Advice Needed: Claiming Refund for Penalty Fee Despite Having Paid for Ticket MerseyRail

[faithisfaith]

Hi everyone,

I’m seeking advice on how to claim a refund for a penalty fine I received on Friday, 22/11/2024, despite having paid for my travel. Here’s what happened:

• Date: 22/11/2024
• Time: 17:30–18:00
• Route: From Hamilton Square to Liverpool Central

I purchased a Flexi ticket for my journey and used it to pass through the gate machine at Hamilton Square Station. Unfortunately, I lost the ticket during the journey. When I arrived at Liverpool Central, I proactively approached the officers to explain the situation. However, instead of understanding, they took my personal details and issued me a penalty fine, saying it was the only option to proceed.

I feel this penalty is completely unfair since I had already purchased a valid ticket. I still have the receipt for the Flexi ticket I bought earlier, which proves that I paid for the travel.

I didn’t ask for CCTV footage at Hamilton Square, but I believe it could show that I used a valid ticket to pass through the gate machine.

• What is the best way to request CCTV footage to support my refund claim?
• Has anyone been in a similar situation? Any tips on how to effectively challenge this and get a refund?

Thank you in advance for your help!

Best regards,
Faith

 

[Watershed]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

Unfortunately, if you lose your ticket during your journey and are therefore unable to produce a ticket when inspected, this is still a criminal offence and can also render you liable to pay a Penalty Fare.

By all means, there is nothing to be lost (other than your time) by appealling, but I wouldn't hold out high hopes of this succeeding. The Penalty Fares Regulations don't specifically envisage losing your ticket as a valid ground of appeal, so you are reliant on an appeal on the basis of "exceptional circumstances". I'm not sure they would regard this as sufficiently exceptional to uphold your appeal.

You might want to consider writing to Merseyrail and/or your MP to see if you can get any recourse if your appeal fails - and remember that there are 3 stages of appeal, each of which involves different people looking at your appeal.

 

[Lewisham2221]

CCTV is a non-starter. At best, it proves you used a ticket to get through the barriers. It does nothing to prove that the ticket was valid for the entire journey you made, nor does it prove that you didn't give the ticket to somebody else once you were "inside" the system.

 

[John R]

We see lots of cases here where Merseryrail is well out of order in the treatment of passengers, but unfortunately this isn’t one of them. It’s your responsibility to retain the ticket for inspection for the full journey, and without it a penalty fare was the appropriate remedy.

You might ask for discretion to be shown, but proof of purchase doesn’t mean anything - you could have passed the ticket to someone else to use for all they know.

 

[furlong]

It was always envisaged that a lost ticket was a valid reason not to have to pay a penalty fare - parliament was told this - but of course trying to persuade the people who handle appeals is another thing as if it was that simple, everyone would claim this happened to them so they are necessarily going to apply a high threshold! You're right to try to gather all the evidence you can to support your position, then appeal under the "compelling reasons" category 16(3)(d) in the regulations, and maybe quote from the relevant parliamentary debate (link currently inaccessible from here - 6 Feb 1989, Lords)

What is more important, the trained, authorised personnel will be given discretion. If a person says, "I have lost my ticket"—not a completely unknown predicament, in which some of us may have found ourselves—it will be possible for the official to say, "That is all right, you can go." There will also be a 21-day discretionary period. If a notice is issued to a passenger, he will be able to put his case in writing. The matter will then be examined by the appropriate authorities at head office. There will be no attempt to bulldoze or bully passengers. If a reasonable excuse is given, discretion can be exercised by those in authority.

Since that time, a formal appeals system got introduced. You get 3 appeals (and might need to use them all - the final one is more independent than the first two).

 

[JBuchananGB]

A Merseyrail Flexi ticket is not just one ticket, it is a set of paper tickets for 6 journeys. You have to write the date on the ticket before use. The journey time from Hamilton Square to Liverpool Central is 8 minutes. A difficult thing to lose and not much time to do it in. It is not surprising that staff at Liverpool Central issued a Penalty Fare.