Refused to pay

Pedro123 said:

I wish there were more like you.

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RPI said:

I sympathise with you, I've dealt with exactly this before, the passenger is polite, firm but fair. The member of staff, in my opinion, should have issued a notice or a report explaining that the Railcard could be produced later, they should also have explained that the excess fare that was being asked for would be refundable upon production of the full Railcard.

A passenger can refuse to cooperate in a civil manner, I've had it loads.

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Sultan said:

Is it time to draw a line on the specifics of the actual encounter and just deal with future actions? Such as waiting for any correspondence, Submitting evidence of your full Forces Card entitlement, and (if necessary), just apologising for any inappropriate action during the encounter, mentioning the stress of travelling with children on an under-provided service (that you have subsequently received 100% delay / repay).

I can't see how 'ping pong' messages on attitude are helping here.

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RPI said:

From what you've said overall, I would hazard a guess that the person you encountered was a guard, sadly the training for such situations for guards isn't great at most Train Operators, revenue is a secondary duty for guards as their safety duties (rightly) take priority, but sometimes this is used as an excuse for not providing the correct training, I've seen it first hand in my 20 years on the railway.

Some guards also receive commission on their ticket sales which can lead to a desire to "take the money". I'm not saying that this is the case here, but just providing context to the wider picture.

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LowLevel said:

The only thing I would say is that your way *should* work - and that is how we're all told it should work in training. Passenger has dropped a clanger but is probably honest, issue the notice, back office will cancel it on receipt of proof.

Unfortunately one thing I have picked up reading these threads is that the part where the back office does what we think they will with our notices isn't always 100% consistent - EG people have supplied the requisite document and then been told "we see no reason to cancel the notice", particularly with TOCs who use contractors.

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LowLevel said:

To be fair the guard's actions are exactly within the realms of training for a guard - no Railcard = the passenger pays again but is advised how to provide evidence and claim a refund as a one off. The policy doesn't say anything about refusing to pay for the new tickets and then claim a refund, which implies it should be treated as a travel irregularity instead, having also been around when the "one chance" rule was introduced.

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Pedro123 said:

Entirely dependent on the unit. Mine was issued blank with instructions to get a pen and fill it in. Some admin offices may issue them with the same seriousness as ammunition, others are far more relaxed.

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Pedro123 said:

Thank you. Sadly I think you’ll see lots more as the prices rise and service declines. The railways charge similar to long haul flights now to get between city’s. People will start to expect Emirates standards. It must be hard work to seperate genuine mistakes, oversight, or just not being able to navigate the ticket system from the malicious. Especially when getting it wrong means buying replacement tickets on the spot and it’s no longer a case of handing over a fiver.


Absolutely agree

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RPI said:

I'd say spotting between genuine and p**s takers is almost impossible, people are far more entitled these days and are incredibly good actors.

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Pedro123 said:

Do you have any powers of discretion when you can see that large sums of money have already been spent (Im genuinely interested in the system now). There must be cases where people spend thousands to move large families.

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skyhigh said:

Discretion can be used, but in your case you unfortunately exhibited classic fare evader behaviour - showing only the photocard and not having the bit with the expiry date, because it has expired and hoping nobody will ask to see it.

I know that's not what happened but I suspect it's why discretion wasn't used here.

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Bletchleyite said:

I think it's usual to read this:

"I had a complete sense of humour failure"

...as a euphemism for having "lost it" and given them a gobful rather than politely refusing to pay. Perhaps might make sense to clarify the exact nature of what went on at that point.

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Pedro123 said:

Do you have any powers of discretion when you can see that large sums of money have already been spent (Im genuinely interested in the system now). There must be cases where people spend thousands to move large families.

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RPI said:

Everything aside, if you have a valid Railcard then if you receive a letter or correspondence then reply with a picture of the valid Railcard, IE both parts.

For forgotten railcards then I don't believe that the passenger should be charged anything at the time and personally I'll always issue a UFN/PFN/MG11 which allows genuine passengers to produce their Railcard later, that way genuine passengers end up paying nothing and ones who are telling porky pies have to face some form of enforcement measure.

An example would be that a family going on holiday, forget their Railcard, they get charged £200 for new tickets or excess even (excess between advance with Railcard and Off-peak can be massive), it's all very well saying that they'll get their money back, but that's all their holiday money gone for the time it takes to get the money back.

Yes, it could be argued that those are the terms etc but this is why I prefer the method of some form of notice that is cancelled upon production of said Railcard, anyway, I digress....

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RPI said:

Discretion can be used, but the argument would be that with no evidence of a Railcard, it should have been more than what you'd already paid, again, I've already said what I would have done and probably what would have been best practice, but it is what it is and if you do receive any correspondence then come back here with it, have all of your Railcard ready to send a copy of to them.

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Pedro123 said:

Do you have any powers of discretion when you can see that large sums of money have already been spent

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Krokodil said:

Worth noting that guards may not even have access to UFN pads these days. The choices available to the guard may have simply been "pay up or get off"

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Wallsendmag said:

Replaced with UFN Apps

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Krokodil said:

Not at all operators (I'm not sure if WMR is among them)

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tony6499 said:

But if the train was so crowded how did the guard get through ?

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spyinthesky said:

I don’t quite understand the reasoning behind this question as the loading of the train only added to the OP not getting a seat for him and his children and obviously the guard did get to him!

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tony6499 said:

But if the train was so crowded how did the guard get through ?

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tony6499 said:

the point is the guard may recollect things differently to what we've been told

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