Unpaid fare notice from IRCAS - but wrong surname?

[notatrainfan]

Hi guys,

Would appreciate some suggestions here. Got a fine from IRCAS for not having a railcard (lost wallet), and got a fine for £95.

The guy on the train would not let me get an anytime ticket on the train to the next stop, get off and buy a standard ticket from thereon, and complete my journey. Instead, he said I could only buy an anytime ticket for the whole journey, so effectively I paid a lot more than I could have been able to.

I appealed this online and got denied (saw that coming a mile off), so now have to pay the fine.

However, the surname on the fine is slightly different to my actual surname by a few letters.

Would I be able to just leave this fine an forget about it? I'm moving out of this rented property in a couple of months anyway, but I understand debt isn't attached to a property.

Could they chase me for the debt, or would it affect my record, if the surname on the fine does not match my actual surname?

I realize this was entirely my fault, but the fact the guy was just such a jobber to both me and other passengers, I just really don't want to pay it.

Thanks in advance.

 

[yorkie]

Hi guys,

Would appreciate some suggestions here. Got a fine from IRCAS for not having a railcard (lost wallet), and got a fine for £95.

Only a court can issue a fine, you do not want to let it get that far! This will be an unpaid fare.

The guy on the train would not let me get an anytime ticket on the train to the next stop, get off and buy a standard ticket from thereon, and complete my journey. Instead, he said I could only buy an anytime ticket for the whole journey, so effectively I paid a lot more than I could have been able to.

That does not sound right to me.

I appealed this online and got denied (saw that coming a mile off), so now have to pay the fine.

However, the surname on the fine is slightly different to my actual surname by a few letters.

Would I be able to just leave this fine an forget about it? I'm moving out of this rented property in a couple of months anyway, but I understand debt isn't attached to a property.

Could they chase me for the debt, or would it affect my record, if the surname on the fine does not match my actual surname?

I realize this was entirely my fault, but the fact the guy was just such a jobber to both me and other passengers, I just really don't want to pay it.

Thanks in advance.

If you do not pay the unpaid fare, then it is likely that this case could change from a civil matter of an unpaid debt to a criminal matter of not paying the fare. You don't want that to happen! If found guilty, a fine would be considerably higher than the cost of the unpaid fare. You may want to do a search and read previous threads on this topic.

 

[notatrainfan]

Thanks for your response Yorkie, I thought that might be the case. Might be worth just paying the unpaid fare notice rather suffer future issues.

 

[island]

Whatever you do, don't ignore it, because it's unlikely to go away.

IRCAS does not generally deal sympathetically with appeals; it has no motivation to. Assuming you only discovered you lost your railcard after boarding, I should write to the customer service department of the train operating company involved and explain what you said to us, offering to pay the Anytime fare from your origin to the stop after you were challenged, plus the cheapest available fare onward.

If, on the other hand, you knew you lost your railcard before boarding, then I should pay the £95 in a hurry, because you could have been prosecuted for intentionally avoiding payment of the proper fare. It will come out at some point!

 

[michael769]

However, the surname on the fine is slightly different to my actual surname by a few letters.

Would I be able to just leave this fine an forget about it? I'm moving out of this rented property in a couple of months anyway, but I understand debt isn't attached to a property.

Could they chase me for the debt, or would it affect my record, if the surname on the fine does not match my actual surname?

The surname error won't help. Such errors are common-place and debt collection agencies are experts at coping with such issues and successfully tracing the individual - so move or not this will not just go away.

Likewise if it went to court, the court will simply apply something known as the "slip rule" to allow the error to be corrected. The claims you sometimes see in the press of minor typos being enough to cause cases to "collapse" are very wide of the mark.

Could they chase me for the debt, or would it affect my record, if the surname on the fine does not match my actual surname?

As this debt is not part of a Consumer Credit Agreement issued by a OFT licensed provider it cannot negatively effect your credit rating unless they take the matter to County Court, win and you fail to pay any award made by the court within 30 days. Again the surname issue is not relevant as it will be corrected by that time. But as others have said you want to avoid it going that far - letting it go to court just risks you ending up having to pay substantially more than the bill your currently face.

 

[Ferret]

The surname error won't help. Such errors are common-place and debt collection agencies are experts at coping with such issues and successfully tracing the individual - so move or not this will not just go away.

Likewise if it went to court, the court will simply apply something known as the "slip rule" to allow the error to be corrected. The claims you sometimes see in the press of minor typos being enough to cause cases to "collapse" are very wide of the mark.



As this debt is not part of a Consumer Credit Agreement issued by a OFT licensed provider it cannot negatively effect your credit rating unless they take the matter to County Court, win and you fail to pay any award made by the court within 30 days. Again the surname issue is not relevant as it will be corrected by that time. But as others have said you want to avoid it going that far - letting it go to court just risks you ending up having to pay substantially more than the bill your currently face.

I completely agree with this, especially now the OP has been in contact to attempt to contest it. I'd say the OP should pay up now and put it down to experience rather than end up in Court.

 

[jon0844]

Yes the credit reference agencies do work hard to tie people up from multiple addresses, aliases etc.

If you did chance it, you might be fine for ages - and then one day you apply for a credit card or loan and it gets refused. When you go to check why, you'll see that your record is shot because your old debts come back to haunt you.

I'd pay up. If you lost your railcard, it's unfortunate but not the fault of the railway. However, I would question why you weren't allowed to alight at the next stop and buy a new ticket (or even get a replacement/new railcard) instead of being charged for where you were going.

 

[notatrainfan]

Thanks for your help all. I've paid it in full as suggested.

Will teach me to look after my wallet in the future...

 

[Brucey]

Will teach me to look after my wallet in the future...

Brucey's Top Tip for today is to check you have your railcard before boarding the train (if not, go to the ticket office).

If you ask at a station for a railcard wallet, you can keep the tickets and railcards together, therefore you'll never have one without the other!

 

[Failed Unit]

Now we have the increase of on-line booking is the instances of no railcard increasing? I suspect it is, I remember when I was young enough to use one and most booking was in person I needed to have 2x railcards for 2 tickets, even if the other traveller wasn't with my while I was purchasing the ticket.

 

[andykn]

Now we have the increase of on-line booking is the instances of no railcard increasing? I suspect it is, I remember when I was young enough to use one and most booking was in person I needed to have 2x railcards for 2 tickets, even if the other traveller wasn't with my while I was purchasing the ticket.

I've noticed that I'm asked for my Network Railcard now whereas I never was before. Just as well, all the ink wiped off a previous one, fortunately I'd kept the stamped form.

 

[bb21]

Now we have the increase of on-line booking is the instances of no railcard increasing? I suspect it is, I remember when I was young enough to use one and most booking was in person I needed to have 2x railcards for 2 tickets, even if the other traveller wasn't with my while I was purchasing the ticket.

That is hardly an effective measure as you can just go and purchase the same ticket five minutes later if you want to use the same railcard.

 

[Ferret]

Now we have the increase of on-line booking is the instances of no railcard increasing? I suspect it is, I remember when I was young enough to use one and most booking was in person I needed to have 2x railcards for 2 tickets, even if the other traveller wasn't with my while I was purchasing the ticket.

It does seem to be on the increase. Laughably, I even had one individual openly admit that she'd selected the railcard discount online just to make the ticket cheaper. Think she thought she was just getting charged an excess fare or a UFN. WRONG!

 

[Failed Unit]

That is hardly an effective measure as you can just go and purchase the same ticket five minutes later if you want to use the same railcard.

Not in Lincolnshire you couldnt - the booking off staff would remember you.

I must admit I have nearly done it myself with the family railcard, not it is kept in the same area as the credit card.

I have had the same issue with the faded ticket, my gold card was nearly illegible but it still opened the barriers, a freindly RPI directed me to the booking office to get it sorted.