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Court Summons for apparently unpaid fare! (they did not recieve) ahhhhhh :(
I have recently recieved a court summons because the first company which I sent a letter and cheque to never recieved it.
The first letter here is to the company I sent a cheque to. The other 2 are after I recieved a shock letter for court summons.
What are my chances of defending this in court?
Also, do I still have a chance of settling this administrately (how?) as my court date is 26th March?
PLEASE HELP, I AM VERY STRESSED OUT, this will ruin my life if I get a criminal record.
1.
IRCA
Dear Sir/Madam
I am writing to explain that I have only just received three letters from yourselves delivered from my old address. I have noticed that there has been a number of charges & administration fees added to the fare which I simply do not have enough money to pay as I am currently severely in debt. I am really sorry for the delay it has taken, if I could have got in touch much earlier I would have.
On the day of the unpaid fare I did explain that I had the money in euros as I had just arrived off the last minute booked plane and did not have the chance to exchange my money at that time. I am sure this was noted at the time by the train inspector who understandably could not accept the euros.
Once again I am really sorry for the delay and I wonder if it’s possible for you to accept the original fare plus some expenses owing to my circumstances. I enclose a cheque for £67.50 and hope this will bring an end to the matter.
2.
Transport Investigation Ltd 1 Station Approach
Dear Elaine Ashby
We spoke on the ‘phone briefly, I have today received a court summons letter, which came as a great shock to me as I had already sent a letter on the 22nd Jan 2010 explaining my change of address and included a cheque of £67.50 to settle the matter.
I have included the original letter I sent plus the cheque number 103654 which my grandma had signed. If possible, please could you have a second check through all my files? Please also find the letter and new cheque from my Grandma further explaining what has happened.
I also wish to settle this matter administratively.
3.
Dear Elaine Ashby
I wish to settle this matter administratively before my court date on the 26th March which I am able to pay right away.
The reason I ask for this is because I sent a letter on the 22 Jan explaining that I have changed my address and just received the letters in January, so I immediately sent a cheque with the letter which my nan wrote out and watched me post with her own eyes. To further explain I am pretty sure it was noted on the day of the unpaid fare that I had the money in euros as I had just caught a last minute flight to Bristol which I have proof of. She couldn’t settle for any amount of euros and I couldn’t even give the address I am living at now (102 Meadway) as my name was still obviously registered as 103 Banks Lane which I tried to explain.
Please help me settle this administrately as I do not want this ruining my life as regards to applying for jobs etc.
I must also add that I am sorry for the amount of stress this has caused me and you.
Re: Court Summons for apparently unpaid fare! (they did not recieve) ahhhhhh :(
Have you checked that the cheque was in fact never cashed? You'd be surprised how many people get chased for debts they don't actually owe... First thing to do is to go to your bank and ask them to check. IF the cheque had been cashed after all, that would of course be an absolute defence, and you'd have to get a copy of the cheque from your bank to present to the court.
If the cheque hasn't in fact been cashed, then when you go to court, present the copies of letters, cheque stub etc... and ppoint out that as far as you are concerned, the matter was settled a long time ago. Say that you accept now that the cheque was never cashed, but you had no way of knowing this, and that whilst you're happy to pay the fine original amount, you feel that they should bear the cost of the summons, additional fees etc, since you can hardly be blamed for their failure to present the cheque and as far as you or they know, it MAY have got lost in the post, but it's just as likely, if not more so that THEY lost it within their admin dept, and why should you be penalised for that? They assert you never paid, you assert you did but they faild to present the cheque for payment. You have copies of letters showing that you in fact did pay, they can't show anything to prove that they cashed it, so ultimately, why should you bear the brunt of their inefficiency?
And please stop apologising and admitting fault and begging them, as for the stress it has caused them, it hasn't, it's their job. Get some backbone, and put them to proof of every one of their charges, get them to prove that you didn't pay etc... If you don't fight your corner, no-one else will.
Re: Court Summons for apparently unpaid fare! (they did not recieve) ahhhhhh :(
The first thing I would do if I were you is edit your posts above and remove your home address and any personal details such as what appears to be the reference number from the letters.
If you had correspondence from IRCAS, whether you received the letters or not, you would have been handed a payment notice on the train on the day of travel. That would have had all the details on it telling you where to pay or appeal.
From your letters the fact appears to be that you boarded the train without a ticket and without means to pay
The rail companies do not have to send out reminder letters in these cases so the fact that you say you didn't receive reminders doesn't alter the position so far as the prosecution is concerned. The Court are likely to want to know how long since you changed addresses though
You don't say which Bristol station you travelled from nor the time of day. If you had travelled from Bristol Temple Meads during the main part of the day surely you could have gone to the travel centre / booking office to try to change the Euros for a ticket?
In relation to Bookworm's comments about the cheque, yes it may be that IRCAS lost it, that is a possibility and I can understand that they would continue to write for payment, but you could not realistically argue that you would not know it hadn't been cashed because it would appear on your bank statement if it had. Bookworm is quite right though, it is worth checking of course just in case.
Your letters don't have any dates on them so if you have sent two since you received the Summons, have you had any reply to the last one yet?
Re: Court Summons for apparently unpaid fare! (they did not recieve) ahhhhhh :(
Sorry, Old-Codja, but there is clear case law to say that it is NOT the customer's responsability to check his bank statements. To me, it seems incredible that you wouldn't tally up your chequebook and what not, but I know plenty of people who are not as thorough.
Regardless of what led to the event and responsability, if OP made attempts to pay, why should he get penalised because of either a post office or admin error? ;-)
Re: Court Summons for apparently unpaid fare! (they did not recieve) ahhhhhh :(
Originally Posted by Bookworm
Sorry, Old-Codja, but there is clear case law to say that it is NOT the customer's responsability to check his bank statements. To me, it seems incredible that you wouldn't tally up your chequebook and what not, but I know plenty of people who are not as thorough.
Regardless of what led to the event and responsability, if OP made attempts to pay, why should he get penalised because of either a post office or admin error? ;-)
Yes, I agree, and I do suggest that the OP checks their bank statement too as it has happened in the past that a payment might have been wrongly attributed by the collection agencies such as IRCAS or RPSS.
I'm not saying that it has happened here, it is worth checking though because if it can be shown that there is an admin error then there should be no penalty for the OP
Re: Court Summons for apparently unpaid fare! (they did not recieve) ahhhhhh :(
Out of interest, your journey was from Bristol, were you travelling with FGW or Crosscountry? There is reason to my asking this with regards to IRCAS dealing with the matter.
Re: Court Summons for apparently unpaid fare! (they did not recieve) ahhhhhh :(
Originally Posted by danstephen
I travelled with cross country, It was around 8 pm so I could not exchange euros at the ticket office or on the train.
From reading your post again, I suggest that the problem here is that without holding a valid ticket and without having acceptable means to pay, you actually have no right to board a train.
Did you not have a credit or, debit card with you?
Re: Court Summons for apparently unpaid fare! (they did not recieve) ahhhhhh :(
If you travelled from Temple Meads, how did you get TO the train? There's ticket activated barriers you have to pass through to get from the concourse/ticket office/car park/bus stop area to the platforms...
Re: Court Summons for apparently unpaid fare! (they did not recieve) ahhhhhh :(
Let me get this right, 1) you were given a UFN (Unpaid Fare Notice) but didn't pay in the specified time?
2) You have recieved reminders to pay but at a previous address?
IF this is the case then IRCAS or XC would not have accepted your cheque that you sent later on as you had passed the time limit imposed and may well prosecute.
Court Summons for apparently unpaid fare! (they did not recieve) ahhhhhh :(
to Bristol which I have proof of. She couldn’t settle for any amount of euros and I couldn’t even give the address I am living at now (102 Meadway) as my name was still obviously registered as 103 Banks Lane which I tried to explain.
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Originally Posted by Bookworm
