Notice of Intention to Prosecute. Cant Sleep

[Mistralee]

Point taken Grotesque!

 

The matter has been settled. Thank you everyone for all your advice!

[Grotesque]

On a serious note, it's always cool to hear a happy ending! WELL DONE!

[Wriggler7]

My comments about 'contrition' are not intended to hurt anyone's feelings, they are advice intended to smooth the path through obtaining a settlement, or minimising a fine. I watched the effect of failing to show proper contrition and respect for the system today. A barrister representing a mulyi national retail company, incidentally, one that I have deep feelings about, came over all stroppy in Court. The clerk, of many years standing, gave her the Courtroom equivalent of a firm slap, which was added to by the Chairman. It did not help her client's case one jot, and may, if she does not learn who to show respect to, damage her ability to manoevre through process.

 

There are times to get all high and mighty, when you are on the wrong end of a summons is not one of them.

[Mistralee]

Hi, I'm still curious to know what the originall problem was in my case so would be really grateful if you could answer a few more questions. By "the print-out from the Oyster monitoring system" do you mean the journey's history? As I don't think it shows up when a card has not been recorded properly. Would you know where I could get a print-out for the Oyster reader used, would it show when it had not read a card properly, and the number of that card? Thanks!

[honeybee13]

Hi, I'm still curious to know what the originall problem was in my case so would be really grateful if you could answer a few more questions. By "the print-out from the Oyster monitoring system" do you mean the journey's history? As I don't think it shows up when a card has not been recorded properly. Would you know where I could get a print-out for the Oyster reader used, would it show when it had not read a card properly, and the number of that card? Thanks!

 

This is from post #29 on this thread, hope it helps. HB

 

To be honest if you are absolutely sure you touched in correctly (i.e. you did not get an error on your second touch) you should stick to your guns. Print off your journey history from the Oyster website which verifies that you touched in and send them a copy.

[Grotesque]

Yes it should do. A TfL-manned booking office should be able to print one. But it looks like a receipt and is mostly in codes: look for code 21 / 22 (entry / exit validation errors). 36 means insufficient PAYG credit so you REALLY don't want to see THAT

[Mistralee]

Thank you all! But the important thing is would it still show up if the Oyster reader had not recorded the swipe properly and what would the code be for that? Where can I find a break-down of what the codes mean? And where would I stand if the swipe wasn't recorded properly? I was pretty sure I heard it beep as usual.

[Mistralee]

Also, does anyone know of any problems with Oyster card when you attempt to swipe twice at an interchange i.e. to start a new journey? (It was unnecessary but thought I'd better take the precaution....and am paying for the mistake now).

[maida1988]

Hi im new to this forum and dont really know how to post ...and i replying to this thread hoping to get a reply. This is my situation, today i came off the station and was greeted by loads of police officers and ticket inspectors .. i knew that i had money on my oyster so i tapped out .. but i got stopped by the inspecters beacuse the machine said 'enter' ...having explained to the guy that i thought i had tapped in and coulnt i go beause obviously i now will be paying a full days ticket. the guy refused to let me go so i stayed gave my real name addres etc , then the guy cautioned me ... i asked if i could just pay a penalty fine he said no that i would be given a letter to be summoned to court. i tried to tell the guy that once i had operational issues and that i was refunded money back into my oyster so it could be a problem with that - ( i tried to use an excuse that i did tap in it must have not worked) . Ok so basically i am now panicking i don't want a court notice i don't want a criminal record ... please advise me on what to do, im giving myself panic attacks just thinking about it.

[Mistralee]

Don't worry, and don't let them bully and scare you into paying out money that you probably shouldn't be. It sounds very similar to what happened to me. Did you give this guy any money? Can you tell me where this happened? Did it concern TFL or a train company?

[Mistralee]

Sorry, of course you didn't give him money as he didn't give you a penalty fare! The first thing you need to do is call the Oyster helpline on 0845 330 9876. Ask them to check your journey history and give them the details of the 'touch' in question and they can check if it was validated. If so, you then just need to send a copy of this statement to the address on the letter that you'll receive which will most likely be entitled 'Notice of Intent to prosecute'. And that will be an end to the matter. There have been some serious glitches in the system that have not been made public, and though being aware of it a certain toc has chosen to benefit from it. Let us know how you get on. And if you get back to me with the answers to my previous questions, I might have an idea of what the problem is.

[Wriggler7]

Hi im new to this forum and dont really know how to post ...and i replying to this thread hoping to get a reply. This is my situation, today i came off the station and was greeted by loads of police officers and ticket inspectors .. i knew that i had money on my oyster so i tapped out .. but i got stopped by the inspecters beacuse the machine said 'enter' ...having explained to the guy that i thought i had tapped in and coulnt i go beause obviously i now will be paying a full days ticket. the guy refused to let me go so i stayed gave my real name addres etc , then the guy cautioned me ... i asked if i could just pay a penalty fine he said no that i would be given a letter to be summoned to court. i tried to tell the guy that once i had operational issues and that i was refunded money back into my oyster so it could be a problem with that - ( i tried to use an excuse that i did tap in it must have not worked) . Ok so basically i am now panicking i don't want a court notice i don't want a criminal record ... please advise me on what to do, im giving myself panic attacks just thinking about it.

 

How this turns out will depend on many things.

 

Firstly, where did you get on the train, and where did you get off? What town do you live in (Don't put your complete address in this forum)? and where were you intending to travel to? (Or, if you were on your way home, the other way round.)

 

Have you got a history of previous penalty fares?

[Old-CodJA]

Your posts says that you were 'greeted by loads of police offices and ticket inspectors..' This suggests that they were conducting one of the regular full checks of all tickets to ensure that everyone holds one and most if not all of those people detected without will face further action.

 

i tried to use an excuse that i did tap in it must have not worked .

 

That line in your post intrigues me. Are you saying that is what you used previously, or what you said this time?

 

Sorry if it seems pedantic to some, but choice of words is important, the phrase 'I tried to use an excuse..' suggests to me that it was just that. An excuse.

 

If you knew that you hadn't touched-in it is important to recognise that. If you definitely did attempt to touch-in then co-operating with the TOC / TfL and being truthful will be your best course of action. Wriggler7 asks some very pertinent questions.

[maida1988]

I had honestly forgotten to tap in I actually assumed I had , I've done this on a previous occasion where I forgot to tap in but had tapped out and went home only to realise the next day that I was on a minus balance. I only used that excuse when the inspector was cautioning me and I got scared thinking they wouldn't believe me. Because rightly so why should they? I have a really poor memory, but why would they believe me. I really worried about the fines because I don't see a way out of not going court. I really don't want a criminal record ,.. And answer to a previous question yes this is a first time offence I have no criminal records and have never been in trouble for anything. :'(

[Old-CodJA]

OK, sometime soon you will receive a letter from the company. It is called a 'verification' letter. It will usually outline the allegation and provide you with an opportunity to respond in writing.

 

You should write back with a truthful explanation of what happened. If you forgot to touch-in you should say so and explain it was a momentary lapse of attention for which you are sorry.

 

Explain that you have never been in any kind of trouble before and that you are very keen to maintain your unblemished record. Offer an apology to the company and staff concerned for the uncharacteristic abberation. Ask if the matter can be resolved without recourse to court action and explain that you are offering to pay the unpaid fare and the reasonable administration costs incurred by the rail company in recovering that fare.

 

It doesn't always meet with success because they are not obliged to accept this course of action as an alternative disposal, but in my experience and provided that you haven't been reported before, they will give it serious consideration. After all, the company staff want the best result with least effort too.

 

Good luck

[The Urbanite]

Yes it should do. A TfL-manned booking office should be able to print one. But it looks like a receipt and is mostly in codes: look for code 21 / 22 (entry / exit validation errors). 36 means insufficient PAYG credit so you REALLY don't want to see THAT

 

Sorry to drag this one up. I'm an Authorised Collector with access to a Fastis+ machine (non-TfL!) - all they print out is a basic statement showing the last dozen or so transactions, or something which also shows the status of the card along with any TKTs that have been loaded to the three slots on the card.

 

RPIs send some Oyster users who cannot get through the barriers to me. I interrogate the cards then either sell an Anytime Single, issue a Penalty Fare, recommend a prosecution or ask the RPI to let the passenger though. I do the latter when I can see that someting untoward has gone on which is not the fault of the passenger. It's harsh enough that they will have to get the maximum charge rectified through the Helpline, let alone worry about being done under Byelaw 18. The Literal Rule is not always appropriate in the couse of my job. This is largely owing to a personal experience which saw me PF'd and spending two months seeking recompense from those I paid the Penalty Fare to.

 

The point raised about getting a statement I feel needs building upon. There are at least five different interpretations of what the user has done depending on how you choose to view the history - there are varying degrees of detail, completeness and so on between them;

 

1. LUL POM

2. FasTiS Usage Statement

3. Oyster Helpline Statement

4. Oyster Online Statement

5. Journey Status Report

 

See the attachment, where I've made a sample image of a Journey Status Report and a Helpline Statement. Now the journey I made was Forest Hill - Manor Park -> OSI OSI

 

The RPI was technically justified in issuing a PF. However, alarm bells should have rung as the usage statement retrived by a Police Officer during the incident showed a correct Entry at Forest Gate 18 minutes earlier, meaning that I was permitted to travel. A Code 36 was shown on the barrier which was all the RPI was concerned about. Could I really have been prosecuted under Byelaw 18 for this?

 

Getting back to the OP's case, TfL are certainly aware of this as a source of confusion for customers (despite it being clarified in Condition 3.17 of the Oyster on NRCoC document). The system accounts for this by "ignoring" validations it considers to have been made at an intermediate stage of the journey. Certainly the OP will have been charged a straight Zone 1 - Zone 3 NR through fare had a subsequent validation been made at Harringay. No doubt fare evaders who see a block at a station exit may try to avoid them by further illicit travel, hence why the RPI was on the bridge. That bridge actually has two paths, one of which can be accessed to avoid the other exit via the ticket hall so the RPI was quite right to stand there. So essentially it was up to the RPI to decide whether you genuinely made a mistake or whether you were trying to evade being checked. In this case discretion was not shown. I've jumped on "local" looking trains at Waterloo East and ended up in Lee/New Eltham instead of London Bridge in the past (with a Z1-6 TC I hasten to add) so I don't doubt that you made a genuine mistake. How was the situation resolved?

 

As for the seperate issue of doubling back on Oyster, is it actually forbidden? The Oyster on NRCoC just says that you need to touch out when leaving the system or a station premises. Would be interested to see what I'd be charged if I went from West Brompton - Imperial Wharf - Kensington Olympia. IMW is an odd type of modular station where the two platforms each have their own gateline, but is not an OSI. Reports elsewhere have suggested that one can double back on LU so long as they touch in and out at the station within a certain time limit. By double back, I mean that person travelled from A - B, then B - C but were only charged from A - C. For anyone who's studied maths, it would seem The Triangle Law of vectors has been implemented in the Oyster system .

Edited March 19, 2011 by The Urbanite

[Mistralee]

I'm afraid, Urbanite, that it still hasn't been resolved. I'm interested in your information about statements. Is the Journey Status Report the one with all the codes identifying each touch you made with the Oyster? And where can I get one of these?? No one at the Oyster Helpline seems to know about this.

[Mistralee]

Could you please also send a shaper image of the journey status report as the image isn't very clear? Thanks!

[The Urbanite]

Hopefully this will work. This first one is the JSR, the second is what I initially got from the Oyster Helpline.

 

[Mistralee]

That's great thank you! Can you please tell me where I can get a Journey Status Report??

[The Urbanite]

You have to call the Oyster Helpline and ask them to send you one.

[Mistralee]

I've tried several times to ask them to send me a JSR but no one knew what I was talking about. Each time, they just sent the usual online journey history statement which does not show the extra swipe, although they can see it them selves on their system. Would I need to have topped up my card online to be able to get this? As I have always topped up at the station.

[The Urbanite]

The online version would be very similar to the second statement shown above and it only shows journeys made after the activation of the service. Try using the online TfL Helpdesk - TfL - Oyster - Help - Make a complaint (I can't post links.)

 

In my case, I inititally tried the Helpline but all I got was the standard statement and the appeal was initially rejected. After this, I went through the NRCoC, RoR Act 1889, Railways Act 1993, SRA Penalty Fares Rules 2002, TfL CoC, Oyster on NRCoU, SRA Code of Practice and every legal documentation I could get my hands on. I read them all down to the letter and found I wasn't in violation of a single term of any of them. Having gone to this effort, I hand delivered a letter to Albany House and wrote a message to the TfL helpdesk detailing this and requested their assistance. I asked for a headed letter which explicitly stated that I did the right thing and a detailed statement, which they sent to me. I then wrote a letter to Revenue Collection giving them a chance to return my money before I started legal proceedings and a senior member of staff replied with a cheque and confirmed the record as sticken off.

 

In your case however, validation within stations is discouraged in some of the above documents and public literature. Contination exits are necessary as people actually leaving the system might accidently double swipe their card or touch out on multiple validators in quick succession. If the station has no gateline barriers, I think it only "ends" the journey 5 minutes after you swipe on the standing validator. It was made clear in TfL's letter to me that the detailed statement was only provided because of an error on their part. Unfortunately the error was on your part this time and the TOC in question could quote the Conditions that you were bound by to persist with the case. Yes TfL are aware of the potential confusion but I don't think they have any direct control over a TOC's decision to enforce the rules.

[Mistralee]

The online version would be very similar to the second statement shown above and it only shows journeys made after the activation of the service. Try using the online TfL Helpdesk - TfL - Oyster - Help - Make a complaint (I can't post links.)

 

In my case, I inititally tried the Helpline but all I got was the standard statement and the appeal was initially rejected. After this, I went through the NRCoC, RoR Act 1889, Railways Act 1993, SRA Penalty Fares Rules 2002, TfL CoC, Oyster on NRCoU, SRA Code of Practice and every legal documentation I could get my hands on. I read them all down to the letter and found I wasn't in violation of a single term of any of them. Having gone to this effort, I hand delivered a letter to Albany House and wrote a message to the TfL helpdesk detailing this and requested their assistance. I asked for a headed letter which explicitly stated that I did the right thing and a detailed statement, which they sent to me. I then wrote a letter to Revenue Collection giving them a chance to return my money before I started legal proceedings and a senior member of staff replied with a cheque and confirmed the record as sticken off.

 

In your case however, validation within stations is discouraged in some of the above documents and public literature. Contination exits are necessary as people actually leaving the system might accidently double swipe their card or touch out on multiple validators in quick succession. If the station has no gateline barriers, I think it only "ends" the journey 5 minutes after you swipe on the standing validator. It was made clear in TfL's letter to me that the detailed statement was only provided because of an error on their part. Unfortunately the error was on your part this time and the TOC in question could quote the Conditions that you were bound by to persist with the case. Yes TfL are aware of the potential confusion but I don't think they have any direct control over a TOC's decision to enforce the rules.

 

Would it have any bearing on the case if the RPI breached byelaws himself in getting my information? e.g. He refused to show me ID, only wrote down his first name and ID number.

[MikeWh]

And even if you had managed to touch in properly at Victoria, as soon as you turned around at Alexandra Palace you would have been liable to a penalty fare there for doubling back.

Sorry, I have to dispute this. You cannot be off-route if your Oyster card is validated and you are within the Oyster area. If you do go vastly out of your way then you run the risk of exceeding the maximum journey time, but otherwise it is fine to do more-or-less what you want. Also, as both Harringay and Alexandra Palace are in zone 3 there was even less of a problem because London fares are zonal based and they were in the same zone. Finally, if the Oyster card had been validated I believe there would be no problem because I've never heard of a passenger being penalty fared for making an honest mistake like getting the wrong train and correcting the problem at the first opportunity.