You've already asked this question on at least one other forum dedicated to rail matters. Whilst I acknowledge that some of the responses on there (particularly from staff) were not very helpful, I do believe that you have got the best advice you can get. Without cutting and pasting whole chunks of text, I'll try and summarise how I see it. Unsurprisingly there is no quick way to not pay the £80 and not get a potential criminal record. You have to weigh up the options. Starting with the facts, you did unwittingly walk past the open ticket office to get to the machine which couldn't sell you the ticket you specifically sought. You then proceeded to what we now know was a revenue block at the exit door and admitted not having a ticket. Although you clearly intended to buy one, when you were asked what you would have done if the block hadn't been there you gave an answer which regretably suggested that you would avoid paying the difference between a single and a return fare. At this point I'll refer to the other thread here because some of the information comes from there. Unfortunately ignorance is no defence against these sort of matters, so however unfair it may seem, you have technically committed the offence. Realistically you have three options. Each has a different level of risk and requires a different amount of time, which you clearly value at the moment. You could ignore the matter and return to Brazil. You will be found guilty in your absence which could have major repercussions later on. I definitely would not recommend this option. You could choose to fight the case. This will consume a lot of your time, may require you to return to the UK for a hearing (although it would be scheduled sympathetically with regard to your normal residential situation), and has no guarantee of success. If you failed you would be facing far more than the £80 currently being asked for. You can pay the £80 being asked. This will take very little time and is very reasonable compared to other figures which I'm aware of in other cases to settle out of court. Once paid, you then have two options: Chalk it up to experience and get on with the rest of your visit/life. Fight the situation by complaining. If you still get no joy with Northern customer services you can try to shame them into backtracking with negative publicity in local papers, your MP, radio/tv or national press. This may not work, but having paid the settlement you can choose to stop it taking up any more of your time at any point without any further repercussions. Assuming you are telling the truth, and I have no reason to doubt this at all, then you do have a reasonably strong argument. You remember the ticket office being next to the exit door and the station plan on the National Rail Enquiries site still suggests it is there. You cannot see the new ticket office as you walk into the concourse from the platform, but you can see the machine. You genuinely didn't have any previous opportunity to buy your ticket and had done absolutely nothing wrong until you walked past the new ticket office. As a very infrequent traveller you would have had no idea that what you were doing by asking at the block on the exit was going to give them cause to accuse you of fare evasion. While customer services cannot intervene while the case is being dealt with by the revenue/prosecutions department, once you have paid it is then a matter that they can decide upon. If they agree that it was unfair, perhaps with some external persuasion, they can then refund you and/or compensate you for the stressful situation you find yourself in. I'm not a lawyer and I have no idea how successful an attempt to fight this in court might be. To do so would definitely require the most amount of your time which you have said is precious to you. By fighting after settlement you put yourself in overall control of the time and negate any possibility of serious criminal consequences.

You could send me a reply to a post on the(Link removed-please read site rules). It won't be published if it is obviously a message for me.

First off, it's good news that they aren't prosecuting. I've been involved with a similar case before and although they dropped the prosecution they didn't feel the need to compensate. As to why it happened, I'm hoping that a reply to my FOI request to TfL will throw some light on the matter. You can follow the case at http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/same_station_oyster_continuation. Depending on what they say, you might be able to use their reply as a bargaining tool to get compensation. In the meantime you might like to consider the journey. Is there any way you can delay your re-entry at Marylebone? If what the helpdesk said about Tower Hill is the same here then you just need to leave more than 15 minutes between touch out and touch back in. Alternatively you could try using a different underground station for the return if any others are not too much out of the way.

No! That printout is missing the bit of the journey from Marylebone to Elephant&Castle. I think you are better off sending the printout from your card along with my explanation. You could try one more time to say what The Urbanite suggests above - it might work. Be aware though that individual journey history is only kept for 8 weeks and that time is nearly up.

I think that's a little unfair, The Urbanite. 99% of all helpdesk staff have absolutely no idea what a JSR is. I'm fairly confident that my thorough explanation of his card printout will be enough to convince FCC that he did touch where he should have done.

Hi Danny, Mitcham Eastfields is shown, but only as it's NLC code. I'll describe all the entries relating to that day so you (and they) can be clear what it shows. 11.18 Auto Pre-Pay £10.00 This is a top up. 11:36 5069 - Elephant and Cas No Routing Data £0.00 This is the first stage of your journey where the charge was zeroed by touching in at the other end of the OSI. 12:07 5069 - Marylebone via zone 1 Thru £3.40 This represents the whole journey from Mitcham to Marylebone which is a through NR+TfL journey including zone 1. 12:46 Marylebone - Elephant&C No Routing Data £0.00 This is the first stage of your second journey where the charge was zeroed by touching in at the other end of the OSI. 12:46 Pre-Pay Entry Elephant & Cas £4.60 This is where it goes wrong. This shows you entering the NR station to continue your journey but instead it has started a new journey. As this wasn't finished in time it is left as just the off-peak maximum fare. 14:36 Unstarted - 5383 No Routing Data £4.60 This was when you touched out at Streatham. Because you exceeded the maximum journey time from Elephant this is treated as a new unidentified journey with another off-peak maximum fare. Since you originaly posted this I have discovered something which I think may be at fault with the Oyster system. It looks like you touched back in at Marylebone within a few minutes of touching out at the end of your first journey. That appears to be confusing the system because it thinks you are continuing your first journey. I'm not 100% sure what is happening, but I've raised a FOI request to find out. I've had reports of similar issues occuring at several other stations where the common factor is that they are part of an OSI with another station. Although the RPI on the FCC train saw you as out of the system, had you been able to touch out in the normal way at Mitcham Eastfields then the correct fare would have been charged. Instead your card had 2x£4.60 deducted where it should have been £3.40. Please feel free to copy my explanation directly to FCC.

I believe that TRIM is TfL's internal system for tracking Oyster useage. I'm not surprised that you have had difficulty getting it because I had the same issue when helping another person last year. If the journey report is like a statement detailing your journeys over the last 8 weeks then that isn't the report that Urbanite is talking about. However, it might be enough anyway. In fact the printout from Wimbledon that you scanned last night tells me that you did touch in at Elephant and Castle NR, so you've probably got enough.

Most journeys show this. All it means is that there is only one route between the two stations. When there is more than one (ie alternate fares) it says which one was used.

I don't know how many readers there are but it doesn't matter which one you use, no. The only different sort are the ones attached to a ticket machine used for topping up. If it's gates then you must touch on a reader with an orange light and not one with a red light. This corresponds to the way the gate is set up (either entry or exit) and applies even if it is locked open. Platform validators like at Elephant and Castle NR handle both entry and exit so it doesn't matter.

OK, sorry I'd been confusing your story with another where the PF had been paid. Someone touched your card out at Streatham at what looks like 14.28. Because this was over the maximum journey time from your original touch in at Marylebone it was treated as a new unstarted journey. This took your balance below zero which is why the gate didn't open. When using PAYG you get a maximum fare deducted on entry. This is currently £4.60 off-peak at 99% of stations. When you touch out the deduction is adjusted to the correct fare, usually by crediting back an amount. If you touch in after an OSI the system re-deducts up to the maximum fare and then recalculates the correct overall fare when you touch out again. On your statement the 12:48 line is a touch in because it says Pre Pay Entry at Elephant & Castle. The 14:28 line is a touch out at Streatham (5383) with a missing start location. Had you touched out at Mitcham Eastfileds within the maximum journey time those two lines would have been replaced with something like Marylebone - 5069 via zone 1 thru £3.40.

So, just to clarify. After you had finished with BTP at Streatham, did you touch out or did they do it for you? That had actually blocked your card, although all that was needed was a topup to clear the £1.20 deficit. From what I can see you had done nothing wrong. I don't know why the Movie reader didn't see you as in the system. You should get a refund from TfL to your card for £5.80 and FCC should refund the penalty fare. I also think you are due some compensation for unwarranted detention and subsequent stress.

That scan is very interesting. The fare for the journey to Marylebone is right and the entries on that printout agree with what I would expect to see. Coming the other way it has zeroed the fare for Marylebone to Elephant & Castle because you have used the OSI to extend the journey into the NR station. The time for that first part of the journey appears to end at 12:46. The next entry looks like it is timed at 12:45. Can you confirm that as it's not 100% clear? If it is then it looks like this might have confused the system, or at least the movie reader. However, if you had touched out then I believe it would have adjusted the deduction to £3.40 again. The next touch is at Streatham, but by then you had exceeded the maximum journey time so it deducted another £4.60. Hope this helps. Mike.

The guy at oyster rail would be me! Did you post as 'John' on my site? If you can also answer my question above about what TfL think you should be being charged and what you are being charged when you make the journey normally, I would be grateful. Even better, can you scan and post the printout from the tube station? Regards Mike.

Hi, Now a recent question on my Oyster site begins to make a lot more sense. If Elephant & Castle NR really is set to act as a continuation exit then it has happened fairly recently because it wasn't listed on the response to a FOI request I made to TfL last year. However, things do change, although I'm struggling to understand quite what issue a continuation exit might solve there. I will attempt to visit Elephant & Castle in the next few days to investigate what is happening there. In the meantime, please could the OP post a bit more detail about their journey, especially how much they've been charged and how much TfL think they ought to have been charged.

I think that the suggestion that this was a Sutton bound service is somewhat disproved by the following snippet from the letter that the OP is planning on sending to FCC.