Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
So, I just had a bit of an odd experience and wonder if people think it might lead to a letter being sent.
Ticket already held: return half Axminster-Waterloo
Arrived at Exeter Central, quickly bought a single to Exeter St Davids on a certain app and with a combination of fat fingers and rained-up glasses somehow managed to do so for the wrong date (next Thurs). Scanned it at the gateline and (obviously) it rejected. Not knowing it was for the wrong date (rather assuming it'd been set to reject to catch short farers) I showed it to the gateline guy, who was a bit confused and asked what onward tickets I had, showed him the Axminster-Waterloo one and said I'm going to get to St David's, get a coffee then sit down and sort out Exeter St Davids-Axminster. He scanned the Axminster one with his handheld scanner (presumably to check it was a real ticket) and let me through the gateline manually, I suspect without realising that the EXC-EXD was for the wrong date (as presumably I looked genuine as I thought it was for the correct date!)
(Reason to board at St Davids was to get first pick of seats.)
Once boarded the first train to St Davids I pulled up the Central-St Davids one to get it ready for the gateline and noticed the incorrect date, so to regularise as far as possible I bought another for the correct date and used it to exit the gateline at St Davids.
Having done that and got my coffee as planned I then got the "missing" bit as well and re-entered using it. Tried tapping refund on the Thursday one but it understandably wouldn't let me, so that's £2 in the bin but hey ho (would that be logged?)
In retrospect there are two issues here - one is the technical (unintentional) commission of a Byelaw 18 (1) offence (though by letting me through did the gateline staff effectively authorise travel which is a defence under 18 (3) ?), and the other is that that set of scans just looks almightily suspicious! And can a gateline record a failed scan then a manual opening (done by pressing a button in the little shed next to it) as the ticket having been accepted? And more to the point wouldn't the reject code have come up as "wrong date" so he could have told me and I could have repurchased there and then?
So question is...is analysis done at this sort of level to retrospectively send letters so I should probably put £102 or so aside for a settlement, might the gateline staff have sent in some sort of report based on the Axminster ticket (he didn't say he was going to, he seemed to believe me), or is this just a case of "don't be so fat fingered and gormless next time, but very unlikely anything would be picked up"? I'm inclined to think the latter but some here who work in this aspect of things may know better!
Cheers all.
Ticket already held: return half Axminster-Waterloo
Arrived at Exeter Central, quickly bought a single to Exeter St Davids on a certain app and with a combination of fat fingers and rained-up glasses somehow managed to do so for the wrong date (next Thurs). Scanned it at the gateline and (obviously) it rejected. Not knowing it was for the wrong date (rather assuming it'd been set to reject to catch short farers) I showed it to the gateline guy, who was a bit confused and asked what onward tickets I had, showed him the Axminster-Waterloo one and said I'm going to get to St David's, get a coffee then sit down and sort out Exeter St Davids-Axminster. He scanned the Axminster one with his handheld scanner (presumably to check it was a real ticket) and let me through the gateline manually, I suspect without realising that the EXC-EXD was for the wrong date (as presumably I looked genuine as I thought it was for the correct date!)
(Reason to board at St Davids was to get first pick of seats.)
Once boarded the first train to St Davids I pulled up the Central-St Davids one to get it ready for the gateline and noticed the incorrect date, so to regularise as far as possible I bought another for the correct date and used it to exit the gateline at St Davids.
Having done that and got my coffee as planned I then got the "missing" bit as well and re-entered using it. Tried tapping refund on the Thursday one but it understandably wouldn't let me, so that's £2 in the bin but hey ho (would that be logged?)
In retrospect there are two issues here - one is the technical (unintentional) commission of a Byelaw 18 (1) offence (though by letting me through did the gateline staff effectively authorise travel which is a defence under 18 (3) ?), and the other is that that set of scans just looks almightily suspicious! And can a gateline record a failed scan then a manual opening (done by pressing a button in the little shed next to it) as the ticket having been accepted? And more to the point wouldn't the reject code have come up as "wrong date" so he could have told me and I could have repurchased there and then?
So question is...is analysis done at this sort of level to retrospectively send letters so I should probably put £102 or so aside for a settlement, might the gateline staff have sent in some sort of report based on the Axminster ticket (he didn't say he was going to, he seemed to believe me), or is this just a case of "don't be so fat fingered and gormless next time, but very unlikely anything would be picked up"? I'm inclined to think the latter but some here who work in this aspect of things may know better!
Cheers all.
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