Penalties after railcards expire

[D365]

Whether or not you expect to receive reminder letters for a product, my advice would be to set a digital reminder (e.g. Apple or Google) for two weeks before the event. You can do this even years in advance.

 

[peters]

I can be wrong but I don't think this is a permissible use of personal data, as it comes under the umbrella of "marketing". Under normal circumstances it is not permitted to send reminders to people to renew unless they opted into marketing communication.

I'm trying to find an exclusion clause in Article 9 which would be applicable in this case but struggling.

A communication relating to a product or service purchased by the customer can be sent to someone who has opted out of marketing. However, care needs to be taken. So an email reminding someone their railcard is due to expire soon would be fine but if you encourage them to renew in the same communication then it becomes a marketing email.

 

[matt_world2004]

The rdg should develop a system that allows validation of the Railcard by entering its number and preventing purchase of a ticket if it's for after the expiry of the card

Credit card numbers hide their expiry date and type in the number . This allows for basic offline validation and something similar could be done for Railcards. Have part of the Railcard number contain obsfucated data containing their expiry date and type allowing machines not connected to the internet to validate the data.

 

[robbeech]

The rdg should develop a system that allows validation of the Railcard by entering its number and preventing purchase of a ticket if it's for after the expiry of the card

No thank you. I purchase tickets for other people and have them e-mailed all the time, i do not want to have to deal with a list of people's railcard numbers where applicable, nor do i want to limit a ticket, maybe purchased weeks in advance to a particular person's railcard if on the day someone else (with a similar railcard) travels.
I also don't want to have to have a valid railcard when i purchase a ticket, i only want to have one when i use the ticket, as are the rules. I know that might only be a once a year "thing" but if i want to purchase a ticket 8 weeks in advance to get the cheapest deal and i'm not travelling before then i don't want to waste 8 weeks of railcard. It's not a common issue but with me i only have a 2 together card with my partner so travel is infrequent.

 

[Ostrich]

Driving licence: can't remember if I have ever received a reminder.
Car MOT: the local garage reminds me.

Driving licence renewals at 70 - yes, you got a reminder through the post about 2 or 3 months before expiry BUT during 2020, I know folk who should have received one but didn't - presumably due to pandemic disruption.
Car MOT - If you look at the small print at the bottom of your MOT certificate, it gives you details as to how to subscribe for a free annual MOT reminder, either by telephoning an 0300 number or registering through the "dot gov" website. It looks like its been like that since 2018 when the latest style of certificates came in.

As for Senior railcards, I've never received a reminder, but then again, I've always used the manual application form, either downloaded or picked up from the station anf bought from the ticket office, so I guess I'm not on an actual database anywhere?

 

[davews]

I buy my railcard online (3 year which you can't get from the station is far cheaper than the one year) so they obviously have my email address.

 

[island]

I can be wrong but I don't think this is a permissible use of personal data, as it comes under the umbrella of "marketing". Under normal circumstances it is not permitted to send reminders to people to renew unless they opted into marketing communication.

I'm trying to find an exclusion clause in Article 9 which would be applicable in this case but struggling.

The "soft opt-in" under PECR might (or might not) apply.

Additionally, telling someone that a Railcard is about to expire, without marketing a new one, would potentially be OK.

Do we know for a fact that all of these Railcards were bought online ? Do station bought Railcards get reminder emails? I know not everyone fills in an email on the application form.

I've never had a reminder. Though my entirely unevidenced guess is that the forms for station bought Railcards get sent off to some central facility, put in a box, and ignored.

 

[MotCO]

If you selected an option 'please send a reminder when my Railcard is about to expire', and they did not send you a reminder, is that a mitigation if you get caught without a valid railcard? Is there any breach of contract by the railcard supplier?

 

[SteveM70]

The rdg should develop a system that allows validation of the Railcard by entering its number and preventing purchase of a ticket if it's for after the expiry of the card

If only we still had a joined up raileay

No thank you. I purchase tickets for other people and have them e-mailed all the time, i do not want to have to deal with a list of people's railcard numbers where applicable, nor do i want to limit a ticket, maybe purchased weeks in advance to a particular person's railcard if on the day someone else (with a similar railcard) travels.
I also don't want to have to have a valid railcard when i purchase a ticket, i only want to have one when i use the ticket, as are the rules. I know that might only be a once a year "thing" but if i want to purchase a ticket 8 weeks in advance to get the cheapest deal and i'm not travelling before then i don't want to waste 8 weeks of railcard. It's not a common issue but with me i only have a 2 together card with my partner so travel is infrequent.

With respect, you’re probably in a very small minority on this one

 

[robbeech]

With respect, you’re probably in a very small minority on this one

A minority yes. A very small minority ? Lots of organisations have people
Who book lots of train tickets. I think it’s just another complication of buying a ticket, and it’s unnecessary to prohibit purchase where there’s no rules against it.

 

[WesternLancer]

Wallsendmag said:
Do we know for a fact that all of these Railcards were bought online ? Do station bought Railcards get reminder emails? I know not everyone fills in an email on the application form.

Having just bought a new railcard at the station I took care to fill in the e-mail box as a way of testing if I get a reminder next year. I've had them in the past (but not when my railcard expired in oct 2020). Obv if you do not complete the e-mail box you won't get one and no idea if they still use paper letters for such cases. I suspect all reminders were suspended.

Of course it would make sense to send all former railcard holders a message inviting them to renew and 'get back on the rails' but govt / treasury /DfT (according to the railway press) is 'banning' all rail use promotions it seems, so this is probably unlikely.

 

[robbeech]

If you selected an option 'please send a reminder when my Railcard is about to expire', and they did not send you a reminder, is that a mitigation if you get caught without a valid railcard? Is there any breach of contract by the railcard supplier?

In the same way as if you set your car to beep if you go above 70mph and it doesn’t and you get a speeding ticket, I’d suggest not a chance.

 

[30907]

I suppose you could set systems so that you had to select railcard every time (I presume being logged in avoids this - it's a long time since I bought a ticket) but this would be a bit inconvenient.

How about adding a pop-up (to all systems) where you had to acknowledge every time that you needed to have a valid railcard on the date of your journey?

 

[SteveM70]

I suppose you could set systems so that you had to select railcard every time (I presume being logged in avoids this - it's a long time since I bought a ticket) but this would be a bit inconvenient.suppose

How about adding a pop-up (to all systems) where you had to acknowledge every time that you needed to have a valid railcard on the date of your journey?

You could, but people would become conditioned to it - “select” would become “select + yes”

People of my age will probably remember incidents where people inadvertently wiped the hard disk of their computers rather than a floppy disk because they typed format C: rather than format A: and then hit “Y” automatically

 

[MotCO]

In the same way as if you set your car to beep if you go above 70mph and it doesn’t and you get a speeding ticket, I’d suggest not a chance.

Not the same - you do not have a contract with your car's beeper

 

[skyhigh]

I suppose you could set systems so that you had to select railcard every time (I presume being logged in avoids this - it's a long time since I bought a ticket) but this would be a bit inconvenient.suppose

I suspect people would still select their railcard out of habit, without checking the expiry.

 

[Kite159]

I suppose you could set systems so that you had to select railcard every time (I presume being logged in avoids this - it's a long time since I bought a ticket) but this would be a bit inconvenient.suppose

How about adding a pop-up (to all systems) where you had to acknowledge every time that you needed to have a valid railcard on the date of your journey?

When buying a ticket from a TVM, for the SWR ones there is normally a box which pops up to confirm you are carrying a valid railcard when you select the railcard discount.

 

[furlong]

There is a precedent already for collecting superfluous information, where websites require you to select the station from which you will collect your tickets even though you can also collect them elsewhere. Similarly websites should ask you to enter the expiry date of your railcard before showing discounted tickets. There is a consumer rights argument that systems are already required to do this so as not to show incorrect ticket validity - if the railcard expires during the normal validity of the ticket, then the websites should not be misleading passengers by providing an incorrect ticket expiry date beyond the railcard expiry date. So I think there's at least a plausible regulatory argument that ticket retail systems that passengers use directly and which don't handle railcard expiry dates correctly should fail accreditation as they might put companies in breach of their legal duties to some classes of consumers.

 

[matt_world2004]

No thank you. I purchase tickets for other people and have them e-mailed all the time, i do not want to have to deal with a list of people's railcard numbers where applicable, nor do i want to limit a ticket, maybe purchased weeks in advance to a particular person's railcard if on the day someone else (with a similar railcard) travels.
I also don't want to have to have a valid railcard when i purchase a ticket, i only want to have one when i use the ticket, as are the rules. I know that might only be a once a year "thing" but if i want to purchase a ticket 8 weeks in advance to get the cheapest deal and i'm not travelling before then i don't want to waste 8 weeks of railcard. It's not a common issue but with me i only have a 2 together card with my partner so travel is infrequent.

They are very niche cases and can be easily mitigated against

 

[scrapy]

Maybe when purchasing a digital Railcard there is simply a tick box that reminds the purchaser not to use their Railcard once expired, the possible penalties and advises them to set a reminder on their device to renew or discontinue buying tickets. (That's what I do for my MOT). If the Railcard is transferred to another device then the reminder is shown again.

Similarly when purchasing a discounted ticket railcards can be linked to account which would show a Railcard has expired or may expire before return travel is completed but an override tick box available for those who don't want to do this, for example are purchasing for someone else. This would detail the possible penalties for travelling without a valid Railcard.

it is my opinion that for a first offence and certainly when the Railcard expiry is less than a month previous (this could be extended for the time being to take account of those returning due to pandemic)I would say a penalty fare (if applicable) or full fare new ticket if not should be the highest penalty available to the TOC. Criminal proceedings should only be used if:-
The penalty fare/new fare is not paid or false/no details given.or The person attempts to use the expired Railcard on a subsequent occasion after being caught. or The Railcard has been deliberately altered.

 

[island]

If you selected an option 'please send a reminder when my Railcard is about to expire', and they did not send you a reminder, is that a mitigation if you get caught without a valid railcard? Is there any breach of contract by the railcard supplier?

I think any court would be most unlikely indeed to entertain a claim on this basis.

 

[robbeech]

Not the same - you do not have a contract with your car's beeper

What specific contract do you have with the railcard issuer that says they’ll remind you. It saying they will remind you in writing on the page is surely no different to the owners manual of your car saying it’ll alert you?

there will be written documentation reminding passengers it is their responsibility to make sure it’s in date, just the same as there may be written documentation to say it’s the driver’s responsibility to stick to the speed limit.

 

[Wolfie]

I had an email from GWR only a couple of days ago headed 'Reminder about your senior railcard' with the message 'before you book, check your Railcard is still valid.' In fact it's valid until next February so the company cannot have access to individual data; they just know I have booked tickets online using a railcard before. So it looks as though at least GWR have taken up Fawkes Cat's idea.

Good customer service. Little things like that cost very little but are greatly appreciated.

Interesting when you consider how many "products" we have which expire including:
driving licence
car MOT
Insurance (many types including car, house,)
bank card
credit card
tv licence
passport

Would we expect some form of reminder from all these suppliers given the penalties whether financial or inconvenience if an attempt is made to use an expired product?

The only ones of those which in my experience doesn't either autorenew (eg new bank/credit cards, insurance in a rolling mandate) or issue a reminder (eg TV licence) are passport and car MOT (assuming that you don't regularly use the same garage in which case you may well get a reminder).

 

[Cdd89]

I agree that needing to input railcard details (at the minimum expiry date, at most numbers validated on a central system) into online sites would solve a lot of problems. However this falls apart when you look at TVM sales. Every additional step corresponds to a substantially longer queue, and I imagine demanding railcard information would add a minute to the booking time of the typical inexperienced passenger!

 

[Watershed]

I agree that needing to input railcard details (at the minimum expiry date, at most numbers validated on a central system) into online sites would solve a lot of problems. However this falls apart when you look at TVM sales. Every additional step corresponds to a substantially longer queue, and I imagine demanding railcard information would add a minute to the booking time of the typical inexperienced passenger!

It would be perfectly feasible to install a scanner which read a barcode/QR code from the Railcard (or mobile app, if you have a digital Railcard), thus enabling the passenger to quickly and easily add the relevant discount without having to worry about whether they've selected the right one or whether their Railcard has expired.

 

[Haywain]

It would be perfectly feasible to install a scanner which read a barcode/QR code from the Railcard (or mobile app, if you have a digital Railcard),

Feasible? So, just the need to change pretty much every railcard in circulation and modify the hardware and software of every TVM on the network.

 

[zwk500]

I think on TVMs the need to push Add Railcard > [Railcard] is sufficient under normal circumstances for checking validity. It would be nice for the immediate problem if it were possible to set up a prompt saying 'Please check your railcard is valid today' when purchasing the ticket but it may not be possible to introduce something like that without manually visiting every TVM. Longer term a scannable Railcard is desirable as it will reduce queues but as @Haywain says, it will need to be a long-lead project.

 

[Cdd89]

Coming at this from the other angle, I would argue that part of the emerging problem is that Railcards are simply not checked often enough. I think I get asked two or three times per year, maybe 3.5 if you include very rare occasions where TfL have asked for proof of Oyster discount.

This means that when rail companies do find people without a valid railcard they feel they have to throw the book at them, because they may have got away with it 20 times already. And a friendly policy to expiries within a month will just lead to calculating people squeezing an extra month out every year in the expectation that they won’t be asked.

If the need to show a Railcard were more frequent, rail companies could be assured that not much revenue has been lost, and a smaller charge (such as retrospective renewal plus an undiscounted ticket) could be levied instead.

On the other hand, as most railcards cost £30, someone using a standard railcard less than 30 days post expiry has deprived the railway of at most £2.50 of revenue (ignoring that railcards can’t be paid for monthly). Arguably they could be expected to swallow the loss for such a petty sum.

 

[Watershed]

Feasible? So, just the need to change pretty much every railcard in circulation and modify the hardware and software of every TVM on the network.

You could say the same about any change in the rail industry.

It's not that hard to start printing all new Railcards with barcodes. Digital ones already have one anyway.

Upgrading TVMs is of course a bigger (and, crucially, more expensive) job but, again, it's not impossible.

It would take a while to fully implement (you'd need to wait for the oldest Railcard in circulation to expire before you started 'enforcing' it) but that's no excuse for giving up.

 

[zwk500]

It would take a while to fully implement (you'd need to wait for the oldest Railcard in circulation to expire before you started 'enforcing' it) but that's no excuse for giving up.

Which means it's not a solution to the problem in the OP, which is a short-term one caused by the extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic.

I agree scannable cards should be introduced, but it's a long-term move not a short term fix.