Penalty fine for no eticket

[poorsoul]

My friend and I are both not from London and we have never taken the trains before. We were under the impression that London and areas are all contactless as most places are.
We were at St pancreas and hopped on a Thameslink train to Letchworth garden city. (We were going to the hitchin lavender fields, I do recommend it!)
We entered from st pancreas with our contactless, at no point from walking there down to platform B northbound we did not see any info that an e-ticket would be needed and contactless would not be accepted.
Only until we got to Letchworth garden city station and we couldn't get through the gate we got fined by the station person working there.
I am super confused on how you expect people to pay a fine when they are barely living just because they have not advertised it properly.
The station person says it happens all the time. Well if it happens all the time surely you can see that there's a problem.
Can I appeal and win?
Any help, clarification and advice would be much appreciated!

Thank you,
T

 

[island]

Please can you upload a copy of the "fine" you received (covering any personal information) as there are a number of things we need to see on it.

 

[poorsoul]

Here's the 'fine'

Please can you upload a copy of the "fine" you received (covering any personal information) as there are a number of things we need to see on it.

 

[WesternLancer]

My friend and I are both not from London and we have never taken the trains before. We were under the impression that London and areas are all contactless as most places are.
We were at St pancreas and hopped on a Thameslink train to Letchworth garden city. (We were going to the hitchin lavender fields, I do recommend it!)
We entered from st pancreas with our contactless, at no point from walking there down to platform B northbound we did not see any info that an e-ticket would be needed and contactless would not be accepted.
Only until we got to Letchworth garden city station and we couldn't get through the gate we got fined by the station person working there.
I am super confused on how you expect people to pay a fine when they are barely living just because they have not advertised it properly.
The station person says it happens all the time. Well if it happens all the time surely you can see that there's a problem.
Can I appeal and win?
Any help, clarification and advice would be much appreciated!

Thank you,
T

Not much help to you now but they do play recorded messages on the trains saying along the lines of "please note contactless and Oyster cards are not valid for use to all stations on the route" or some such wording.

Of course it's one of the sort of many auto announcements that people tune out and don't notice, but it's enough for them to be able to say they warn people...

In fact I find someone has collated these announcements and put them on line (!) - but like I say not much help to you now of course

Thameslink Class 700 - Julie & Matt | UK Rail Announcement Generator

Generate various station and on-train announcements for the UK rail network using raw audio recordings.

railannouncements.co.uk

I think the posters on the stations and trains showing the route plan also have some sort of shading that show the area of validity too - but again you probably would not notice it if you simply assumed you could use contactless to start with.

You have my sympathy!

 

[Energy]

You can only use PAYG/Contactless within the PAYG area, which has recently expanded. Letchworth Garden City is unfortunately not within this area (and is quite far out of London!).

Please note this is a Penalty Fare Notice, these are typically used for innocent mistakes such as this. You won’t face any further prosecution beyond the fine.

 

[The exile]

My friend and I are both not from London and we have never taken the trains before. We were under the impression that London and areas are all contactless as most places are.

Not sure where you get get the impression that “most places” are contactless - most places in the country aren’t. Coming to an area you don’t know and just assuming anything - particularly anything to do with tickets and paying - is hardly sensible.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The station person says it happens all the time. Well if it happens all the time surely you can see that there's a problem.
Can I appeal and win?

The restrictions on Oyster and Contactless are well advertised. The problem is that people in general do not check before they travel.

How much was the Penalty Fare for? I can't see the amount on the photos you have posted.

 

[furlong]

You should put in an appeal.

We need to see more of the notice. Where's the bit that says how much it was for? Please show us the complete notice, only covering up names, address and reference numbers. Sometimes there are mistakes in the long paragraphs of text that can provide grounds for appeal.

You can also appeal on the grounds that the signage at St. Pancras doesn't comply with the regulations on two grounds: the words on the notices are wrong and they are not displayed in all the places that the regulations require.

The theory of Penalty Fares is that you would have seen notices at St Pancras that meant there was no way you could have boarded the train without knowing what you were doing could be subject to a penalty. Unfortunately for you, the train company doesn't take its side of the bargain to do that very seriously.

They don't like upholding appeals but sometimes people get lucky so there's nothing to lose by trying.

 

[ikcdab]

I think you need to check first how much you actually did pay. If you tapped in but not out, I guess some default fare would have been applied. Compare that to what you should have paid. If you still owe them money then that will influence how you word your appeal. I think there is only the slimmest chance of an appeal succeeding but you might as well try. Don't forget that an appeal can only succeed normally if there was a failure of process. Inadequate signs being one. You won't succeed just because you made a mistake in not checking the restrictions.

 

[swt_passenger]

I think you need to check first how much you actually did pay. If you tapped in but not out, I guess some default fare would have been applied. Compare that to what you should have paid.

I very much doubt that will be of any interest to GTR, there’ll be no mechanism for the TOC to get that money. If GTR end up charging the full fare for St Pancras to Letchworth then it might be possible to use that fact to ask for the incomplete journey to be refunded, but I don’t think it would be straightforward.