unfair to me.

 

[swt_passenger]

Is it normal for them to immediately look at your entire purchasing history?

Very much so, a scan through recent threads in this forum will show it is often done.

 

[methecooldude]

Is it normal for them to assume I just haven’t ever used a railcard, seems unfair to me.

Yes, it's a common fare evader tactic. Assuming you purchased all your railcards from Railcard.co.uk, then you can log in to your account and it will show all the old/active railcards
If you brought them via a third party (Trainline, TrainPal etc), then you'll need to contact them to get the railcard history

 

[Snow1964]

I will try to ask. Is it normal for them to immediately look at your entire purchasing history? I think I have been doing this journey on and off since 2018 and probably had a railcard the majorly of the time except over Covid. Is it normal for them to assume I just haven’t ever used a railcard, seems unfair to me.

The simple answer is depends on what was said to the ticket inspector, and what they wrote down. If they recorded it as apparent forgotten railcard, or possibly bought discounted ticket (with no discussion of railcard)

Then it is processed by someone completely different, and it appears they have assumed (based on what inspector put) that there isn't a railcard (or it had expired) so have delved into purchase history, and made presumption that never had a railcard.

Sometimes the initial letter asks for your version and says if you have railcard please send copy in, if valid (and only time forgotten within a year) that is it, will get confirmation on matter closed. I am guessing either this stage was skipped (based on inspectors comments), or the post office failed to deliver the earlier letter (so treated as no response and auto escalated)

 

[Brissle Girl]

I will try to ask. Is it normal for them to immediately look at your entire purchasing history? I think I have been doing this journey on and off since 2018 and probably had a railcard the majorly of the time except over Covid. Is it normal for them to assume I just haven’t ever used a railcard, seems unfair to me.

Yes it is normal. They are entitled to do so, and the rail retailers are, I presume, obliged under the terms of their contract allowing them to be a retailer of rail tickets to provide it.

Can you confirm that you don't have a valid railcard for the journey in question. If you do, and you just forgot it on the day, then you should have been given the opportunity to provide evidence of it, which should resolve the issue. (You have one opportunity a year to do this.) If you didn't have a valid railcard on the day in question then the working assumption will be that you've never had a valid railcard unless you can prove otherwise.

For any instance where they don't believe you had a valid railcard, they will likely calculate the fare required as the Anytime Single for each journey with no offset for any amount paid. If you've travelled a few long distance trips then the difference between a full Anytime Single fare and, say, a cheap Advance ticket can be eye-watering, (eg the Anytime Single from Bristol to London is £132, so just one return trip would be charged at £264), which will soon add up to a large four figure bill.

 

[furlong]

Another ridiculous letter! If you paid that sum, what precisely would you be settling? Only the one journey when you got stopped as it clearly says "fare" not "fares"? Then you could still be prosecuted for other journeys. Yet the amount demanded in settlement is absolutely preposterous for a single journey! A letter, that leaves you guessing as to what precisely you would be settling if you paid should never have been sent. Seek clarification from them.

 

[ikcdab]

You do sound a bit unclear as you when you had a Railcard when you say "probably had a railcard the majorly of the time except over Covid"
Sounds like sometimes you had one, other times not. When you didn't have a Railcard, did you still buy discounted tickets?
You do need to be certain