Penalty fare issued (Preston Park to Elephant & Castle)

[Brighton]

Morning guys,

I am a new poster after something which occurred to me this morning.

I boarded the 07:37 Brighton to Bedford service at Preston Park at 07:40 with the intention of getting off at London Blackfriars and getting a connecting train to Elephant and Castle.

I was running late for my train and get on without a ticket (Preston Park is an unmanned station but does have electronic ticket machines) and looked for a ticket inspector, although there wasn't one on the train so I couldn't pay for my ticket.

I changed at Blackfriars onto the 09:00 Sutton service and found a conductor on the train before Elephant and Castle, which is only one stop away, and explained I had £18 on me in coins, no card, but have been trying to pay for my journey.

He got off the train with me at Elephant and Castle and issued me with a £20 fine, which he then increased to something like £46.70 because that is double the fare from Preston Park to Elephant and Castle.

However as today is Good Friday and therefore a Bank Holiday, the single today should cost £10.70 (Without using a 16-25 Railcard like I usually do), so my fine should only be £21.40 at the maximum.

With a Railcard my journey is normally £7.15, so I'm shocked that I have been issued with a penalty which is over SIX times what I was expecting to pay!

If anyone can help me it would be much appreciated, at best I would like to pay the £7.15 I assumed I would pay, at worse I will pay £21.40 but I really can't afford to be paying almost £50 for a train journey on a bank holiday!

 

[yorkie]

You were actually undercharged.

The correct Penalty Fare is 2 x £26.10 SDS via London.

You were charged 2 x £23.80 SDS which is the fare to avoid London.

Technically speaking a Penalty Fare is a higher than normal fare which is charged to people who are considered to have made a mistake under certain circumstances, such as rushing to get a train without having bought a ticket, where there were sufficient facilities to purchase the required fare, and is twice the Anytime Day Single or Anytime Single for the route taken.

If you want to pay a lower fare of £7.15 you need to make all reasonable attempts to purchase the ticket at the first available opportunity. If there was an opportunity to pay at Preston Park then that is where you should have bought the ticket. It sounds like you agree that there were machines available to issue your chosen ticket using your chosen payment method, so unfortunately you have no case to appeal the Penalty Fare, providing sufficient signage was present at the station.

It is not actually legally a 'fine'; if you were considered to be evading the fare then the company would be able to prosecute you and a court would impose a fine well into 3-figures, which would be in addition to the fare and also costs.

Sorry this is not what you wanted to hear, but others in your position have been treated far, far, worse.

 

[furlong]

And there was an open ticket office too?

And presumably on your route to the train you passed (and ignored) posters clearly warning you that Penalty Fares are in operation?

Unless you read up on the scheme's paperwork carefully and are lucky enough to discover some technicality the company has got wrong, a formal appeal is unlikely to get very far.

Once you've paid up, you could try your luck pleading your case to Customer Services to see if they'll see your point of view and offer to refund some of the extra money.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If anyone can help me it would be much appreciated, at best I would like to pay the £7.15 I assumed I would pay, at worse I will pay £21.40 but I really can't afford to be paying almost £50 for a train journey on a bank holiday!

Unfortunately, as you walked past a ticket machine, the Penalty Fare was issued correctly (or undercharged, as others have said). You should therefore pay it promptly to avoid prosecution and leave more time next time.

Sorry if that isn't what you want to hear, but it's a fact I'm afraid.

 

[Brighton]

I was running late for the train so just managed to get onto it. I have done that before and been able to pay for the journey on the train.

At no point was I trying to avoid paying the fare and if I wanted to I could have hidden between Blackfriars and Elephant and Castle, which is one stop, and have completed the journey without paying.

Instead I made two attempts to find an inspector, and when I did, I gave full information and offered to pay for the ticket.

I'm not expecting to pay £7.15 as I know that would have to be done before boarding the train, but I have paid the full fare for the price on that day before and that's what I expected to do. That price is £10.70 because today is a bank holiday.

I'm not trying to appeal being issued the penalty fare, but the price is incorrect as today you don't have to pay for the full fare, so the figure of 2 x £26.10 is incorrect.

And there was an open ticket office too?

And presumably on your route to the train you passed (and ignored) posters clearly warning you that Penalty Fares are in operation?

No, as stated above there were electronic machines (which tend to take over 2 minutes in my experience) and there is no open ticket office.

I didn't ignore the posters, as I've already said I was running late, and it was my intention to pay for the ticket even if I had seen the posters.

 

[yorkie]

I was running late for the train so just managed to get onto it. I have done that before and been able to pay for the journey on the train.

That's down to staff discretion.

At no point was I trying to avoid paying the fare and if I wanted to I could have hidden between Blackfriars and Elephant and Castle, which is one stop, and have completed the journey without paying.

If you were considered to have been evading the fare then the company could have chosen to prosecute you.

Instead I made two attempts to find an inspector, and when I did, I gave full information and offered to pay for the ticket.

I'm not expecting to pay £7.15 as I know that would have to be done before boarding the train, but I have paid the full fare for the price on that day before and that's what I expected to do. That price is £10.70 because today is a bank holiday.

There is no £10.70 ticket that is considered by the train company (GTR) to be a "full price" ticket, and the Penalty Fare rules allow them to charge twice the full price.

I'm not trying to appeal being issued the penalty fare, but the price is incorrect as today you don't have to pay for the full fare, so the figure of 2 x £26.10 is incorrect.

The Penalty Fare rules allow for you to be charged twice the full fare.

No, as stated above there were electronic machines (which tend to take over 2 minutes in my experience) and there is no open ticket office.

I didn't ignore the posters, as I've already said I was running late, and it was my intention to pay for the ticket even if I had seen the posters.

This is the sort of situation Penalty Fares are issued for.

I am not saying I like Penalty Fare schemes. I do not. But it is correct.

I suggest you, and anyone else who has to suffer at the hands of PF schemes, contacts your MP and tries to lobby for a change in the legislation.

I could just say to you "you are right; you should appeal and tell them you only owe £10" but I would be wrong, and you would then be rightly annoyed that I mislead you, when your appeal fails.

This forum is the best place to come for accurate information regarding rail fares and disputes. We do not always get everything right (as it is a complex area) but, based on what you have said, I am satisfied that our advice is correct.

I would absolutely support you in any quest to get the Penalty Fare legislation changed to be less onerous on customers. No other industry treats people this badly. But the legislation does allow GTR to do what they did, and they could have charged you even more, under the rules.

 

[bb21]

I was running late for the train so just managed to get onto it. I have done that before and been able to pay for the journey on the train.

Don't make it worse for yourself. You did it before and you got away with it. That changes nothing.

A Penalty Fare scheme is in place, and by boarding a service without a ticket when you had ample opportunity to do (running late is obviously not an excuse) so beforehand means you run the risk of a Penalty Fare, or worse. If you have a read around other threads in the Disputes area, you will find that you were actually dealt with quite leniently. It could have been far, far worse.

I'm not expecting to pay £7.15 as I know that would have to be done before boarding the train, but I have paid the full fare for the price on that day before and that's what I expected to do. That price is £10.70 because today is a bank holiday.

Penalty Fares legislation says twice the "full" fare, the definition of which is lacking, however it is commonly taken to mean the most expensive fare valid for the journey being made, as all other fares can be argued to be discounted.

So yorkie is quite correct that you were undercharged for your Penalty Fare.

 

[furlong]

You were actually undercharged.

That might make for an interesting technicality - the PF is invalid because it was not calculated correctly. But of course they might then decide that failing to use the machine at the origin provides sufficient evidence to prosecute under RORA (criminal record) though there'd be an argument that the court's penalty should be no more than what the penalty fare would have been had it been calculated correctly in the first place...

(Pay up, write it off to experience, and hope Customer Services might have some sympathy.)

 

[furlong]

I was running late for the train so just managed to get onto it. I have done that before and been able to pay for the journey on the train.

If that happened, you MUST have been both warned that you could have been charged a Penalty Fare and given a notice (often printed on the back of these tickets). If you weren't warned, that does provide possible grounds for appeal (as it's a breach of the scheme rules not to be warned verbally on every occasion a ticket is sold on a Penalty Fares train, precisely so that nobody can make the claim you just made) but the problem is, unless you have actual evidence it happened before and you were not warned, nobody is likely to believe you, and the TOC will just point to its procedures that say staff do always warn people verbally. (If you still have such an old ticket, the person who sold it could be interviewed to check, but would they admit to not following the rules and putting their employer's Penalty Fares scheme at risk of suspension?)

 

[furlong]

The SRA policy states:

Selling tickets on penalty fares trains
4.34 The basic principle of any penalty fares scheme is that passengers must buy their tickets before they get on their train. If passengers find that they can buy their ticket on the train from the conductor or guard, it undermines this message. For this reason, we will not allow tickets to be sold on penalty fares trains unless either:
a the on-train staff are trained as, and act as, authorised collectors, so they can charge a penalty fare to any passenger who is liable for one; or
b the on-train staff issue a printed penalty fares warning, as well as a ticket, to any passenger who is liable to a penalty fare, and draw the passenger’s attention to the warning.

In the case of (b), on-train staff must be given suitable training (and, when necessary, refresher training) in how the penalty fares scheme works, and how to issue these penalty fares warnings. A system must also be in place to make sure that on-train staff use the warnings properly. Where the warnings are issued using a portable ticket machine, such as ‘SPORTIS’, machine print-outs might be used to check that staff are issuing them. Any system must make sure that each individual conductor or guard is regularly monitored.

So the train company would likely produce evidence of this required monitoring of the person concerned to try to rebut your claim.

 

[najaB]

At no point was I trying to avoid paying the fare...

Unfortunately, the obligation isn't to pay your fare, but to pay your fare at the first available opportunity - that is why you received the Penalty Fare.

It appears to be correctly issued (if not correctly calculated) so I don't see an appeal being successful.

 

[island]

You were correctly charged a Penalty Fare as you chose not to use the ticketing facilities at the station where you joined the train. Open and shut case. You now need to pay up within the allotted time to avoid the situation escalating further, and purchase your ticket before you travel in future.

 

[furlong]

It appears to be correctly issued (if not correctly calculated) so I don't see an appeal being successful.

On the contrary - if the fare was calculated incorrectly it cannot have been issued correctly and without a lawful basis for the penalty charged an appeal should automatically succeed. But the risk of that approach is that the train company might attempt to take alternative action, fairly or unfairly, which might cost you considerably more time and trouble to defend.

 

[najaB]

On the contrary - if the fare was calculated incorrectly it cannot have been issued correctly and without a lawful basis for the penalty charged an appeal should automatically succeed. But the risk of that approach is that the train company might attempt to take alternative action, fairly or unfairly, which might cost you considerably more time and trouble to defend.

Is a PF for less than the maximum amount unlawful?

 

[furlong]

Is a PF for less than the maximum amount unlawful?

Once the Authorised Collector decides to issue a Penalty Fare, he or she has no discretion over the amount of that Penalty Fare.

Amount of a penalty fare
5. (1)Subject to paragraph (5), the amount of any penalty fare which may be charged under regulation 4 is £10.00(*) or twice the amount of the full single fare applicable in the case, whichever is the greater.
(2)The full single fare applicable in the case of a person charged a penalty fare while travelling by, being present on or leaving a train, having travelled on or having been
present on a preceding train, is the full single fare in respect of a journey from the station (in this regulation referred to as “the first boarding station”), at which that person
boarded the preceding train, to the next station at which the train by which he is travelling or on which he is present is scheduled to stop, or, where that person is leaving the train at a station, that station.

(*) Now £20

(The SRA/Secretary of State was empowered to offer flexibility, a "greatest amount", but opted instead for "one determined in a prescribed manner".)

And to be clear:

(3) Any charge made pursuant to this regulation shall be imposed by an authorised collector in the manner specified in rules.

 

[island]

Whilst there is superficial merit in the discussion of the validity of the Penalty Fare because of its amount, the more serious factor to consider is that disputing and failing to pay it for that reason may well result in the Penalty Fare being cancelled and the matter referred for prosecution, a rather more expensive outcome.

There is no merit whatsoever in arguing about trivialities such as whether the offender, on committing previous offences, was given warnings or other documents.

One path to consider is paying the Penalty Fare, waiting for the six-month statute of limitations on summary offences to expire, and then seeking to claim the amount back through civil process.