Advice Only for Greater Anglia - Delay Repay Fraud

[zwk500]

In my case, I have a paper ticket. GAs second correspondence to me was to send me a spreadsheet of all DR claims for the past 18 months. They do not have any smart card tap in data to use as evidence against me so I find the whole process extremely suspicious.

If you looked at the data from a neutral perspective, were there patterns visible and deviations from them that could have caused suspicion?

I'm not for one moment suggesting GA have acted proportionately or in a reasonable timeframe. But there are suggestions on here that they're adopting a carpet-bombing approach in bullying anybody who's claimed DR in the last 2 years when from what I've seen most of the challenges have had some substance to them. A number, even a majority, of posters have admitted that at least some claims were not valid. It's inevitable that if you're reviewing so much raw data (and I imagine GA have got rather a lot of DR claims to use as a dataset) to identify patterns that you will find some people with patterns that are initially suspicious but do have entirely legitimate explanations. GA are also acting badly in requesting repayment of all payments when only some appear to be questionable.

I don't think GA should be challenging payments after this length of time, nor do I think they should using the hostile approach indicated by previous posters. However I don't think the process of reviewing claim data to identify suspicious patterns is intrinsically wrong. It's just that they should be doing that before they make a payment.

 

[Tazi Hupefi]

In my case, I have a paper ticket. GAs second correspondence to me was to send me a spreadsheet of all DR claims for the past 18 months. They do not have any smart card tap in data to use as evidence against me so I find the whole process extremely suspicious.

Do you use a ticket barrier? I would be amazed if there wasn't enough information on the orange ticket for it to be recognised as unique in whatever systems the barriers are attached to.

 

[ashkeba]

Do you use a ticket barrier? I would be amazed if there wasn't enough information on the orange ticket for it to be recognised as unique in whatever systems the barriers are attached to.

There is only 9 bytes of rail data on a magstripe according to https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/magnetic-stripe-encoding.130237/

I would be amazed if that was a unique ticket number rather than route description and ticket type.

 

[Kane11]

Do you use a ticket barrier? I would be amazed if there wasn't enough information on the orange ticket for it to be recognised as unique in whatever systems the barriers are attached to.

Yes I use the barrier when required. Although during that time period I had 3 replacement tickets because it stopped working. I was never told to get a smart card, they just kept replacing the paper ticket with another.

 

[Watershed]

Do you use a ticket barrier? I would be amazed if there wasn't enough information on the orange ticket for it to be recognised as unique in whatever systems the barriers are attached to.

The number of bits available aren't nearly enough to uniquely identify tickets. Paper tickets are effectively untraceable (which is why TOCs like Greater Anglia have made such a push to convert people to traceable smart tickets).

 

[Kane11]

If you looked at the data from a neutral perspective, were there patterns visible and deviations from them that could have caused suspicion?

I'm not for one moment suggesting GA have acted proportionately or in a reasonable timeframe. But there are suggestions on here that they're adopting a carpet-bombing approach in bullying anybody who's claimed DR in the last 2 years when from what I've seen most of the challenges have had some substance to them. A number, even a majority, of posters have admitted that at least some claims were not valid. It's inevitable that if you're reviewing so much raw data (and I imagine GA have got rather a lot of DR claims to use as a dataset) to identify patterns that you will find some people with patterns that are initially suspicious but do have entirely legitimate explanations. GA are also acting badly in requesting repayment of all payments when only some appear to be questionable.

I don't think GA should be challenging payments after this length of time, nor do I think they should using the hostile approach indicated by previous posters. However I don't think the process of reviewing claim data to identify suspicious patterns is intrinsically wrong. It's just that they should be doing that before they make a payment.

I’ve tried to look at it as a neutral. I would say the amount of claims may appear higher than average but when taking c.15 train journeys a week there is a higher probability that I will get delayed. Having one or two delayed journeys a week isn’t unusual

My claim pattern is relatively consistent i.e between certain hours in the morning and evening.

Having spoken to GA I now am aware that abandoned journeys should not be claimed via DR but via customer services instead. I feel that could be why my name has cropped up.

 

[43096]

Having spoken to GA I now am aware that abandoned journeys should not be claimed via DR but via customer services instead. I feel that could be why my name has cropped up.

Which comes back to the utter contempt that the train operators have for their customers. How is the average punter supposed to know that? Is it clearly stated somewhere, or as usual not published as they don’t want people to claim.

 

[pelli]

I don't know what GA's online claim system looked like two years ago, but when I claimed delay repay on another TOC, if I selected "train cancelled" (unlike "delayed departure/en route") a textbox would open up allowing an explanation to be given, and in the many cases where I did not just take the next direct train I thought it was only polite to say what I actually did to save the checker having to look up all possibilities, e.g.
"I caught the earlier stopping train at xx.xx, arriving x minutes late"
"I caught the xx.xx departure to X and changed onto the xx.xx, arriving x minutes late"
"I made my own way to alternative station X, then caught the xx.xx and arrived x minutes late"
(all of these actually reduced the delay repay payout compared with just taking the next recommended train)

I never had the opportunity to make any "questionable" claims, but if I had I would've explained it clearly in the textbox, e.g.:
"I chose to not board the next available train as it was standing room only, so I actually arrived even later, but I'm claiming for the delay I would've incurred if I had boarded it." [Coming to think of it I did do this once although the delay was already 120min+ anyway so I didn't put in an explanation - should I be worried that the TOC will come after me 5 years later with CCTV footage of me disembarking the later train, claiming if I wasn't a fraudster I would've been on the earlier train? ]
"I paid £xx.xx out of pocket for a taxi/other public transport to station X, thus avoiding being delayed, but if I had followed station staff's instructions I would've arrived x minutes late, so that's what I'm claiming for instead of reimbursement for the outlay."
"As all trains were cancelled I went to the pub for 2 hours, but if I had stayed on the station the delay would have been x, so that's what I'm claiming for."

Then the TOC would've had full information to decide either to just pay out the delay repay (and if they then tried to claw it back I'd just point out that they already knew what I actually did) or pass me on to customer services who would likely pay out the same if not more.

Edited to add: I just tried out GA's current system and it doesn't seem to provide a textbox - that's preposterous! (But not as preposterous as approving multiple "120+min" claims for cancelled trains without checking the next available train, and then later telling the mistaken passenger they were doing it wrong and demanding the money back with an admin fee added on top.)

I emailed Andy Hillier asking for more information and he (or someone in the team) replied with a list of journeys where I had claimed that cancelled trains were 120 minutes late. I was told this is incorrect as I was not 120 minutes late. Basically, I have been filling out the Delay Repay website incorrectly. I have now been asked how I would like to proceed.... The thing is, why did they approve the claim in the first place if I had claimed incorrectly.

 

[Haywain]

I would be amazed if there wasn't enough information on the orange ticket for it to be recognised as unique in whatever systems the barriers are attached to.

In which case you are, or should be, amazed.

 

[zwk500]

Having spoken to GA I now am aware that abandoned journeys should not be claimed via DR but via customer services instead. I feel that could be why my name has cropped up.

Which comes back to the utter contempt that the train operators have for their customers. How is the average punter supposed to know that? Is it clearly stated somewhere, or as usual not published as they don’t want people to claim.

Agreed: given the publicity DR gets, to expect punters to know they should use a totally different process for abandoned journeys is extremely poor service.

 

[AlterEgo]

I’ve tried to look at it as a neutral. I would say the amount of claims may appear higher than average but when taking c.15 train journeys a week there is a higher probability that I will get delayed. Having one or two delayed journeys a week isn’t unusual

My claim pattern is relatively consistent i.e between certain hours in the morning and evening.

Having spoken to GA I now am aware that abandoned journeys should not be claimed via DR but via customer services instead. I feel that could be why my name has cropped up.

The result is basically the same - a refund. Certainly not a fraud on anyone’s part who gets it wrong.

 

[Tazi Hupefi]

I’ve tried to look at it as a neutral. I would say the amount of claims may appear higher than average but when taking c.15 train journeys a week there is a higher probability that I will get delayed. Having one or two delayed journeys a week isn’t unusual

My claim pattern is relatively consistent i.e between certain hours in the morning and evening.

Having spoken to GA I now am aware that abandoned journeys should not be claimed via DR but via customer services instead. I feel that could be why my name has cropped up.

So, to confirm, prior to ever receiving a letter, you rang GA up to clarify about Delay Repay? And this is what you believe flagged you?

 

[zwk500]

So, to confirm, prior to ever receiving a letter, you rang GA up to clarify about Delay Repay? And this is what you believe flagged you?

I think Kane11 is saying he believes he got flagged for claiming an abandoned journey through Delay Repay. Having received the letter from GA, he rang them up to clarify the situation regarding his claims and was informed of the process he should have followed.

@Kane11 please correct me if I've got it wrong and spoken for you out of turn.

 

[skyhigh]

So, to confirm, prior to ever receiving a letter, you rang GA up to clarify about Delay Repay? And this is what you believe flagged you?

No, he claimed delay repay for abandoned journeys and that's why they think their name flagged up.

Having spoken to GA I now am aware that abandoned journeys should not be claimed via DR but via customer services instead. I feel that could be why my name has cropped up.

I can't see any suggestion whatsoever they rang GA to ask about delay repay before this?

 

[Tazi Hupefi]

As for paper ticket and barrier data, logically the following must be captured by the barrier:

Start date, expiry date, Origin, Destination, Route, Adult/Child, Discount (seems they can reject Railcard tickets reading other forums), ticket type (so can manage peak of off peak), some sort of indication that it can be used on things like the Underground.

Forum members say the ticket number isn't available.

I believe they CAN be tracked, in a way. If I buy an Anytime Single with my senior Railcard from St Pancras to Nottingham, and walk through the ticket barrier at London, the above details are captured surely, otherwise the barrier couldn't determine validity and open. So say that's at 10:00. If I then use the barrier at Nottingham to exit at 12:00, I suspect you could identify it as the same ticket used at 10:00 in London, and then calculate the most likely service I used. If the barrier at London records anything electronically on my ticket stripe, that makes it even more likely. It MUST record something on the stripe because I've tried to leave and come back with the same ticket and it doesn't let me back in.

No, he claimed delay repay for abandoned journeys and that's why they think their name flagged up.


I can't see any suggestion whatsoever they rang GA to ask about delay repay before this?

Well if that's the case then they must be able to track orange tickets OR there has been covert surveillance (but what triggered that if so?). Short of an admission, how else could they know a journey was abandoned?

 

[AlterEgo]

Well if that's the case then they must be able to track orange tickets OR there has been covert surveillance (but what triggered that if so?). Short of an admission, how else could they know a journey was abandoned?

What he's saying is he's put in Delay Repay claims for trains he didn't travel on, because he didn't in fact travel at all having seen the delays. Probably claiming a two hour, or one hour, delay, where the next train actually ran much sooner.

If he didn't travel, he should have claimed an abandoned journey and got a monetary refund from customer services, and not claimed DR. Absolutely not a fraud as abandoned journey refunds are always done in cash and would be no greater in value than claiming DR.

 

[Kane11]

I think Kane11 is saying he believes he got flagged for claiming an abandoned journey through Delay Repay. Having received the letter from GA, he rang them up to clarify the situation regarding his claims and was informed of the process he should have followed.

@Kane11 please correct me if I've got it wrong and spoken for you out of turn.

Yep correct. I have previously claimed for abandoned journeys via DP. I didn’t know any different. I think this is why I am flagging on their system.

It was only after receiving their letter that I have been made aware that this isn’t the correct process.

 

[NotGreaterA]

In my case, I have a paper ticket. GAs second correspondence to me was to send me a spreadsheet of all DR claims for the past 18 months. They do not have any smart card tap in data to use as evidence against me so I find the whole process extremely suspicious.

Is that 18 months of claims or 18 months ago?
Claim Data shared by GA seems to be from Oct '19 to March '20.

 

[Kane11]

Is that 18 months of claims or 18 months ago?
Claim Data shared by GA seems to be from Oct '19 to March '20.

Sorry from Oct 19 to March 2020. I haven’t travelled March 2020

Sorry from Oct 19 to March 2020. I haven’t travelled March 2020

But I did see someone on Twitter have claims from Sept 2020 being investigated

 

[NotGreaterA]

My first email from them, after their letter provides a spreadsheet of 78 claims at £820 saying I'm not in line with frequent travelers. I went back to say I travel at all hours and over weekends and they come back saying average claims during that period is 22 which I think is pretty low for 6 months especially during winter and when they were swapping trains. They also said my claims were in line with someone who uses an assistant application which I do not. I also had a paper ticket which didn't work on barriers. Not sure where I take it from here really.

 

[AlterEgo]

My first email from them, after their letter provides a spreadsheet of 78 claims at £820 saying I'm not in line with frequent travelers. I went back to say I travel at all hours and over weekends and they come back saying average claims during that period is 22 which I think is pretty low for 6 months especially during winter and when they were swapping trains. They also said my claims were in line with someone who uses an assistant application which I do not. I also had a paper ticket which didn't work on barriers. Not sure where I take it from here really.

What's the approximate value of your season ticket? And that's 78 claims in 6 months?

 

[Wolfie]

My first email from them, after their letter provides a spreadsheet of 78 claims at £820 saying I'm not in line with frequent travelers. I went back to say I travel at all hours and over weekends and they come back saying average claims during that period is 22 which I think is pretty low for 6 months especially during winter and when they were swapping trains. They also said my claims were in line with someone who uses an assistant application which I do not. I also had a paper ticket which didn't work on barriers. Not sure where I take it from here really.

That really does sound like fishing.... I bet that they aren't as keen to contact those who claim less than the mean....

 

[Kane11]

My first email from them, after their letter provides a spreadsheet of 78 claims at £820 saying I'm not in line with frequent travelers. I went back to say I travel at all hours and over weekends and they come back saying average claims during that period is 22 which I think is pretty low for 6 months especially during winter and when they were swapping trains. They also said my claims were in line with someone who uses an assistant application which I do not. I also had a paper ticket which didn't work on barriers. Not sure where I take it from here really.

I read an article somewhere which suggested only a third of passengers bother to claim for delays. If 100% of people claimed then that would give them meaningful statistics to work out a median. I am happy to be corrected but I believe National Rail provide compensation when there is a fault. This compensation is for customers. So if only one-third of passengers are claiming this compensation, do GA pocket the rest?!

 

[NotGreaterA]

What's the approximate value of your season ticket? And that's 78 claims in 6 months?

Around £6.5k. Yes 6 months.

 

[AlterEgo]

I read an article somewhere which suggested only a third of passengers bother to claim for delays. If 100% of people claimed then that would give them meaningful statistics to work out a median. I am happy to be corrected but I believe National Rail provide compensation when there is a fault. This compensation is for customers. So if only one-third of passengers are claiming this compensation, do GA pocket the rest?!

The compensation under Schedules 4 and 8 is not intended to go to customers but rather compensates TOCs for the loss of business. It has no relation to Delay Repay.

 

[Kane11]

The compensation under Schedules 4 and 8 is not intended to go to customers but rather compensates TOCs for the loss of business. It has no relation to Delay Repay.

Fair enough

 

[AlterEgo]

Around £6.5k. Yes 6 months.

If you have only ever claimed in good faith and in line with the rules of the Delay Repay scheme, write back to them and simply say so.

Thank you for your letter of (X date).

I do not keep records of my journeys and, as a paper ticket holder, am sure you understand that I cannot provide you with evidence of journeys made. I have only ever claimed Delay Repay with honest intentions, and can say that every time I have claimed it was in line with the scheme conditions as I understand them.

Kind regards

X

You may wish to think about what sort of questions the prosecution might ask in any fraud trail, like, what you do for a living and why you travel with such an irregular pattern (there are some professions which absolutely require people to travel very irregularly) and what defence you have against any allegations of fraud.

 

[island]

Are you sure about deliberately misleading to secure evidence? I'm not a lawyer, but from my knowledge of common law it is very, very rare for evidence obtained by deceit to be admissible in court. The risk of committing entrapment is very large.

They can absolutely mislead people in order to secure evidence. Your knowledge of “common law” is of very little relevance; most relevant rules are in statute law. And “entrapment” doesn’t mean anything close to what you think it does.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

My first email from them, after their letter provides a spreadsheet of 78 claims at £820 saying I'm not in line with frequent travelers. I went back to say I travel at all hours and over weekends and they come back saying average claims during that period is 22 which I think is pretty low for 6 months especially during winter and when they were swapping trains. They also said my claims were in line with someone who uses an assistant application which I do not. I also had a paper ticket which didn't work on barriers. Not sure where I take it from here really.

If you are satisfied that you have not been overclaiming, but that all your claims were legitimate, then the ball is in GA's court - ultimately it's for them to take you to court and prove to the appropriate level that actually you were claiming money that you weren't entitled to.

But can I give a couple of caveats:
- the level of proof depends on whether GA take a civil action against you to get the money back, or seek to prosecute you for the crime of fraud. In a civil action at the county court, the standard of proof is 'the balance of probabilities': so if GA argue that your record of claiming looks much like that of someone who is cheating then (unless you come back with some sort of answer against this) then in my view they would have gone quite some way in the direction of showing on the balance of probabilities that you owed them money. In a criminal case at the crown court, GA would have to prove their point 'beyond reasonable doubt': showing that your behaviour was the sort of thing a fraudster did would go some way towards that but (again, in my view) they would need to come up with further evidence to support their view - maybe evidence that you weren't on a train that you said you were, or evidence that you were on a train when you said you weren't. Is this evidence readily available? I don't know.
- so in the light of this while the onus is on GA to adequately prove their point, it probably makes sense to carry on engaging with them. If you do not respond at all to their correspondence, GA are unlikely to conclude that this means that you are innocent: much more likely they will read it as you having something to hide. So my advice would be to respond openly and honestly - which means making it clear that you have good reason for believing your journey patterns were as claimed: while you might not be able to find a witness to prove that on 2 January 2020 you left work early but were delayed because the 1500 train was cancelled, you travelled as normal on the 1700 on 3 January 2020, and left work late on 4 January 2020 and so were delayed by the cancellation of the 1900 that day, you need to be able to honestly tell GA that you would be able to get confirmation from your boss that it was entirely normal that some days you finished early and on others you finished late.

 

[packermac]

If you are satisfied that you have not been overclaiming, but that all your claims were legitimate, then the ball is in GA's court - ultimately it's for them to take you to court and prove to the appropriate level that actually you were claiming money that you weren't entitled to.

But can I give a couple of caveats:
- the level of proof depends on whether GA take a civil action against you to get the money back, or seek to prosecute you for the crime of fraud. In a civil action at the county court, the standard of proof is 'the balance of probabilities': so if GA argue that your record of claiming looks much like that of someone who is cheating then (unless you come back with some sort of answer against this) then in my view they would have gone quite some way in the direction of showing on the balance of probabilities that you owed them money. In a criminal case at the crown court, GA would have to prove their point 'beyond reasonable doubt': showing that your behaviour was the sort of thing a fraudster did would go some way towards that but (again, in my view) they would need to come up with further evidence to support their view - maybe evidence that you weren't on a train that you said you were, or evidence that you were on a train when you said you weren't. Is this evidence readily available? I don't know.
- so in the light of this while the onus is on GA to adequately prove their point, it probably makes sense to carry on engaging with them. If you do not respond at all to their correspondence, GA are unlikely to conclude that this means that you are innocent: much more likely they will read it as you having something to hide. So my advice would be to respond openly and honestly - which means making it clear that you have good reason for believing your journey patterns were as claimed: while you might not be able to find a witness to prove that on 2 January 2020 you left work early but were delayed because the 1500 train was cancelled, you travelled as normal on the 1700 on 3 January 2020, and left work late on 4 January 2020 and so were delayed by the cancellation of the 1900 that day, you need to be able to honestly tell GA that you would be able to get confirmation from your boss that it was entirely normal that some days you finished early and on others you finished late.

Whilst I would not disagree with the logic of any of that, I know that my former employer (I am now retired) would advise any manager NOT to get involved with issuing any statement, written or verbal, about any times an employee may or may not arrived or have left work. Even if that data was recorded on some sort of clocking in or flex time recording system I am unsure on the legality of that data being accessed for this purpose.
"Proof" does appear to be an area heavily weighted in favour of the TOC.