Her card is visa debit. As is mine and yesterday I personally saw a conductor manually enter someones card details when it wouldn't process via C&P. And in the conductors report. He said the card failed due to insufficient funds

Some conductors still swipe cards. I know my card is visa debit I think hers is too. On the FGW site I can only find that they dont accept solo, electron and diners cards but I presume this is for online payments? After a bit of researching and coming from an IT/Retail support background it appears that visa debit don't authorise offline transactions. Thinking about it, I should've known all of this. So basically the transaction was declined on the grounds that the card doesnt process offline trans NOT that there were insufficient funds which is what the conductor assumed. But still the conductors are in consistent as they will still regulary swipe my card? He did not hand her a UFN. FGW have not mentioned the word 'fee' once. Just administration charge. I'll send them a nice letter saying that I've sent them the £5.50 fare and give them a detailed breakdown of what I have found out and say in future she will buy a ticket beforehand or if boarding at the unmanned (no ticket machine) station then she will have appropriate cash

Thanks for the feedback guys! hmmm tricky one. If it had been a penalty fare I would have to raise my hands and just pay it but the fact that they are acting like it is a penalty and demanding the money within 10 days just seems plain rude. I might try pushing it a bit more because let's face it! Even banks don't charge £40 admin fees!

I'll try and keep this brief. My partner catches the train to work. The (home) station is unmanned and has no machine so she has to buy a return when on the train. However on the day in question I dropped her off to work and she had to get the train home. The (work) station is manned and conveniently became a penalty fare zone on the very same day 5th April. The conductor came round and she went to pay for a single. No penalty fare was mentioned and she went to pay the normal fee using her debit card. It was then his machine failed which has happened on a few occasions now and every other conductor will swipe or manually input the card details. This conductor refused to and asked for her name and address and said a bill for the ticket fare would be sent in the post. We received said bill 2 weeks later. Asking for £5.50 (fare) and £40 (Admin Fees) Essentially asking for £40 because the conductor wouldn't swipe/manually enter the card details. I sent them a cheque for the £5.50 and asked them to provide a breakdown of the admin fees. They responded with the standard script about penalty fares and said that the credit card (payment type) had been declined and asked for the remaining £40. I responded again saying there is nothing wrong with her card as she had since used it and the conductor happily entered the card details. I also again asked for a full breakdown of the admin fees and sent the letter by recorded delivery. Today I have received a response. Stating - The credit card was declined and the conductor treated the matter as a travel irregularity and in such cases they charge the ticket fare plus their standard administration fee of £40. However they did state that under these circumstances they are prepared to reduce the fee to £20. Is it worth battling onwards? can they enforce this admin fee as it's not a penalty fare? Many thanks