In September 2012 my 20 year old daughter stopped using her Santander account on a regular basis, as, after a short period of self-employment, her circumstances had changed and she was now living on a budget, paying cash for everything. She had two months’ of direct debits still to come out of the Santander account and a £100 payment (loan repayment from a friend) that was due to go into the account would have covered that, so she assumed it was OK simply to leave her account unmonitored as she thought all would be covered. She’s temporarily living away from home, so didn’t see her bank statements for September through to the beginning of January until yesterday, when a letter arrived here (which I opened at her request) telling her she was overdrawn, at which stage she asked me to open her bank statements and send her copies. That was when she discovered that the money she thought had been paid into her account with Santander in early September hadn’t been paid in (the fault of person meant to be paying that £100 in, not the bank’s). Consequently, on September 24th, when the bank tried to pay a £17.75 Direct Debit from her account, contrary to what she believed at the time, there was only 16p in her account, so they returned the direct debit. On October 24th Santander applied a £25 fine to her account for bouncing that direct debit in September. This put her in the position of having a £24.84 unauthorised overdraft. On October 24th Santander tried to pay the second (and final) direct debit that was due. This also bounced, because, not realizing there was a problem, my daughter had not put any money into her account, which was already £24.84 overdrawn owing to the fine Santander imposed from September. The situation then began to spiral out of control. Santander didn’t notify her that she had gone into overdraft, she (believing there were sufficient funds in an account she was no longer regularly using) hadn’t looked at her bank statements and didn’t know this was happening, so wasn’t able to redress the situation. On 24th November Santander added a further £75 fine to her account - this was a £50 fee for being overdrawn at the end of October and a £25 fee for them bouncing the direct debit in October. This took her £99.84 overdrawn – entirely in Santander bank charges. Once again, nobody notified her about this. On December 26th Santander fined her a further £100 for still having an unauthorised overdraft in November. This made her £199.84 overdrawn in total. Until the letter arrived yesterday telling her about the overdraft, she had been sent no notification, even though the bank had her email address and mobile phone number and have communicated with her in that way in the past. The letter was dated January 2nd, but arrived on January 9th, and it was the first time she had been told about the overdraft, even though it began in October. Her end of December bank statement shows that the bank had fined her a further £100 on top of that, for still being overdrawn in December, and they propose to take that money on January 24th. And at the time she received the letter they were fining her at £5 a day for still being overdrawn. To stop them running up even more charges against her, I yesterday lent her £355, which has gone instantly into her account and should, I believe, be enough to cover the £199.84 overdraft and leave enough money in there to cover the overdraft fee of £100 that they plan to apply on January 24th and the fine they will apply on February 24th (this will be the £5 a day for the unauthorised overdraft from January 2-9, so I guess £35). It wasn't easy for me to come up with the money, but she wasn't in a position to do so, and I couldn't bear the thought of them racking up yet more charges. Of course she should have checked her bank statements, but she genuinely believed that she’d been paid the £100 the so-called friend (who is now, unsurprisingly, no longer contactable) owed her, and that she’d left the account with sufficient funds to cover the two direct debits. £335 seems an obscene price to pay for this. I have only ever once myself gone into an unauthorized overdraft situation, and the bank wrote to me that same week to alert me. I simply don’t understand why they didn’t do so in my daughter’s case. All her bank-related post comes to our house, so I would know if something had arrived. She is going to write to ask that they cancel these charges – do you think she has a hope?

Thank you Old-CodJA - my daughter wrote to First Capital Connect as you suggested and we have today received a letter from them accepting the offer of £100 plus the fare. So she now owes me £103.40 - and will be paying it off in hard labour over the summer.

Thank you - we will try this.

One other thing - is anyone able to suggest suitable wording we could use in our second letter to FCC? The lawyer said to stress that there was no dishonest intent whatsover. Should we suggest an amount for their admin costs or let them (hopefully) come back with a cost?

I should add that my daughter had no idea that what she was doing could be interpreted as a criminal act. She always intended to pay and she did have sufficient credit to cover the original cost, had she taken the time to swipe at the start of the journey. Her error - and it was an error, not an intent to fare dodge - was not to take those few seconds to swipe. She expects to pay for that, but with a criminal record?

In my daughter's case, it would appear that she simply ran onto the train and (I assume) past any Oyster validators as she was in a huge rush and genuinely thought she could simply pay at the other end. She was prepared to pay the maximum Oyster cost if necessary, and only discovered when she tried to swipe the card at Kings Cross that there wasn't enough money on it. That's when she went to the ticket office and asked if she could top up her card and pay then. When they refused that she tried to pay at the ticket office with Visa Electron (her only bank card). Again this was turned down as they can't take them. They then suggested she get cash from the cash machine, which she did, but then they refused to accept it. As Hornsey is one of the stations from which penalty fares apply, I don't understand why they didn't just make her stump up the penalty fare. Had she been skulking around the station trying to find a way out without paying I would completely understand their attitude, but when somebody immediately goes to the ticket office, explains what's happened and asks to pay, it sees odd. We will certainly offer to settle fare and reasonable admin costs and see where we get. Have been quoted £950 for a lawyer to take this up, so would rather avoid that if necessary!

Thank you, Stigy. You're right - they are guards, of course, not inspectors. I've seen them myself - in fact, have queued for tickets at Ipswich station, and watched other people walk by me straight on to the train and then buy their ticket from the guard!

Thank you. Knowing how hair-brained my daughter can be, I suspect she never thought about what would happen if there were no staff at the other end. Though, travelling to Kings Cross, she would probably be safe to assume that there would be! She's a very honest girl, if rather disorganised, and tends to fall apart in situations of conflict, so I suspect she froze once it became clear that what seemed to her to be a perfectly reasonable situation - i.e. trying to pay as soon as she got off the train - was becoming something rather trickier. Ironically, we live a couple of hundred miles away from London, and she has many times seen people on the train to our home town from London buying their tickets on board from inspectors who don't bat an eyelid.

My 18 year old daughter jumped on a train at Hornsey station as the doors were about to shut. Consequently she had no time to buy a ticket, but assumed she would swipe her Oyster card on the way out at Kings Cross or even have the chance to buy a ticket on the train. At Kings Cross she discovered that there were insuffient funds on her Oyster card, so went to the ticket office and asked if she could top up her Oyster card to cover the fare, or pay in some other way. She was told that she could not pay with a topped up Oyster card, but could buy a ticket from her destination and pay that way. She then tried to find her debit card, which took her a few minutes as she was flustured and the ticket seller was becoming impatient. Finally she found her bank card and the ticket seller then refused to accept it, because it was a Visa Electron. However, he suggested that she go to the adjacent cash machine, get cash out and pay that way. At that point another rail employee arrived and said it was too late, that she would have to pay a fine instead. He provided a form on which she completed her name and address, and she wrote that she had tried to pay the fare in three different ways. From what she says, it does not sound like a penalty fare charge notice form - I have shown her a copy of one of these on the internet and she said it was something different. However, by that time she was very tearful at the station, so she may not have a clear recollection of the appearance of the form. A few weeks later she received a notice of intention to prosecute from First Capital Connect. She wrote a long letter explaining exactly what had happened, that she had always intended to pay, apologising for rushing onto the train (it was a night train, and she was concerned that there would not be another one for some time, hence the rush), and explaining the three ways in which she had tried to pay. She also explained that she is terrified of the impact of a criminal record on her job or college prospects. She has today had a one-line letter from them confirming that they still intend to prosecute. Should she not have been issued with a penalty fare charge notice at the station and had the chance to pay that way? I cannot understand why, as she had initiated the attempts to pay as soon as she got to Kings Cross, they are persisting in viewing this as an attempt to avoid paying. I have spoken to lawyer who has advised us to try writing one more letter, stating once more all these points. He felt it particularly important to stress that she had no dishonest intent at any time. We are also trying to get hold of a copy of the form they made her complete, as we don't know what it was. I appreciate that this is not uncommon subject for these boards, but has anyone tried writing a second letter?She is quite prepared to pay any penalty fare, but the idea of going to court is leaving her almost paralysed with fear. She is in the throes of applying for her first job (has got two-thirds of the way through the three interview process) and is so scared that this is going to wreck everything for her.