Absolutely, I really appreciate all the time you put into this. Will donate

An update on this - I don't have to pay!! Such a relief and I really appreciate all of your help here - thank you very very much. I hope one day someone else finds this thread and it helps them too! Email from SWR below. ............. Thank you for your email and additional information. South Western Railway has a duty, in line with all prosecution agencies, to constantly review matters and with the knowledge of your circumstances we have taken a view and have decided to close the matter. However, if this were to happen again we may not take the same view. Payment is no longer requested and this case is closed. Many thanks. Kind regards.

26-30 railcard Realised my last response didn’t send - I didn’t try to settle it on the train, hadn’t seen any guards and I only realised my mistake as we went through Vauxhall which is 3 mins from Waterloo.

Ah yes I will make sure to clarify that. Having thought about it more I realised I actually approached the man to ask for help - because I knew I’d made a mistake and that was why I couldn’t get out. Easily could have just tapped my contactless and got away with a lower fee! I wasn’t offered a penalty fare - I asked if I could just buy a ticket for the whole journey and he said that would be illegal too since I’d already done the journey.

Thanks for this response - it’s great ! I will send tomorrow assuming no one suggests any edits. Will keep you updated on how I get on

I don't have a printer so have taken photos and put into word to group them all and put into PDF - hope that is ok!! Penalty fare SWR.pdf

Ah, probably should have known I shouldn’t trust random articles online. So kind of you to help, thank you! Hope you sleep well.

Thanks for checking that out! Nope this was the first I heard from them, and it was a little over 2 months since the incident occurred. Apparently they have to prove you intentionally had the wrong ticket… not sure how they could prove otherwise, but worried about risking it with the whole court thing.

This was my confusion too but their argument was that it was still illegal to get to the wrong station. I think it was cheaper because I had a railcard and Trainline automatically did the split ticket thing that makes it cheaper! Having checked some more, I was meant to switch at Wimbledon. The anytime day single from Wimbledon to Vauxhall is 95p cheaper than the one to Waterloo

I recently travelled from Walton-on-Thames to London. I intended to get off at Vauxhall, and had bought a £5.65 ticket to do so. On an earlier journey to Walton-on-Thames, I had gone from Vauxhall directly and assumed that the same train terminating at Waterloo would get me back to my intended route. I did not realise that I needed to make a change in order to get back to Vauxhall, until we went past this station and I ended up at Waterloo. A ticket person stopped me there, and said I would be sent a fine for going to the wrong station and was incredibly rude suggesting it was stupid of me to not check where I was going, despite the fact that I was clearly distressed and crying by this point. I've now been sent a fine made up of £8.90 fare avoided (not sure how this works since the ticket was not that expensive) and also £100 'operational and administrative costs' which seems excessive. The letter says I can pay the fine or email to request a court hearing, and may have the Court's costs added to the fine. Not sure what to do as I don't want to risk paying more extortionate admin costs but I also feel this is incredibly unfair for what's clearly a genuine mistake. Thoughts?