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Text 60006 to report a fare dodger.

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pemma

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I've noticed this on the NXEA website:

National Express is committed to ensuring all customers have paid the fare for the journey they are making. If you believe a fellow customer is deliberately avoiding payment of their fare you can text the details to 60006. Please start your message with the word dodger and provide us with details of the train you are travelling on, where you are travelling from and destination, the carriage and a few details of what the person looks like. For example: 1600 London - Norwich Coach J Tall person. All information will be treated in the strictest confidence.

http://www.nationalexpresseastanglia.com/tickets-fares/ticket-information/penalty-fares--1
 
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swadbus

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I've noticed this on the NXEA website:

National Express is committed to ensuring all customers have paid the fare for the journey they are making. If you believe a fellow customer is deliberately avoiding payment of their fare you can text the details to 60006. Please start your message with the word dodger and provide us with details of the train you are travelling on, where you are travelling from and destination, the carriage and a few details of what the person looks like. For example: 1600 London - Norwich Coach J Tall person. All information will be treated in the strictest confidence.

http://www.nationalexpresseastanglia.com/tickets-fares/ticket-information/penalty-fares--1

You mean for example:

1549 Sheringham - Norwich, 1st class, clued up rail enthusiast in 1st class section with standard class ticket, although service is not timetabled as having 1st class accommodation.

;)
 

SS4

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They won't get much take up while they don't state how much it costs. IMO they'd be better off with an 07XXX number even if it's a machine since I have no idea if these short numbers form part of my text allowance
 

sutty

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Excellent. I need something like this for London Midland. A co-worker persistently skips buying a ticket, despite ample time at the beginning of his journey and when he does get asked he just gets sold a ticket on the train. I shell out £100+ a month on my pass and some people do it for free :/
 

Mike395

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Agreed - this is an idea that I think other TOCs (certainly all commuter TOCs) need to be made aware of, and implement. :)
 

Tomonthetrain

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You mean for example:

1549 Sheringham - Norwich, 1st class, clued up rail enthusiast in 1st class section with standard class ticket, although service is not timetabled as having 1st class accommodation.

;)

Where's the like button?! :)
 

Old Timer

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Excellent. I need something like this for London Midland. A co-worker persistently skips buying a ticket, despite ample time at the beginning of his journey and when he does get asked he just gets sold a ticket on the train. I shell out £100+ a month on my pass and some people do it for free :/
email LM customer services with journey details, train times, and a description of the person, or telephone the details to 0121 634 2040
 

mallard

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Ah yes, turning passengers against each other. Classic "divide and conquer" tactics from a TOC that, since it knows it's on the way out, has absolutely no incentive to have good customer relations.
 

Bungle73

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Not that I approve of fare dodging, but I'm not sure this is a good thing. It will encourage certain people to create hassle for innocents because they have a grudge against them, or simply for a laugh.
 

Squaddie

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It's not the job of passengers to report other passengers for (suspected) non-payment of fares. If the TOCs don't have enough staff to properly check and sell tickets then they deserve to lose the income.
 

ralphchadkirk

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It's not my job to report a (suspected) burglary at someone else's house. If they don't have proper locks or someone in then they deserve to lose whatever was nicked.


Silly, no?
 

MikeWh

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Not that I approve of fare dodging, but I'm not sure this is a good thing. It will encourage certain people to create hassle for innocents because they have a grudge against them, or simply for a laugh.

How much hassle is it to get out your perfectly valid ticket and show it? Surely you then have the last laugh as the miscreant's face turns a rapid shade of red? I'm all for this. If I have to buy tickets for every journey then why shouldn't everyone else?
 

Cherry_Picker

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Not that I approve of fare dodging, but I'm not sure this is a good thing. It will encourage certain people to create hassle for innocents because they have a grudge against them, or simply for a laugh.

Surely the guard will just ask them to produce a ticket, or (more likely if it is a malicious report) remember that he/she had already checked their valid ticket?
 

mallard

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How much hassle is it to get out your perfectly valid ticket and show it? Surely you then have the last laugh as the miscreant's face turns a rapid shade of red? I'm all for this. If I have to buy tickets for every journey then why shouldn't everyone else?

I don't support fare dodging either, but having passengers report one another is just going to breed suspicion and distrust, not to mention those that will abuse it.

How long until someone "reports" a passenger travelling on a Off-Peak return between Sawbridgeworth and Darsham via a non-London route (random example, this ticket is only time restricted on trains going to London) at "peak" times? Or someone who gets off at Severn Sisters on a "London Terminals" ticket? Or any of the other myriad things that a member of the general public might assume is "fare dodging", but is in fact permitted?

Passengers should be uniting to get the best possible deal from their TOC, fighting their quest to offer the poorest service they can get away with, not acting as unpaid, untrained (although they'd probably be better at it than the "trained" professionals) revenue protection.
 

ChrisTheRef

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I don't support fare dodging either, but having passengers report one another is just going to breed suspicion and distrust, not to mention those that will abuse it.

How long until someone "reports" a passenger travelling on a Off-Peak return between Sawbridgeworth and Darsham via a non-London route (random example, this ticket is only time restricted on trains going to London) at "peak" times? Or someone who gets off at Severn Sisters on a "London Terminals" ticket? Or any of the other myriad things that a member of the general public might assume is "fare dodging", but is in fact permitted?

Passengers should be uniting to get the best possible deal from their TOC, fighting their quest to offer the poorest service they can get away with, not acting as unpaid, untrained (although they'd probably be better at it than the "trained" professionals) revenue protection.

How is the reporting passenger aware of the ticket held by the 'fare dodger'.

It doesn't ask people to start checking each other's tickets, it just encourages people to draw the TOC's attention to someone hiding in the toilet everytime the conductor comes through.

It can be abused, like most things, but in general it's a good idea.
 

jon0844

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It has also been operating for years so isn't a last ditch attempt to make money.
 

mallard

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How is the reporting passenger aware of the ticket held by the 'fare dodger'.

By seeing it? Many passengers (myself included) tend to put their tickets on the table in front of them. I know it's very un-British, but sometime passengers even talk to each other. Just think what might happen when a passenger mentions that he's saved money by buying an over-distance ticket or splitting!

Of course, TOCs don't want passengers to talk to one another. It breeds unity, camaraderie, friendship and increases the chance of organised resistance against their money-grabbing schemes.

It doesn't ask people to start checking each other's tickets, it just encourages people to draw the TOC's attention to someone hiding in the toilet everytime the conductor comes through.

It can be abused, like most things, but in general it's a good idea.

It's not a passenger's responsibility to do revenue protection for the TOC. If somebody on my train thinks they can get away without paying for a ticket, it's no business of mine. If the TOC catches them; good, if not; I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

TOCs exist to divert as much money as possible from passengers and taxpayers to the pockets of shareholders, by whatever means they can (both inside and outside the "rules"). I for one am not going to help them do that.
 

mallard

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Maybe your pension fund relies on their profits?

I work in non-unionised private-sector employment. "Pension funds" are a joke. Of course, the worst joke is how unions seem to expect our support for their campaigns to improve pay and benefits at our expense! Anyway, that's rather off-topic...
 

sheff1

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I've noticed this on the NXEA website:

National Express is committed to ensuring all customers have paid the fare for the journey they are making.

.. and we do this by making up a random fare for first class when no actual fare exists.
 

AlterEgo

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Of course, TOCs don't want passengers to talk to one another. It breeds unity, camaraderie, friendship and increases the chance of organised resistance against their money-grabbing schemes.

You know, I was scrolling this thread skim-reading, and I happened to catch this paragraph. Without even looking, I knew who'd written it. I don't even know if it's a tongue-in-cheek comment or a genuine delusion.
 

davo882000

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12 Sep 2011
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I've noticed this on the NXEA website:

National Express is committed to ensuring all customers have paid the fare for the journey they are making. If you believe a fellow customer is deliberately avoiding payment of their fare you can text the details to 60006. Please start your message with the word dodger and provide us with details of the train you are travelling on, where you are travelling from and destination, the carriage and a few details of what the person looks like. For example: 1600 London - Norwich Coach J Tall person. All information will be treated in the strictest confidence.

http://www.nationalexpresseastanglia.com/tickets-fares/ticket-information/penalty-fares--1

You mean for example:

1549 Sheringham - Norwich, 1st class, clued up rail enthusiast in 1st class section with standard class ticket, although service is not timetabled as having 1st class accommodation.

;)
t

Does this mean you can sit there with a standard ticket?
 

neilmc

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I'm not quite au fait with all the new technology out today but why would Sir Ralph Wedgwood be getting involved with fare dodging?
 

BestWestern

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I have to say I'm not convinced by this - and I say that speaking as a Guard. I have images of it appealing greatly to certain self-important busy body types who will go firing off texts every time a group of youths boards the train, or somebody happens to be genuinely asleep or in the toilet when the Guard comes though.

It's also totally unworkable. Somebody 'texts' NXEA. What do they do with the info? Is it passed immediately to the Guard so he can go running to the appropriate coach and rugby tackle anybody matching a vague description? More likely it is correlated and analysed by the revenue team, who presumably then go looking for certain individuals who repeatedly crop up. This means that that people are only likely to be targeted if they are a regular feature amongst the ocean of texts. Which means that they have to be reported multiple times. If they are reported by different people, their descriptions will differ sufficiently to make it very difficult to identify a 'normal' looking person on a busy train. Or we'll have the same reporters going on a mission looking for their 'dodger' each time they board the train, phones in hands ready to send that message...

I really don't like the idea of getting punters to spy on each other. To be brutally frank, it's none of their business. It's up to the TOC to put measures in place to compel it's passengers to pay their fares, it's not up to the passengers to police each other.
 

BigVern

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Surely the guard will just ask them to produce a ticket, or (more likely if it is a malicious report) remember that he/she had already checked their valid ticket?

Surely the guard will (grudgingly) leave their refuge at the rear of the train, attempt to locate the target, then, if their machine is working, sell them a ticket.
And tomorrow we are back where we started.

Also I'm uncomfortable with the 'All information will be treated in the strictest confidence' bit - sorry.
 

OMGitsDAVE

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I don't see why so many people are against this... it's helping you have a say, heck - you're all complaining that the company is actually doing something about fare evasion, and letting you become involved...

It's better than sitting back knowing someone's committing an offence, and not being able to do anything.
 
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