Couple fined for getting off train two stops early. Thoughts?

daz said:
The issue is, were those terms and conditions clear? It hardly makes sense that you would have to pay a massive fine in comparison to your ticket if you get off your train early.

In fact, I would imagine that this may even come under the unfair terms in contract since it places an unfair burden on the passenger compared to the train company. If the train had broken down before Southampton, would they have received £114 in compensation?
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They are clearly documented on the website, I have found them talked about many times before, and would also be in any promotional material for these fares.

And the fine is a fine, not compensation for breach of a contract, it's a fine for breaking the rules, the same fine applies across all of the rail services, £20 or twice the standard normal fare (whichever is more) for not having a valid ticket. This is clearly advertised everywhere in all stations, you really can't miss it.
For them this was £28.50 each, so £57*2, so they have to pay the fine, same as anyone else who doesn't have a valid ticket.
 
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thepeganator said:
They are clearly documented on the website, I have found them talked about many times before, and would also be in any promotional material for these fares.

And the fine is a fine, not compensation for breach of a contract, it's a fine for breaking the rules, the same fine applies across all of the rail services, £20 or twice the standard normal fare (which for them was £28.50 each).
The fine is for not having a valid ticket, and guess what.... They didn't have a valid ticket, so they have to pay the fine, same as anyone else.
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we're not arguing that this is technically correct

Somebody could enforce a contract that says a DVD costs twice as much if you didnt watch it all.

If you broke that contract, you'd still be breaking it and thus be in the wrong.

Doesnt stop the original contract being stupid however.
 
vonhelmet said:
They broke the terms and conditions of the ticket. Fair play.
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Just out of interest...

Supposing you felt ill and wanted to get off the train. Perhaps once off the train you wanted to rest for a bit then go directly home rather than continue on your planned excursion to Southampton.

Whilst the terms dictate that you should continue to Southampton would that situation change things so that, in that instance, the terms would be unreasonable/unfair and you would be able to effectively break the contract and simply exit at the earlier station?
 
MrLOL said:
we're not arguing that this is technically correct

Somebody could enforce a contract that says a DVD costs twice as much if you didnt watch it all.

If you broke that contract, you'd still be breaking it and thus be in the wrong.

Doesnt stop the original contract being stupid however.
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The fact is that it's illegal to not have a valid ticket on the train.

They didn't have one, and the fine is there as a deterrent to prevent people from avoiding getting tickets, if it was the same as the ticket price then who would ever buy one? Just try and wing it every time, get caught? Pay, if not, free journey.

This happened prolifically in Italy with their TV license, back when the fine for not having one was less than the license actually cost, so no one bought one.

They just so happened to have two of them on a very expensive journey, so the fine is proportionally higher.
There would have been a lot less fuss if they were on a £10 journey, and had to only pay a £20 fine each (the minimum possible).
 
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couldn't they have said they got off because his wife was feeling sick and they didn't want to throw up on the train?
 
thepeganator said:
The fact is that it's illegal to not have a valid ticket on the train.
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again your missing the point

we're not arguing we should be allowed to have invalid tickets, merely that the requirements for it to be valid (that you cant get off early) are stupid and pointless.
 
Tefal said:
couldn't they have said they got off because his wife was feeling sick and they didn't want to throw up on the train?
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:D that was my idea too a couple of posts above

'ooh I'm going to vom'

'erm my wife is too ill to carry on with our excursion, please let us through the barriers, we purchased a valid ticket from London but have unfortunately had to cut our journey short'

surely it would then become unreasonable for the train company to force them to continue on the journey or face a fine and the contract could be broken.
 
A contract is deemed unfair if:

If a contractual term has not been individually negotiated, and
the term causes significant imbalance in the parties rights and obligations, then
the term is contrary to the requirement of good faith.
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The term already causes significant imbalance in the other parties rights and obligations (ending a journey short = fine of double the standard single fare), the term has definitely not been individually negotiated.

The question is, is the term in good faith? On the one hand, you can argue that passengers must keep to their allotted routes - but they haven't changed their route - they haven't changed the train that they would have travelled on - they have merely cut their journey short. Is it a good faith term to charge them double the single fare for this? I am not a lawyer, but it seems like it could definitely be construed that in this particular instance, using the term of contact term of "breaking journeys" (i.e. where it is intended that people can't leave a train, get off an wander around, and join another train later at some other point in time on certain discounted tickets) is not in good faith in this instance. The passenger was completing their journey earlier.
 
daz said:
They did have a valid ticket for the train, and whilst they were on the train.
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Using the train companies services then, which include the train as well as the station/platforms etc.

MrLOL said:
again your missing the point

we're not arguing we should be allowed to have invalid tickets, merely that the requirements for it to be valid (that you cant get off early) are stupid and pointless.
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[anal]it's you're[/anal]

Sorry my mistake then.

But there are reasons for there being discounted fares to only certain stations, and as said by britboy4321, those fares will be financed by someone, they want to get people to a certain place, not have them use the tickets to go elsewhere.

Say a nightclub was running free pickups, you wouldn't get on the bus/whatever, get almost there and then say "excuse me driver, you don't mind if I get off a bit early and don't actually go to the nightclub do you?".
 
What if a Tourist Board or such like for a town is subsidising tickets to their Town to encourage people to travel there? I don't know if this sort of thing goes on, but it wouldn't surprise me seeing as it's all private companies now. Then would it be right to get off early?

(No idea if the above happens!)
 
dowie said:
they did have a valid ticket whilst on the train so weren't committing an offense afaik - the 'fine' etc.. is presumably a civil mater for breaching the contract by departing early?
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'Civil' and 'fine' don't go together. That's where the bank charges furore came from not too long ago. It's unlawful for a private individual or company to levy a penalty or 'fine' for breach of contract. They can only reclaim actual liquidated losses/damages. So if you and I signed a contract whereby I agreed to pay you to erect a garage, and you paid £10,000 to do so, but I only paid you £6,000, you'd be able to reclaim £4,000 thanks to the contract. You wouldn't, however, be able to charge me another £6,000 on top as a 'fine' or a 'penalty' as this is unlawful.
 
Seems ridiculous to me, if they'd been caught trying to break their journey then fine...

Should take it to court I can't see how the company could claim they suffered loss because of it.
 
To clarify, what do people mean by breaking their journey?

Not talking about the same thing as split ticketing? (which is totally and 100% legal as confirmed by the train companies).
 
thepeganator said:
To clarify, what do people mean by breaking their journey?

Not talking about the same thing as split ticketing? (which is totally and 100% legal as confirmed by the train companies).
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i believe breaking the journey is buying a ticket from london to edinburgh (as an example) but getting off in leeds, leaving the train station, then getting back on it later while the ticket is still valid to go to edinburgh.
 
My thought is that the contract is ridiculous in the first place. Public transport for you though, even with all the anti motorist terror, it still sucks compared to private transport.
 
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