Intention to prosecute-smart card failure

[FER]

Hi, I’ve received notice of intention to prosecute from Thameslink for travelling without a valid ticket between Bedford and Farringdon on 8th Feb. I understand that I have 14 days to respond from the date of the letter (14 March). I admit that I did travel without a ticket but it was entirely unintended and I was unaware that I was doing so, and whilst I want to put the facts to Thameslink I don’t want to appear that I am trying to get out of it by blaming their staff even though that is essentially what confused the me and led to me not having a valid ticket.
I have a Smart Card on which I had purchased a flexi-season ticket for 8 return journeys Bedford - London terminals within a one-month period, expiring 12 Feb. On 8th Feb I believed I had one remaining journey to use and used my smartcard at the barrier as usual at Bedford. It didn’t work so I asked a member of Thameslink staff if they could check my ticket, saying that I thought I had one remaining journey left but could they please confirm. They checked it on their handheld device, said it was fine and let me through.

On arrival at Farringdon, my smart card again didn’t work and I was stopped by a ticket inspector. He checked my smartcard on his device and said that there was no ticket showing at all. Oddly, he could see my previous, expired flexi-season tickets (the most recent being Oct23) but there was no sign of the Jan-Feb one. I tried to explain that I had a definitely a ticket that was in date, and that I had been told it had a valid journey available to me to use on that day but with no evidence of this and my details were taken for follow-up.

I called customer services the following day and they checked my ticket details and said I actually didn’t have a return journey available to me on that day, however as I had already told them that the staff at Bedford had informed me I had, they made a note of this and gave me the case number so that I could refer back to this if necessary.

I genuinely believed I had a return ticket available to me, had the staff at Bedford not misled me, I simply would have purchased a new ticket before starting my journey. I am currently using a full monthly season ticket and have had several issues with it not operating barriers. When this happened at City Thameslink, the ticket office staff advised me to use the Thameslink app so I can scan my smartcard myself and see the details however the app so out of date that it is not compatible with current Android OS and I’m unable to even download it.


My question is really, how much of this is relevant to this case? There is clearly an issue with not-so-Smart Cards from time to time and this has resulted in my current situation. I have never tried to evade fares or travel with a ticket in the past nor did I intend to do so that day but at the same time I admit that however unintentional it was, the bare fact is that I did travel without a valid ticket. I am planning to include in my response that I would appreciate the opportunity to settle out of court and am willing to pay the fare and admin costs but I really feel that Thameslink errors were to blame here.

Any advice would be much appreciated, thank you.

 

[jamiearmley]

Regarding an app which allows you to view any smart card contents and down load and activate tickets, try NATIONAL RAIL SMART CARD MANAGER. It's really good, and compatible with android.

 

[fandroid]

Did you get an email receipt for the purchase of the 8 journey ticket expiring 12 Feb 24? The reason you were stopped and reported was because they could find no ticket on the card after Oct 23 (if I have interpreted your story correctly). There ought to be some record of that later purchase, even if it's only one of a bank or card transaction. If no purchase was actually made, then we and you are left wondering what the Bedford gateline person actually saw

 

[FER]

Did you get an email receipt for the purchase of the 8 journey ticket expiring 12 Feb 24? The reason you were stopped and reported was because they could find no ticket on the card after Oct 23 (if I have interpreted your story correctly).

I have email receipt for the 8 journey ticket and I showed it at Farringdon but ticket inspectors are apparently instructed not to accept email confirmations as proof of ticket purchase. In this case that is actually fair enough because whilst that proved that I had purchased the 8 journeys in the first instance and the season ticket as a whole is within date, it doesn't show how many of them are remaining on any given day.
( a flexi season is valid for 1 month - you have 8 journeys to make within that month, then they expire. Mine was within date and I thought I had one remaining journey to use)
However this situation was compounded by there being no evidence at all of the ticket existing at Farringdon and I was trying to show that there seemed to be a problem with the smart card history as it was showing the expired Oct 23 ticket but not the Jan-Feb 24 one. I wasn't trying to use the email as proof that I had a valid journey, more to support the fact it had existed at all. What she saw at Bedford I've no idea.
My point I want to make to Thameslink is that had their staff not let me through at Bedford with incorrect information I would have purchased a new ticket.

 

[Haywain]

My point I want to make to Thameslink is that had their staff not let me through at Bedford with incorrect information I would have purchased a new ticket.

In which case you need to say this to them. Thameslink are very pragmatic in dealing with cases we see here, so try not to overthink this.

 

[fandroid]

I would still advise that you explain that there might have been something wrong with the Smartcard. You have evidence of the purchase of the later season ticket. You seem to have used it successfully several times, and the only doubt in your head was whether you had an unused journey on it. You were reported because the later inspection failed to show that season ticket at all. The first inspector could well have seen what they said they saw - a valid ticket. The card didn't get you through the first gate. That might have been an early symptom of it wobbling and about to go AWOL.

Someone somewhere should be able to research your earlier 2024 tap- ins, as evidence that the season had been correctly loaded, as well as paid for.

You need to demonstrate to the GTR office that the Farringdon inspection failed to spot a ticket that actually should have been on the card, and had been there on previous trips. That in itself demonstrates that something technical went wrong somewhere.

Think through what the Farringdon inspector would have reported - it would have been quite simple - passenger arrived with a Smartcard claiming to have loaded a ticket, but with no evidence of it showing on the scan.

It's true that you might have had no valid ticket, but it's very possible that you did have one.