Ticket not fully valid?

[friday235]

Hi I’ve sort of been in a deep dive of this forum trying to find answers or to reassure myself that everything will be ok
- I’ve found myself in a potentially tough spot and want to get some advice

An incident report was made in mid June (2021). Essentially what happened was I didn’t see the ticket machine at a station i have only recently started using because of a new job, so i purchased one on the train and it wasn’t valid for the whole journey. the first stop wasn’t covered, the ticketing staff issued the report but was still relatively nice to me as he explained the situation

I of course apologised on the spot and offered to buy a new ticket/pay the difference (around £1.50)

Northern got in touch asking for my side of things and I was truthful and offered my sincere apologies and again offered to pay the difference/new ticket or a fine. I responded by email and they got back to me today saying:

‘Thank you for your e-mail. This matter is being assessed and you will receive a letter in the post.
Regards
DRPU Team’

I really want to settle this out of court and I want the whole situation to be over and done with, I’m only 22 and just out of uni I’m worried about the outcome. I’ve not had the nerve to confide in any family or friends about this situation and my anxiety is going through the roof because of it, any advice or help would be greatly appreciated

I just realised I didn’t clarify, I purchased the ticket through the app

 

[WesternLancer]

Hi I’ve sort of been in a deep dive of this forum trying to find answers or to reassure myself that everything will be ok
- I’ve found myself in a potentially tough spot and want to get some advice

An incident report was made in mid June (2021). Essentially what happened was I didn’t see the ticket machine at a station i have only recently started using because of a new job, so i purchased one on the train and it wasn’t valid for the whole journey. the first stop wasn’t covered, the ticketing staff issued the report but was still relatively nice to me as he explained the situation

I of course apologised on the spot and offered to buy a new ticket/pay the difference (around £1.50)

Northern got in touch asking for my side of things and I was truthful and offered my sincere apologies and again offered to pay the difference/new ticket or a fine. I responded by email and they got back to me today saying:

‘Thank you for your e-mail. This matter is being assessed and you will receive a letter in the post.
Regards
DRPU Team’

I really want to settle this out of court and I want the whole situation to be over and done with, I’m only 22 and just out of uni I’m worried about the outcome. I’ve not had the nerve to confide in any family or friends about this situation and my anxiety is going through the roof because of it, any advice or help would be greatly appreciated

I just realised I didn’t clarify, I purchased the ticket through the app

Welcome to the forum. Probably pretty / highly unlikley to go to court.

You may get accused of short faring. It looks like if you used the app you must have made a conscious choice not to select your correct departure station unless an auto locator on your phone defaulted to a different station as you were en route (but the offence is boarding without a ticket so if you had time to use a ticket machine in theory you had time to use the same app to buy a ticket before you got on the train, unless you had no phone charge / reception etc).

As per other threads when you get the letter (assume you gave correct postal address) you will need to respond with apology as you have already given, and ask to pay sum owed for the fare and the costs of their admin etc.

Anyway, Try not to get anxious. You just have to wait, you can get good advice here on what to say in your response when you get the letter from them, so keep an eye on the forum thread and ask for more help and advice as and when you need it.

Thanks for replying!

Yes I gave them all of the correct postal info as I know lying about that would’ve made the situation worse,

I offered to pay both the ticketing staff and northern when I replied by email and would genuinely much prefer to take a financial hit rather than run into any legal trouble. Since they’ve said the matter will be assessed I’ve received an email saying there’s a high amount of refunds on my account too,

Should I just wait and hope for the best? How long on average do they take to get back to people (if you know )

No sure how long Northern tend to take. Could easily be 6 weeks or more I guess.

Ref "refunds on your account" - what does that mean, can you shed more light - is it unused tickets that you have legitimately applied for refunds for, or have you been traveling and then claiming refunds for tickets used (which if so puts things in a very different light), or is it valid 'delay-repay' claims for late trains you have been on?

 

[friday235]

Welcome to the forum. Probably pretty / highly unlikley to go to court.

You may get accused of short faring. It looks like if you used the app you must have made a conscious choice not to select your correct departure station unless an auto locator on your phone defaulted to a different station as you were en route (but the offence is boarding without a ticket so if you had time to use a ticket machine in theory you had time to use the same app to buy a ticket before you got on the train, unless you had no phone charge / reception etc).

As per other threads when you get the letter (assume you gave correct postal address) you will need to respond with apology as you have already given, and ask to pay sum owed for the fare and the costs of their admin etc.

Anyway, Try not to get anxious. You just have to wait, you can get good advice here on what to say in your response when you get the letter from them, so keep an eye on the forum thread and ask for more help and advice as and when you need it.

Thanks for replying!

Yes I gave them all of the correct postal info as I know lying about that would’ve made the situation worse,

I offered to pay both the ticketing staff and northern when I replied by email and would genuinely much prefer to take a financial hit rather than run into any legal trouble. Since they’ve said the matter will be assessed I’ve received an email saying there’s a high amount of refunds on my account too,

Should I just wait and hope for the best? How long on average do they take to get back to people (if you know )

Thanks for replying!

Yes I gave them all of the correct postal info as I know lying about that would’ve made the situation worse,

I offered to pay both the ticketing staff and northern when I replied by email and would genuinely much prefer to take a financial hit rather than run into any legal trouble. Since they’ve said the matter will be assessed I’ve received an email from trainline not northern saying there’s a high amount of refunds on my account too,

this might be something separate though I’m not sure? it feels like they’re building evidence against me i’m not sure i’m just very panicked

Should I just wait and hope for the best? How long on average do they take to get back to people (if you know )

Welcome to the forum. Probably pretty / highly unlikley to go to court.

You may get accused of short faring. It looks like if you used the app you must have made a conscious choice not to select your correct departure station unless an auto locator on your phone defaulted to a different station as you were en route (but the offence is boarding without a ticket so if you had time to use a ticket machine in theory you had time to use the same app to buy a ticket before you got on the train, unless you had no phone charge / reception etc).

As per other threads when you get the letter (assume you gave correct postal address) you will need to respond with apology as you have already given, and ask to pay sum owed for the fare and the costs of their admin etc.

Anyway, Try not to get anxious. You just have to wait, you can get good advice here on what to say in your response when you get the letter from them, so keep an eye on the forum thread and ask for more help and advice as and when you need it.


No sure how long Northern tend to take. Could easily be 6 weeks or more I guess.

Ref "refunds on your account" - what does that mean, can you shed more light - is it unused tickets that you have legitimately applied for refunds for, or have you been traveling and then claiming refunds for tickets used (which if so puts things in a very different light), or is it valid 'delay-repay' claims for late trains you have been on?

Ref 'refund' This is quite a big ask but out of curiosity are you able to explain each scenario please

 

[30907]

Ref 'refund' This is quite a big ask but out of curiosity are you able to explain each scenario please.

AIUI on the App it is possible to buy a ticket and then "cancel" it and get a refund.
That's fine - except that some people cancel the ticket despite using it for travel, which is obviously dishonest (and illegal).

 

[WesternLancer]

Thanks for replying!


Ref 'refund' This is quite a big ask but out of curiosity are you able to explain each scenario please

see post #4 as main risk issue if you have done this - it's clearly fraudulent behaviour and I am sure you can see that - if you have done that or they think you have then they may take the case where they have 'caught you' to court if they think you are a regular offender. Put yourself in their shoes.

Delay -Repay claims - there is evidence people make these claims fraudulently (a massive thread on here about Greater Anglia Railway involving police to investigate this with higher patterns of claims) so if you have done that but not fraudulently, be prepared to provide extra evidence any claims are genuine should they ask

Basically what I mean is if you have been finding ways to evade train fares before, and they can guess or work that out from your ticket and app use patterns of behavior, and they suspect it, well, it obviously increases the chances of them taking you to court, even for the mere £1.50 occasion you have fallen foul of.

I'm taking what you say at face value and this is a one off - but if you want good advice on this forum you may need to be more honest here about what you have and have not done if you have other recent ticket evading activity.

alternatively, if you don not wish to say more, you will get good advice on how to deal with any scenario you are being accused of, but you will need to wait for their letter to see what that accusation is.

I'm not trying to trick you into saying more than you want to, but obv if they know more - and I would think all ticket app activity is accessible by the railway, then you need to prepare for that.

 

[jon0844]

I've seen people state they didn't have time to print the ticket ordered on their phone and ask to be let out at the destination to print it out. I assume if they don't, the ticket can be cancelled without any penalty (or it may even refund automatically after a set period?).

For the last year or so, the likelihood is that this would be allowed as revenue protection was paused, but in the next week or so I expect everything will begin to return to normal and such tricks won't be allowed. No printed ticket = no ticket.

 

[skyhigh]

Since they’ve said the matter will be assessed I’ve received an email saying there’s a high amount of refunds on my account too,

Basically, have you bought a ticket, used it to travel and then pressed a button in the app to apply for a refund? If you have (especially if you've been making a pattern of that behaviour) then they're likely to treat this differently to just a 'one-off' incident.