Hypothetical: seeking an out of court settlement

[Fawkes Cat]

This is a first attempt, which others will, I hope, improve on:

"On dd/mm/yy at about (time) after a flight I bought an Anytime Single ticket from www Airport to yyy
I am not familiar with the route as I do not do this journey often/regularly/have never done it before. (choose!)
A member of staff told me I needed to change at xxx for yyy
Unfortunately I missed the stop at XXX and was over-carried to zzz.

I did not know how to get back to yyy, so I attempted to leave the station and catch a Tube (as I knew how to get home from yyyy tube station).
I had an Oyster card with enough credit, and used it for this at about (time).
My ticket did not work the barriers, and this is when I was challenged.

I realise now that I should have asked advice and would have been told to catch a train back to yyy from the other platform; however, I did not know this then, and tried to get home by a route I knew.

By trying to use the barrier I probably gave the impression that I was trying to evade paying the correct fare. I apologise unreservedly for my mistake, and hope you will accept that I was not attempting to defraud the railway.

(I know that fare evasion costs the railway a considerable amount. I also realise that investigating cases like this is costly in staff time. I hope you will agree to settle this informally. I am, of course, willing to pay the difference in fares plus an amount to cover the expense of your investigation.)"

Please re-word this in a way that you are comfortable with.

I am not sure whether you should include the last paragraph - maybe that should wait for the follow-up if they do not offer a settlement immediately.

What do others think?

I agree the reply should be kept short but I am sure the OP would appreciate knowing which bits to cut.

Most of the first four paragraphs. The 5th paragraph is the one the OP wants, and needs, them to read. It isn’t good if they get bored before getting that far.

This taken from a separate thread, but anonymised to respect that thread's OP's privacy.

Can we discuss the best formula that we should be suggesting to posters who wish to obtain an out of court settlement? My personal feeling is that while the railway staff reading a request for a settlement will have heard all the reasons and excuses before, leaping straight to 'I know that I was wrong and promise not to do it again' is a little bald: it suggests that someone is using a magic formula in the hope that it will produce the desired result: something explaining the specific detail of what happened at least suggests that there's an attempt to associate the mistakes made with the particular event.

But then again, I don't work for the railway any more, and when I did a quarter of a century ago I wasn't in a customer facing role, so people with more recent and relevant experience will be in a better position to know what works.

 

[WesternLancer]

This taken from a separate thread, but anonymised to respect that thread's OP's privacy.

Can we discuss the best formula that we should be suggesting to posters who wish to obtain an out of court settlement? My personal feeling is that while the railway staff reading a request for a settlement will have heard all the reasons and excuses before, leaping straight to 'I know that I was wrong and promise not to do it again' is a little bald: it suggests that someone is using a magic formula in the hope that it will produce the desired result: something explaining the specific detail of what happened at least suggests that there's an attempt to associate the mistakes made with the particular event.

But then again, I don't work for the railway any more, and when I did a quarter of a century ago I wasn't in a customer facing role, so people with more recent and relevant experience will be in a better position to know what works.

I feel there is a need for basic background circs as a reader needs to understand if the scenario the 'victim' is in has a plausible element of genuine error - as opposed to premeditated attempt to seek to not buy a ticket.