Railway Penalty Charge

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the simple fact is that a discount ticket is not valid without all the necessary instruments for acquiring the discount, in this case, her YP railcard. Ergo, the ticket she had was invalid, and effectively just a piece of card.
 
I read the Southern Penalty Fare leaflet and they do charge either a £20 penalty fare or 2x the single fare (which ever is more). Actually it's worse than that, they charge, 2x the single fare to the next stop then the full single fare to final stop journey. Anyway their leaflet is confusing as you'd expect.

But the most interesting part is this:
What if I am unable to pay the full amount of the Penalty
Fare on the spot?
If you do not have the full amount, then you will be allowed to
make a part payment. You are required by law to provide your
full name and address at this time and you then have 21 days to
pay the remaining amount of the Penalty Fare. This can be done
at Southern ticket offices or by sending a cheque or postal order
to the payment address on the Penalty Fare notice. Please
include the Penalty Fare notice with your payment and do not
send cash through the post. Failure to provide an Authorised
Collector, when asked to do so, with your current name and
address, or give a false name and address, is a criminal offence
and will lead to prosecution.
Click to expand...

So ask if the person if they are an "authorised collector" and ask them to show the special identification document which proves that they are. Then say you don't have enough money in your account to cover the full cost and so would be willing to pay the full cost of a single ticket and provide the relevant details to pay the rest at a later date. Say this is because your rent is due or something like that.

After this, follow the advice in the article.
 
Actually I just read the article again, you don't even need to make up the story about the rent, it's your right just to pay the full single fare and the southern leaflet is misleading.

So yeh, just copy the contents of that article to your girlfriends phone in case she needs to quote her rights lol. See points 3 and 4 of the article, that should cover you for most of these penalties, including this one today I'm assuming, although it's probably too late now.
 
ritcH said:
Actually I just read the article again, you don't even need to make up the story about the rent, it's your right just to pay the full single fare and the southern leaflet is misleading.

So yeh, just copy the contents of that article to your girlfriends phone in case she needs to quote her rights lol
Click to expand...

It's great advice, except that everything has already happened, been and gone. So it's all useless now.
 
Not sure why this is problem. The discount applies with the card No card full rate. However, as spoon says earlier, she should get it back.

I have sometimes forgotten my gold card but I can't expect to just board the train using this as an excuse without being penalised. . I buy a day ticket before I travel and get a refund next day. This avoids any penalty fare which isn't returnable.
 
Admiral Huddy said:
Not sure why this is problem. The discount applies with the card No card full rate. However, as spoon says earlier, she should get it back.

I have sometimes forgotten my gold card but I can't expect to just board the train using this as an excuse without being penalised. . I buy a day ticket before I travel and get a refund next day. This avoids any penalty fare which isn't returnable.
Click to expand...

Yeh according to point #1 in the article
If you forget your season ticket, you do not have to pay a penalty fare. You may be issued with a "nil fare" penalty notice and asked to send in a photocopy of your season, or asked to buy a normal single ticket (which you can then get refunded at a ticket office on production of your season). You can only do this twice a year.
Click to expand...

But this case is due to a student discount so it's probably treated differently. But that's another good idea. Just claim you forgot your season ticket, then they can only charge you the price of a single fare.
 
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