Need some help to appeal penalty fare notice

[Hadders]

If it was me I wouldn't be making any payment while the appeal is being considered. The clock stops on the 21 days while the appeal is being considered. There are three stages of appeal, and sadly it's normal for the appeal to be rejected at stages 1 and 2. It's only at stage 3 when it's looked at by an independent panel.

You know the appeal is in the system so I would let things pan out.

 

[John Palmer]

So I appealed on 12th Feb and I didn't receive any communication. I checked on penaltyservices website. It showed appeal on hold - waiting on information from train operating company. I read it will take 21 days and it is 16 days already. I would expect that I will hear back from them soon?

From the Railways (Penalty Fares) Regulations 2018:

Schedule 2, Paragraph 6:

“Where an Appeal Panel receives an appeal under regulation 16 or 17, it must decide whether to allow or not allow the appeal before the end of the period of 21 days beginning with the day on which the appeal is received.”

Regulation 16(11A):

“If an appeal is against a penalty fare calculated in accordance with regulation 9(1A) or (4A), where the relevant Appeal Panel—
(a) ...
(b) fails to adhere to the time period specified in paragraph 6 of schedule 2, the appellant is not liable to pay the penalty fare in question and is only liable to pay the full single fare applicable for their journey.”

Penalty Services Ltd are required to decide your appeal within the 21 day period that started on 12th February when you submitted your appeal. If it fails to meet that deadline you cease to be under an obligation to pay the £100 penalty element of your penalty fare, whatever the outcome of your appeal. Penalty Services Ltd have until 5th March to decide your appeal, or Regulation 16(11A) will take effect.

Technically, you remain liable to pay the non-penalty element of the penalty fare – in this case the wrongly calculated amount of £32.20 – even if Penalty Services decides that your appeal succeeds. But against this, you have already paid £42.10 (£27.60 + £14.50) for your two tickets. The wrongly charged penalty fare has been substituted as the fare for your Finsbury Park-Cambridge journey, which means that you have suffered a net loss of £9.90 (£42.10-£32.20) as a result of the operator's failure to provide the travel services for which you contracted and paid. I can't imagine you having any intention of sueing the operator for that loss, but if that operator were to sue you for the £32.20 element of your penalty fare, the £42.10 price you paid for your tickets could be offset against such a claim by way of what lawyers call a counterclaim and set-off.

At this stage I would not be making any payment.

 

[kkong]

Both tickets are before travel and anytime return. I bought Baldock to Cambridge first on randomly chose 7:47am. Then bought Finsbury to Baldock after found my mistake. The Finsbury to Baldock is randomly chose at 8:33am. The inspector onboarded at Letchworth Garden City and came to inspect me just about the train to arrive at Baldock. I showed him tickets on the App. This is LNER app where it shows past trip and upcoming trip. What inspector saw is because the Finsbury to Baldock is shown as upcoming journey in App he insisted I onboarded earlier. Though I explained that the ticket is anytime return. I onboarded on the 7:11am train which does pass by to Baldock at 7:47am. I have noticed that the ticket was given at 7:54am. Where is given is at Letchworth Garden. This can’t be correct as the train arrived at Baldock at 7:47am. If the train arrived at Baldock on time, which is 7 mins after the penalty notice given. With the ticket I got, I can’t be fined for invalid ticket. Either way I find this is not right. I attached the train ticket and the train time updated on app did not show a delay.

Scanning the codes on each ticket shows the purchase dates and times:

• BDK-CBG: Purchased on 22 Jan 2025 at 06:12
• FPK-BDK: Purchased on 22 Jan 2025 at 08:11

This seems to indicate the FPK-BDK was purchased after the penalty fare notice was issued.

 

[AlterEgo]

Scanning the codes on each ticket shows the purchase dates and times:

• BDK-CBG: Purchased on 22 Jan 2025 at 06:12
• FPK-BDK: Purchased on 22 Jan 2025 at 08:11

This seems to indicate the FPK-BDK was purchased after the penalty fare notice was issued.

So these are split tickets, but the second split (for the majority of the journey) was purchased after the OP had been caught, and now they are trying to retrofit a version of events to get around the attempted short faring.

Better hope the appeal panel doesn't notice this and bat it back to the TOC for prosecution.

 

[fandroid]

So these are split tickets, but the second split (for the majority of the journey) was purchased after the OP had been caught, and now they are trying to retrofit a version of events to get around the attempted short faring.

Better hope the appeal panel doesn't notice this and bat it back to the TOC for prosecution.

The timings suggest that the FBK-BDK ticket was purchased on arrival at Cambridge.

 

[island]

The timings suggest that the FBK-BDK ticket was purchased on arrival at Cambridge.

In any event, it was clearly purchased after the issue of the Penalty Fare. The OP, having been caught trying to defraud the railway by buying a ticket from the last stop to get through the ticket barriers, is now layering lie upon lie with us and presumably with the appeals panel.

 

[AlterEgo]

This would explain why the OP has been spooked into paying the PF against advice, having learned the appeal is on hold and awaiting (unspecified) information from the train company.

 

[lizzyshi]

Scanning the codes on each ticket shows the purchase dates and times:

• BDK-CBG: Purchased on 22 Jan 2025 at 06:12
• FPK-BDK: Purchased on 22 Jan 2025 at 08:11

This seems to indicate the FPK-BDK was purchased after the penalty fare notice was issued.

I do have a valid ticket to travel. I mistakenly uploaded the wrong one while I had the app open and clicked without a notice. I wouldn’t upload it again as I feel my personal info is exposed and invaded. I always pay the right fare. I had a reply from the penalty service yesterday as I was expected stage 1 was not looked into and rejected. I will go through next stages.

 

[Cuthbert]

I do have a valid ticket to travel. I mistakenly uploaded the wrong one while I had the app open and clicked without a notice. I wouldn’t upload it again as I feel my personal info is exposed and invaded. I always pay the right fare. I had a reply from the penalty service yesterday as I was expected stage 1 was not looked into and rejected. I will go through next stages.

How come you bought two tickets on that day for the same journey?

 

[Hadders]

Scanning the codes on each ticket shows the purchase dates and times:

• BDK-CBG: Purchased on 22 Jan 2025 at 06:12
• FPK-BDK: Purchased on 22 Jan 2025 at 08:11

This seems to indicate the FPK-BDK was purchased after the penalty fare notice was issued.

Just to confirm, the date time of ticket purchase is encoded in the ticket barcode and there are publically available websites that will decode this information. No personal information or ticket scan history is encoded in the barcode and this information isn't publically available.

I don't think there's anything more that we can add to this thread at present, but if @lizzyshi wishes to provide an update at any point then report this thread by clicking on the 'report' button in the bottom left hand corner which will alert the Moderating team to re-open the thread.

 

[yorkie]

There seems to be some confusion (particularly on the part of the original poster) regarding this post:

Scanning the codes on each ticket shows the purchase dates and times:

• BDK-CBG: Purchased on 22 Jan 2025 at 06:12
• FPK-BDK: Purchased on 22 Jan 2025 at 08:11

This seems to indicate the FPK-BDK was purchased after the penalty fare notice was issued.

The above information can be obtained by scanning the barcode with software that is freely available ( https://eta.st/tickets/ ).

The barcode has since been redacted, due to privacy concerns by the original poster, however the information stated in the post quoted above was not a breach of privacy, as the information was available without access to any industry systems.

For the avoidance of doubt, the barcodes on train tickets are not QR codes and cannot be read by a QR-only barcode scanner, or even an Aztec scanner that does not have the relevant decryption keys.

These barcodes are Aztec codes, and can only be read by software that can read codes of that type.

Additional information, such as scan history, can be read only by people who have access to the database that stores that particular data, and this should not be published on the forum (at least not without the consent of the ticket holder), but that has not happened here.

A bit more information regarding key differences between Aztec and QR barcodes can be found below:

Aztec Barcode vs QR Code: Why QR Codes Are the Best Pick

Aztec barcode vs QR code differ in appearance, features, and functions. This article makes a head to head comparison of the two barcodes.

www.qrcode-tiger.com

Aztec barcode vs QR code? At a glance, they look almost identical: square, pixelated, black, and white. But their differences can be narrowed down by zooming into their features and functions.

...because of the strategic placement of the finder pattern at the center, an Aztec barcode is way easier to read than a QR code.

Railway online ticketing system deploys Aztec barcodes in their printable tickets.