Penalty fare appeal?

[Panky5555]

Hello,

I have just received a final letter notice from SWR for the sum of £79.
Upon speak with My son, he has now finally told us that he did bunk the train and got a £10 fine, but the idiot didn't let us know (shock)
I do not mind paying for his mistakes, and grounding him at home but my query however is how can the railway jump from £10 to £79 with admin fees? And how can they expect a dumb teenager to tell their parents about the fine at all?
First time we heard of it was from this final notice of a large charge! Surely dealing with a minor, they should have sent us a notice. Of the fine before assuming the teenager would tell their parents...?

Has anyone else had any issues like this with a minor?
Am I able to appeal the admin fees that they so harshly added to the fine??

Many thanks,

 

[island]

The sum mentioned is in the typical ball park of amounts charged for and represents an apportionment of the costs, including but not limited to staff salaries, postage, admin, etc. involved in detecting and following up on fare evaders. Standard operating procedure when issuing a Penalty Fare or similar to a minor is to inform him or her to give the document to his or her parents. I do understand that a natural reaction of a child may be to stick the head in the sand and hope it goes away, but sadly it rarely does.

There is no “appeal” possible, as the window for appeal is 28 days from the day of travel, which I suspect is now long past.

If your son was under the age of 17 years and 6 months on commission of the offence, it is most unlikely he will be taken to court, so if you feel like trying to negotiate the amount down you can.

 

[Hadders]

To prevent this from escalating I recommend paying the £79 and chalking it up to experience.

As for where they get admin fees of around £69 from compare and contrast to the cost of the hourly labour rate that a tradesman or garage would charge you to carry out work. It's probably in the same sort of ball park.

 

[Brissle Girl]

It’s also not dissimilar to a parking fine if you don’t pay within a set amount of time.

Your post has the air of being the victim, whereas of course it is the railway which was deliberately deprived of its fare in the first instance, and which has not had any cooperation from your family in resolving it in a simple and relatively low cost way. It’s worth bearing that in mind as to how the authorities are likely to respond to any further discussions (which will further add to their costs).

So as Hadders said I would chalk it up to experience and pay up before it gets more complicated and expensive.

 

[father_jack]

Just for context, how old is your son, years and months please ?

And also

And how can they expect a dumb teenager to tell their parents about the fine at all?

maybe you have a "learning point" in maturity to stick on him ? I know well that they want to be kids when it suits them and adults when it suits them but £10 a month repaid to you or £10 reduction in allowance for 8 months (and stick to it !) might put a value on honesty for them......

 

[mikeg]

How a fine can be as low as £10 is beyond me. If it was a penalty fare it would have been at least £20, are you sure it wasn't the original fare owed?
As for it getting to £79 the people chasing the debt don't work for free.

Also how old is your child?

 

[Haywain]

It sounds like what was issued would have been an Unpaid Fare Notice, as a Penalty Fare would have been no less than £20.

 

[SteveM70]

Is a penalty child fare minimum £10?

 

[Darandio]

Is a penalty child fare minimum £10?

There's no such thing is there?

 

[SteveM70]

There's no such thing is there?

No idea. Just seemed a possible explanation of the numbers that were being quoted

 

[WesternLancer]

Hello,

I have just received a final letter notice from SWR for the sum of £79.
Upon speak with My son, he has now finally told us that he did bunk the train and got a £10 fine, but the idiot didn't let us know (shock)
I do not mind paying for his mistakes, and grounding him at home but my query however is how can the railway jump from £10 to £79 with admin fees? And how can they expect a dumb teenager to tell their parents about the fine at all?
First time we heard of it was from this final notice of a large charge! Surely dealing with a minor, they should have sent us a notice. Of the fine before assuming the teenager would tell their parents...?

Has anyone else had any issues like this with a minor?
Am I able to appeal the admin fees that they so harshly added to the fine??

Many thanks,

Good question, but thinking about it what sort of hourly rate would you charge for dealing with teenagers being dumb? I's ask for double time rate!

Good luck with this but probably best advice is to pay up asap and find a way to explain to your youth that them keeping quiet about it has just ended up with a bigger bill (and probably no chance of the next pair of trainers they want...)