Fawkes Cat
Established Member
- Joined
- 8 May 2017
- Messages
- 3,015
This point emerges from the discussion in https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/used-wrong-oyster-card.175332/. Essentially, a visitor to the UK had fallen foul of the rules for Oyster, and when challenged had given their hotel address: they wanted to know what would happen next.
The general tenor of our response was that we didn't really know. So I am launching this thread to see if we can come to an evidence-based consensus for maybe two scenarios when a non-UK traveller is caught in an irregularity:
1) Traveller provides the address (hotel, campsite, relative's UK home, AirBnB, etc) where they are staying
2) Traveller provides their permanent non-UK address
I can see that one answer is that when the railway look at the address, they will decide that there is no realistic chance of pursuing a penalty, and drop the matter. But I can also see - particularly in London, where foreign tourists are frequent users of the Underground - that to routinely not pursue non-UK travellers for irregularities would amount to a policy of free travel for tourists.
So (without breaking any confidences) does anyone know what TOCs and TfL actually do? Even if it turns out that none of us know, that should help us to give a straight answer ('don't know') in future.
The general tenor of our response was that we didn't really know. So I am launching this thread to see if we can come to an evidence-based consensus for maybe two scenarios when a non-UK traveller is caught in an irregularity:
1) Traveller provides the address (hotel, campsite, relative's UK home, AirBnB, etc) where they are staying
2) Traveller provides their permanent non-UK address
I can see that one answer is that when the railway look at the address, they will decide that there is no realistic chance of pursuing a penalty, and drop the matter. But I can also see - particularly in London, where foreign tourists are frequent users of the Underground - that to routinely not pursue non-UK travellers for irregularities would amount to a policy of free travel for tourists.
So (without breaking any confidences) does anyone know what TOCs and TfL actually do? Even if it turns out that none of us know, that should help us to give a straight answer ('don't know') in future.
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