Will after-the-event e-ticket database checking be a risk to passengers?

[johncrossley]

You may have seen the following update on this thread:

Surprise Debt Recovery and Prosecution Letter

Hello, About 10 minutes ago I received an email from [email protected] telling me attached is a letter for my attention. The letter is a Debt Recovery and Prosecutions Unit letter, which I have attached. The letter says that on the 18th March I was “spoken to by an authorised...

www.railforums.co.uk

and the letter received by the OP and their comments here too.


This is precisely the type of scenario I am concerned about and why I started this thread.

Assuming that the OPs version of events is sound..

1. They traveled with an e-ticket
2. There was a ticket check on board
3. The e-ticket was scanned and that scan was logged. The ticket was checked by a guard rather than an RPI
4. The passenger ends the journey and goes about their day with no knowledge of any issues
5. After the event, the TOC is busy in the background sourcing the passengers details and ticket history by checking the e-ticket’s data and then reverting to the retailer to find out the passenger’s information
6. All the while, the passenger is in blissful ignorance of the letter they are about to receive which makes worrying accusations that they were spoken to by the guard, that they refused to pay the fare, but none of this happened under caution and no BTP or RPI was called.
7. The evidence the train company offers is the scan data of the e-ticket, putting the passenger in a rather weak position because the scan proves it was used at an incorrect time.
8! The NRCOT suggests that this should not be dealt with by any legal action but by regularising the position by charging the difference.

Is no one else worried about this?

I can’t help thinking that if the pax had been travelling with a paper ticket there would have been a very different outcome. Either

- no action or
- ticket retained and a TIR filled in by the guard but crucially the guard will have had to issue a receipt.

We have all probably had occasions where there is a difference of opinion on the validity of our tickets from time to time. These are best resolved at the time.

I am concerned about this case because, possibly, the ticket was valid (if sold with itinerary for that train) and /or the pax was not spoken to and did not refuse to pay the difference

As the pax was not interviewed under caution and we don’t know if there is a viideo recording of the event, and with all the legal power that the railway has, I think this is a disturbing development.

Hopefully there will be a simple, cheap and fair resolution but I would not want to be dealing with this stress.

We don’t of course know at this stage how the original passenger error was highlighted. Perhaps the guard spotted it at the time and reported it, or can the TOC do an interrogation of the e-ticket data ‘show me all railcard discounted e-ticket scans before 10am’

The retailer sold the ticket with a Railcard discount for a train early in the morning. They failed to apply the minimum fare. So surely that has to be honoured.

As for the TOC lying about talking to the passenger, this surely is a criminal offence (slander/libel or similar), and the passenger should call the police.

 

[Watershed]

The retailer sold the ticket with a Railcard discount for a train early in the morning

Do we know this for sure? I don't think the OP in that thread has conclusively answered this question. What they've said leads me to believe they selected a post-10am train, saw that it was still an Anytime ticket, and thought that this meant it was valid before 10am.

Which is a reasonably innocent mistake as these things go, but could still leave them open to accusations under section 5(3)(a) of RoRA given their history of doing so.

I agree entirely with the premise of this thread - train companies haven't started allowing the use of e-tickets purely out of the goodness of their own hearts. There is something in it for them too, namely the fact it is much easier to catch people who have committed irregularities on a repeated basis.

Given the amount of power the railway holds, and the history of many companies abusing or misusing this power, this should be extremely concerning to anyone who cares about having a clean criminal record.

However, I must disagree with this:

As for the TOC lying about talking to the passenger, this surely is a criminal offence (slander/libel or similar), and the passenger should call the police.

Firstly, defamation on its own does not constitute a criminal offence. It is in some other countries, but not in the UK. Therefore there is no point going to the police with a complaint of defamation - they will (rightly, for once) say it is a civil matter with which they cannot assist.

Secondly, defamation is only made out where a defamatory statement is published. This means that it must have been made available to, or heard by, a third party. Therefore it is simply not legally possible for a letter from a TOC to a passenger, which alleges some irregularity, to constitute defamation. The letter would have to be sent to another party for it to even be capable of doing so.

Furthermore, it is a defence to an action for defamation for the defendant to show that the imputation conveyed by the statement complained of is substantially true. Evidently the TOC believe this to be the case here, and so one would assume they would be able to provide some form of evidence of the allegations, if the matter were to proceed to Court. But as discussed above, this is not capable of consisting defamation in any case.

The only offence or cause of action which I could possibly see being made out here would harassment. But even this would be quite tenuous, and there are various defences which would likely to be engaged in this case.

 

[43096]

Do we know this for sure? I don't think the OP in that thread has conclusively answered this question. What they've said leads me to believe they selected a post-10am train, saw that it was still an Anytime ticket, and thought that this meant it was valid before 10am.

Which is a reasonably innocent mistake as these things go, but could still leave them open to accusations under section 5(3)(a) of RoRA given their history of doing so.

I agree entirely with the premise of this thread - train companies haven't started allowing the use of e-tickets purely out of the goodness of their own hearts. There is something in it for them too, namely the fact it is much easier to catch people who have committed irregularities on a repeated basis.

Given the amount of power the railway holds, and the history of many companies abusing or misusing this power, this should be extremely concerning to anyone who cares about having a clean criminal record.

It now needs to be a priority to remove the ability of TOCs to mount criminal prosecutions - there needs to be a separate prosecution body that deals with fare evasion.

 

[Wallsendmag]

You may have seen the following update on this thread:

Surprise Debt Recovery and Prosecution Letter

Hello, About 10 minutes ago I received an email from [email protected] telling me attached is a letter for my attention. The letter is a Debt Recovery and Prosecutions Unit letter, which I have attached. The letter says that on the 18th March I was “spoken to by an authorised...

www.railforums.co.uk

and the letter received by the OP and their comments here too.


This is precisely the type of scenario I am concerned about and why I started this thread.

Assuming that the OPs version of events is sound..

1. They traveled with an e-ticket
2. There was a ticket check on board
3. The e-ticket was scanned and that scan was logged. The ticket was checked by a guard rather than an RPI
4. The passenger ends the journey and goes about their day with no knowledge of any issues
5. After the event, the TOC is busy in the background sourcing the passengers details and ticket history by checking the e-ticket’s data and then reverting to the retailer to find out the passenger’s information
6. All the while, the passenger is in blissful ignorance of the letter they are about to receive which makes worrying accusations that they were spoken to by the guard, that they refused to pay the fare, but none of this happened under caution and no BTP or RPI was called.
7. The evidence the train company offers is the scan data of the e-ticket, putting the passenger in a rather weak position because the scan proves it was used at an incorrect time.
8! The NRCOT suggests that this should not be dealt with by any legal action but by regularising the position by charging the difference.

Is no one else worried about this?

I can’t help thinking that if the pax had been travelling with a paper ticket there would have been a very different outcome. Either

- no action or
- ticket retained and a TIR filled in by the guard but crucially the guard will have had to issue a receipt.

We have all probably had occasions where there is a difference of opinion on the validity of our tickets from time to time. These are best resolved at the time.

I am concerned about this case because, possibly, the ticket was valid (if sold with itinerary for that train) and /or the pax was not spoken to and did not refuse to pay the difference

As the pax was not interviewed under caution and we don’t know if there is a viideo recording of the event, and with all the legal power that the railway has, I think this is a disturbing development.

Hopefully there will be a simple, cheap and fair resolution but I would not want to be dealing with this stress.

We don’t of course know at this stage how the original passenger error was highlighted. Perhaps the guard spotted it at the time and reported it, or can the TOC do an interrogation of the e-ticket data ‘show me all railcard discounted e-ticket scans before 10am’

This seems to me, unless I’m missing something, not to be related to the original thread title. This isn’t someone looking at a scan database and say ey up what’s all this then. This is acting on a report from a guard of a travel irregularity. Just as they would with a CCST. The only difference is that the TIS has made the guard aware that the ticket is invalid.

 

[AlterEgo]

This seems to me, unless I’m missing something, not to be related to the original thread title. This isn’t someone looking at a scan database and say ey up what’s all this then. This is acting on a report from a guard of a travel irregularity. Just as they would with a CCST. The only difference is that the TIS has made the guard aware that the ticket is invalid.

We are hoping that the OP in that thread is truthful (people in this section of the forum frequently - over half the time in fact - conceal the whole truth in order to secure the advice they want to hear).

It seems to me that either the guard has noted the use of the railcard and flagged the ticket for further investigation (essentially doing a TIR without filling one out), or the guard’s line manager has asked them after the fact. Possibly as a result of some analysis of ticket scanning and resolving a training issue (“why did you not sell this passenger an excess?”). The guard has, at some point, claimed the passenger was spoken to and was obstructive.

I feel that the testimony of the guard - however it was gained - is the most important issue in that thread; the TOC are certain the OP was spoken to and indeed say that is what prompted sending the correspondence. E-ticket scanning and checking after the fact is a scary prospect for people trying it on, so I think it is more likely that if Northern had done some sort of speculative fishing on the OP’s part they would actually say so.

 

[bakerstreet]

This seems to me, unless I’m missing something, not to be related to the original thread title.

I started this thread to discuss the prospect of issues arising after travelling, by passengers using e-tickets, which are not known about by the passenger at the time.

In the first example in the thread I quoted someone’s post putting forward the point that this was possible.

In this latest post that’s what’s happened, albeit for a different reason. The passenger (assuming the version is accurate) had no idea until after travelling that there was any issue. The TOC has checked the database for information about the passengers ticket and it’s use contacted them via email. The passenger believes they were not spoken to or made aware of an issue. Worse, the railway is saying they refused request for payment.
I am assuming what the poster has told us, for the purposes of discussion, is accurate.

As I said previously

We don’t of course know at this stage how the original passenger error was highlighted

This isn’t someone looking at a scan database and say ey up what’s all this then. This is acting on a report from a guard of a travel irregularity. Just as they would with a CCST. The only difference is that the TIS has made the guard aware that the ticket is invalid.

But in most cases on the disputes section, unless someone has given incorrect name/address details to an RPI, posters know there is an issue at the time of travelling. In this case, as with the previous suggestion of what could happen, the passenger is not aware of what has happened until a while after the event.

What should happen when a TIR is made about a passenger? In the case of a paper ticket the passenger knows by having the ticket withdrawn and provided with a document for onward travel.

Assuming the OPs testimony is correct should a document be given to the passenger with an e-ticket at the time?

If it didn’t happen in this case, then the guard is putting the passenger at further risk by leaving them to use an invalid ticket for the rest of the journey.

The point is, if I’ve done something wrong, or possibly wrong, I’d rather know at the time and have the opportunity to put it right. I’d rather not receive a confused letter with inaccurate information after the event, where I may have no it confused memory of what happened on that journey and having to clear up the mess afterwards.

If you’re saying there is no greater risk of this happening on an e-ticket then that’s good news.

But I’m quoting stories I see on the forum which I believe raise interesting issues.

 

[AlterEgo]

I agree that one off mundane travel irregularities should be dealt with at the time. This is the fairest and most transparent way of handling disputes, rather than some process away from the passenger.

However the OP in that thread has already been caught out once saying something which isn’t true. Then they have also pushed back against advice that they essentially write back say “no, you, the train company are wrong, I definitely wasn’t stopped or spoken to, so here’s the fare difference and no more, and go away”. They now seem more inclined to want to settle, which is curious.

I urge restraint when treating OP testimonies in the D+P section as canon.

 

[gray1404]

I also noticed that the OP in the said thread refuses to confirm what time train they selected when using trainline. They have been asked multiple times but are yet to confirm whether they selected a train before or after 10 a.m.

This does make me wonder if they knew what they were doing and they select the train after 10 a.m. on purpose