I do not understand what this is to do with a supermarket age check for buying beer.
But we aren't talking here about people who have claimed small amounts like you appear to have claimed.
Only because my commute was two or three stops and has not happened for a year! I bet most of the claims were medium or low value and it was mainly that some people had a lot of claims during the 90s fading away and the Flirt signalling problems. Who would keep detailed evidence for why they used each train over a year later?
We do not know this. It is mere supposition. As I said above, the different conclusions people are drawing from very limited information is amazing.
One of the things we should safely assume is that Greater Anglia aren’t naive enough to disclose all their evidence to the customers they suspect of fraud. So, we can only go on conjecture, but I think, having worked in this area, many of the claimants satisfy multiple risk factors: a large number of claims, often at irregular times and often with an overlap with other punters also falling under suspicion. After all, we can all look up the most delayed train from Ipswich to London today, and submit a claim, but do that too many times and you might find a raised eyebrow or two within the claims team.
Nobody is asking for evidence. Greater Anglia aren’t - just an explanation. People here have (somewhat naively) suggested to posters to “find some evidence” of their whereabouts, because one thing we can probably suggest links many of the claims is that they just so happened to be on the most delayed train on their route quite a lot of the time.
After explaining that I had unwittingly (wrongly) claimed delay repay for an “abandoned journey” .....total of 4 journeys over the last 15 months totalling £35 in paid out compensation I was informed that the delay repay dept is separate from customer services and that ignorance of the law is no excuse blah blah and that the compensation claims were still fraudulent and “how would I like to continue ?”...long story short I work in the city and can’t risk a blot on my copybook and so settled for a total sum less than £100.
I hope going forward that you claim every penny for any delay even 1 minute over the minimum. Document your claims so that they can't pull the same stunt again. Don't get
Ignorance of how to claim properly most certainly *would* be a valid defence to an allegation of fraud, which is a tort (and hence the prosecution would need to prove a “guilty mind”). You also need to benefit from the action, which claiming DR as opposed to abandoned journey probably wouldn’t be. These are not “train bylaws”, this is the Fraud Act 2006.
But they've still had to pay back the money they claimed AND additional fees. You agree they aren't a fraud, but GA said they are, and they've settled this out of court. Had they refused to settle out of court GA may have taken them to court, for fraud.
GA have explicitly advised that they'd hand over to the police for further investigation. There has been no talk of any prosecutions at all from GA. That seems a fair safeguard to have in place, as it allows a secondary investigation, notionally independent, and then a third opinion, from the CPS if necessary, and then a 4th or 5th depending on if it gets to court, and which type of court.
I suspect it is more likely they'll never risk claiming again.
I don't think the end result is much different though is it?
No, GA cannot procedure a fraud and they’d have - maybe - passed the case to the police, who would certainly not have proceeded with a case of that laughable weakness. There’s no reasonable suspicion of fraud there. No benefit, no guilty mind and no suspicion of either.
I think it is significantly different. If both GA and the police both independently conclude that there is a case to answer, that would indicate there is at least a reasonable prospect of fraud having been committed. Not that fraud definitely has been committed, but 2 investigations reaching the same conclusion of the potential.
As with all of these things, there's an initial bias for all involved. If GA say to the police, this person has claimed a lot, they haven't provided evidence of them getting on and off that train 2 years ago and we think they might be fraudulent, then are the police going to say WE WILL BE THE JUDGE OF THAT, and approach it with an open mind, or are they going to use the "balance of probabilities" that people like to mention and say "yes you're probably right but we need some evidence"?
They're the people that have managed to gain money they weren't entitled to, by suggesting someone committed fraud when it appears more likely that they didn't This topic has shown that quite a number of people (almost all although i appreciate it may not be an accurate representation overall) have claimed incorrectly, be that deliberately or using incorrect methods or by selecting the wrong train or whatever else.Honestly I think there's a stronger argument that GA committed fraud there
But you are alleging fraud and dishonesty on the part of GA when there is no evidence of that either.
You might say GA have fraudulently obtained a repayment of money. What's the phrase: demanding money with menaces?
Sorry but no court is going to convict you on that basis. This is way above the expertise grade of this forum, but getting a conviction for fraud is quite difficult and something of the sort you outline probably wouldn’t even be taken on by the CPS.
I'd be inclined to agree on the specific terms but can understand why people wouldn't risk it, particularly if they've read this forum for any length of time and seen how people get prosecuted successfully despite having evidence.
There appear to be a couple who were correctly identified as having made incorrect claims - that is, claims where they didn’t travel at all. So far, so good. But it turns out those couple of posters actually had valid reason to submit an abandoned journey claim through a separate process. Those people are innocent of fraud although we can see why GA’s methodology has seen them caught up along with everyone else. In those cases, GA ought to have shrugged and said “well, okay then”, and they’ve hardly garnered any additional sympathy by taking money from those people and still saying “they’re fraudulent anyway”.
I would rather hope those who are fighting GA's corner to the death can at least bring themselves to see why other people immediately question things when we come across this type of attitude from the operator.
Of course. But clearly there is a sensible middle ground. For me, it seems the following are all concurrently true:
So GA stated that ignorance of the law is no excuse and then went on to confirm their ignorance of the law.
I absolutely agree with this. If a claim for a 2 hour delay has been submitted by a passenger in error then GA should have rejected it. It seems that GA have paid out claims en-mass and 18 months later are looking into the detail. This doesn't seem acceptable to me.
Given that many TOCs require claims to be submitted through the Delay Repay system I think it's a bit rich of GA to be requiring these claims to be repaid. I understand why you feel the need to settle but I would certainly raise this with your MP and also consider raising a complaint via Transport Focus. Perhaps the Rail Ombudsman might be interested as well (although they do seem to struggle with anything slightly complex!)