Northern Rail Letter?

[Sam876]

Hello everybody,

I have a very specific question to ask for anybody in the know. Personal circumstances make this important to me but I would rather not go into detail on this.

Yesterday I was given a £20 Northern Rail Penalty fare at Manchester Piccadilly. This was my fault entirely as I hadn't realised my monthly ticket, which I always buy, had expired the previous day. Anyway, I did not dispute etc.

I paid the penalty online a couple of hours later.

My question is - do they send a letter to your home if you pay up straight away (i.e. within the 21 days)? Or is that they only send a reminder letter if you go beyond the 21 days without paying?

Please, only answer if you know for certain. This is to do with personal consequences at home - like I say, I fairly paid what I owed.

Thanks

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

Hello everybody,

I have a very specific question to ask for anybody in the know. Personal circumstances make this important to me but I would rather not go into detail on this.

Yesterday I was given a £20 Northern Rail Penalty fare at Manchester Piccadilly. This was my fault entirely as I hadn't realised my monthly ticket, which I always buy, had expired the previous day. Anyway, I did not dispute etc.

I paid the penalty online a couple of hours later.

My question is - do they send a letter to your home if you pay up straight away (i.e. within the 21 days)? Or is that they only send a reminder letter if you go beyond the 21 days without paying?

Please, only answer if you know for certain. This is to do with personal consequences at home - like I say, I fairly paid what I owed.

Thanks

There would normally be no letter sent in such circumstances.

Note that in general there may be avenues of appeal against a Northern-issued Penalty Fare, even where you are, on the face of it, in the wrong. However if you don't wish to have any letters received at home then this would not be advisable.

 

[davart]

On a separate note, if receiving letters are an issue for whatever reason, you could set up a redirect with the Royal Mail for a short period.

Perhaps have your mail sent to a friend's address?

 

[js1000]

There would normally be no letter sent in such circumstances.

Note that in general there may be avenues of appeal against a Northern-issued Penalty Fare, even where you are, on the face of it, in the wrong. However if you don't wish to have any letters received at home then this would not be advisable.

I agree it is always advisable to appeal if you have a reasonable argument against penalty fares. I would say as a monthly season ticket holder who simply forgot you needed to renew you would have had a good case to rescind the penalty fare - assuming you haven't been in trouble before.

The reality is that RPIs are extremely poor - particularly the Northern ones - at following legally watertight procedures and lines of questioning that would later be seized upon in a court by a half-competent lawyer.

The over-zealous RPI clowns at Piccadilly automatically assume passengers who buy from the kiosk on platform 11 don't have a ticket. They ask "Do you have a Promise to Pay notice from the machine?" They're so trigger-happy that at no point do they ever ask "Do you have a valid ticket before you boarded today?" If you were already was in possession of a valid ticket but purchasing a ticket for onward travel then you would within your rights to walk away before they started to ask specifically for your details. That's an offence to refuse to give your details.

We're not very good in this country and arguing our case when an honest mistake/misunderstanding has been made. In many cases, penalty fares punish the good honest ones to pay for the sins of the bad who are far more clever in avoiding penalty fares.

 

[gray1404]

Its only an offence to refuse to give your details if a member of staff has a reason belief that you do not have a valid ticket. If a ticket was held to Piccadilly and at platform 11 one was trying to buy an onward ticket and they were approached. Showing the ticket just used to get to Piccadilly and stating you were buying a ticket for onward travel would be enough for them to no longer be able to have a belief that you had travelled without a valid ticket.

In this case however, if the OP wishes to appeal then they are within their rights to advise of a change of address when they make their appeal.