SW Train Penalty Fair

[adva]

This morning I traveled to work from Syon Lane station to Putney as usual. I always use Oyster card and always have a valid ticket but this time over the weekend I forgot I dont have enough credit. I only had £1.20.

So I was about to use the ticket machine in the station, but it didnt take notes and there was a coin stuck in it so basically I couldnt pay by cash. I couldnt use my debit card because I didnt have any balance left.

As I arrived in Putney I explained my situation but they still made me pay £20.

I would like to appeal this as I think it is unreasonable to make me pay penalty because the ticket machine wasnt fully working. (There is no PTT machine in Syon Lane as far as I know)

 

I would appreciate any advice on this.

[Stigy]

This morning I traveled to work from Syon Lane station to Putney as usual. I always use Oyster card and always have a valid ticket but this time over the weekend I forgot I dont have enough credit. I only had £1.20.

So I was about to use the ticket machine in the station, but it didnt take notes and there was a coin stuck in it so basically I couldnt pay by cash. I couldnt use my debit card because I didnt have any balance left.

As I arrived in Putney I explained my situation but they still made me pay £20.

I would like to appeal this as I think it is unreasonable to make me pay penalty because the ticket machine wasnt fully working. (There is no PTT machine in Syon Lane as far as I know)

 

I would appreciate any advice on this.

If there's no way you could have purchased a ticket at Syon Lane, you should purchase one at you soonest feasable opportunity. In your case that would be when arriving at Putney (if you had to change train to get to your destination, for example if you were travelling to East Croydon Via Clapham Junction, then Clapham would be your first available opportunity). It often helps in these situations to take a picture on your mobile phone or something, just to back yourself up. It's strange that they weren't aware of the machine being faulty though, as even if the machine itself didn't send signals to its helpdeask type place (they do that usually ya know!) you'd have thought other passengers would have had similar issues.

 

Sometimes faults aren't correctly logged though, and this leads to a break in communication. If the machine was not accepting notes, then the Revenue Staff should have been aware of this, if it was the fact that your note wasn't accepted due to an issue with you note being damaged or too crumpled up, that wouldn't be classed as a fault with the machine. In this sort of instance, Revenue Staff should use their discretion accordingly. I suggest you appeal, on the grounds that as there was a coin stuck in the machine, you couldn't use it effectively and given that your primary means were coins, it would be wrong to penalise you when you tried using a banknote that was rejected.

 

As a side note, I have witnessed broken machines in the past, and when I Revenue Staff phone up regarding the machines, there's often no fault logged, and they are showing as in full working order. Obviously the system isn't that precise then!.

 

Hope this helps!

[RPI]

not knowing the local area, was there a ticket office at the station?

[Stigy]

not knowing the local area, was there a ticket office at the station?

Just two TVMs I believe...

[RPI]

Just two TVMs I believe...

if thats the case i'm presuming BOTH were out of order?

[Old-CodJA]

Yes, I believe that there are two machines and the monitoring of these machines will show if they were out of order or not. Sometimes they don't show up immediately it is true, but a print-out of the machine log will normally show what time any faults occurred

 

If one machine was available, they will almost certainly reject any appeal and as Stigy points out, the changing point was the first opportunity to pay if the traveller genuinely could not get a ticket at the start of the journey.