Penalty fares are not issued to fare evaders, had the RPI suspected that your son was committing any kind of fraud then a Travel Irregularity Report would have been completed with the facts being reported to FCC prosecutions unit, basically a Penalty Fare is issued to anyone who cannot show a valid ticket and the rules apply to everybody, sometimes people do make genuine mistakes but then thats life. As for having the ticket withdrawn, this is common practice amongst all TOC's, if your son was under 16 then a "Zero fare" ticket may have been issued in order fo him to get home but in these circumstances he was not stranded as he was at a manned station and had you not being able to pick him up then you could have arranged a SILK payment from the station, this is when someone such as yourself rings up a number and pays for a ticket by card the ticket details are then sent to the station where the stranded individual is and the tickets printed and given to the stranded individual then hey presto.

SILK actually stands for Stranded Individual Location Known beofore anyone asks.

You had an Advance ticket and you missed the booked train despite being at the station 30 mins before it departed? Advance tickets are extremely cheap compared to the walk up fare, as pointed out by someone else, if you miss that train through no fault of the railway then your ticket is no longer valid and you must buy another ticket, had you gone to the ticket office before boarding the second train then you may have got a cheaper Off-Peak ticket depending on the time of day but once you board the in valid train without a valid ticket (your ticket wasnt valid for this train) then you will only be entitled to pay for the full Anytime Single fare which is what you have been charged, the Anytime Single from London to Doncaster is £105.00. so you were given an unpaid fare notice for the SINGLE FARE of £105 you havent paid in time so they have added and admin fee of £15.00 which is why they are now asking for £120.00. if you don't pay then they will cancel the UFN and take you to court probably for breach of byelaw 18(1), if they do this then you could face a fine of up to £1000 (but probably around £200 for first offence), plus the fare of £105.00 plus costs incurred by the TOC also a £15.00 victim surcharge. Unfortunately you agreed to the T&C's when you bought the ticket and Advance tickets even say on them "Booked train Only".

Result! glad it worked out.

I can't really add to what i've already said.

At the end of the day you didn't have a valid rail ticket, if there was no punishment then everybody would just buy a railcard ticket with no railcard and the railway would lose 34% of their revenue, you have to stand up to the fact that you did wrong. If you plan on coming back at some point then i strongly suggest that you contact the TOC and explain your situation asap.

It's probably in your interest to offer the TOC the fare plus any admin fees as if you move away ignoring the summons the case will be heard in your absence, now if you are not ever returning to the UK then you MAY get away with it as the courts are unlikely to chase you around the world for the outstanding fine, but it's not impossible. So you could take a risk and ignore it going back to your homeland but that could well be a risky idea, particularly if you plan on returning to the UK at any time.

If you selected "london Liverpool St" or any London terminal it is simply printed on the ticket as "London Terminals", same as if you select any Birmingham station, simply "Birmingham Stns" is printed on the ticket, if everything you have put on here is true then there is obviously a serious fault with the machine at your origin station so you need to report this to the TOC responsible, if it is faulty and can be proved then you MAY be able to get something out of their customer services dept as a goodwill gesture from them (wonder how many others have been caught out if this is the case?), even if this is the case then I would imagine that the PFN would still stand as this is between you and DLR/TFL and Technically you are responible to ensure that your ticket is valid before travelling.

On the ticket machines if you select london zones 1-6 it will print on the ticket "To U1-6" (or it may be U123456) either way it will say the zones on it, London Terminals only appears when for example you select London Liverpool St, or Paddington or any individual London Termini, judging by what you have told us it does appear that you may not have selected on the screen what you thought you selected.

FGW services terminate at Plymouth, Paignton and Taunton also

Think what you want of me, take my advice or don't, see where you end up and I promise I won't say that i told you so. Whether you like to rules or don't like the rules you have been given advice to make the best of your situation and if you don't like the rules then find alternative transport, simples......

This ploy isn't all that uncommon. If the case gets to issue of a Summons and the summons gets returned marked by the Post Office 'not known' or 'address inaccessible' it may well result in the British Transport Police being directed to undertake personal service.

Yep, In fact we had a case like that recently where BTP went a knocking early in the morning.

Oh dear, how naive you are! The only way you will now keep this out of court is to write to the TOC asking to settle for the fare plus admin costs of around £150 at least, the TOC will easily secure a conviction under sec 5.3(a) as you failed to pay for your journey before travelling and after being written to, the buzzer matter doesn't mean a thing, if you ignore the summons the case will be heard in your absence and you will be given a fine of around £400+cost's of around £150+fare of £2 or whatever it was, this means that the next contact you will have will be from the court asking for full payment of all fines and cost's, Magistrates don't take kindly to being ignored!

You were still on the railway and failed to produce a valid ticket on demand, byelaw 18(2) bang to rights i'm afraid. there are no CTA's on the FGW network with the exception of Ealing Broadway, if everyone turned up at station barriers saying that they'd left their ticket on the train then everyone would go free! Sorry if it sounds a bit harsh but in the cold light of day...

this thread has gone quite, any updates?

I'm sorry but by your own admission there is clearly no racist element to this incident and to bring this into the equasion when there is no evidence to back it up could well be deemed as racist on your part in some peoples eyes! It's simple, if the railcard is ilegible then the ticket was not valid!

First of all and to put your mind at rest, I feel it is important to state that penalty fares are a civil matter and not a criminal one, and with that what I may do and please understand that this is my personal opinion and would be something for you to decide. I would consider sending a cheque for the full fare stating that you had intended to pay and you enclose the full fare now. In my opinion again it would be worth doing as I am almost sure that the onus would be on them to prove that you had no intention to pay. At the same time I would put in a request for the copies of the guys notes. Did you admit libility in any of your answers I wonder ?

Spot on, just be honest! as OC says, the jackanory daily mail style letters that sometimes come in give us all a good laugh but you have been straight down the line and honest which will go in your favour.

The "Guys on the ground", such as myself dont have the final decision on whether you are offered a settlement however, it is not unknown for inspectors to put postits on top of their MG11's asking for the matter to be settled out of court, or to request that it goes to court when the passenger is gobby or anything, attitude has a lot to do with what happens and judging by what you have said then you acted reasonably and didn't back chat or get gobby so that could work in your favour. Good luck!

:wink:Calm down! Even if you were convicted it isn't crime of the century! Like others have said, the TOC will write to you, was the inspector in uniform? if so they should have been wearing a name badge with their TOC's logo on it. When they write to you write back or phone if they give you a number, and appologise and offer to pay the fare plus an admin fee, unless you are a serial fare dodger it isn't in the TOC's interest to take you to court if you offer to pay their cost's.

I'm afraid that using a child season ticket at the age of 29 will not be taken lightly by either SWT or the courts, it's this kind of activity that partly contributes to fare rises. I think you need to face up to the fact that you were in the wrong and offer to settle out of court with SWT if they agree to do so, which they don't have to. As for retracting the facts of the original interview, i very much doubt that you could do this without going to court adn even then, there is enough evidence of the offence simply by the fact that you were using the child rate ticket at the age of 29! Not having enough money is not an excuse! If you don't have enough money for Tesco finest steak do you take it anyway and just pay the price of Tesco value steak? I doubt it! It sounds harsh but stop hiding behind excuses and face up to it, all I can say is to either settle out of court OR attend court and use your circumstances as mitigation to get any sentence reduced.

Just to clear this up, are you resident in the UK?

With FGW PF's there are 4 copies, top to customer, 2nd to Reading rev protection, 3rd goes to RPSS and 4th stays in book. as for the comments regarding attitude etc I didn't dispute this nor did i comment on it, a photo of a ticket is not acceptable, whats to say that another person hasnt just sent you a picyure of their season ticket? as for the reciept, whats to say that you didn't buy a season ticket then put it in for a refund? all hypothetical but people do pull these tricks off which is why we very rarely believe a word anyone says. Also, we only have one side of the story regarding what was said/done on the day so i only chose to comment on the facts of the matter which are that you failed to produce a valid ticket when asked, the PF was correctly issued and you will more than likely succeed in your appeal due to the safeguards built into the system to allow for genuine mistakes.

Basically the PF was correctly issued as you failed to show a valid ticket on demand, if you hold a season then you can appeal and send a copy of your season with the appeal and your appeal will be upheld as this can be done twice in a year as someone else pointed out.

Looks like the RPI gave you 2 copies of the PF notice so they will probably regret that haha.

Yes i think that an £80 Pf is a litte extreme here! I generally go by the rule that I don't PF under 14 unless i've caught them a few times! usually name and address and ask prosecutions to write a letter to the parent!

the terms of your railcard clearly state that you must carry the railcard, your debit card is obviously not authorised for off-line transactions therefore there is no fault with the machine (more than likely) and if this is the case then you did not offer an acceptable means of payment, I recently observed a case in court that was similar and the defendent actually attended court attempting to use the off-line card scenario as a defence, the Magistrate agreed with the prosecution that it was not the fault of the railway that the defendent didn't have a card that would work off-line.