Is it fair to fine £119.50 for getting on the wrong train?

[mollybloom]

Has anybody ever sat on the wrong train by mistakie without realizing it until the ticket got checked and then got fined a hefty £ 119.50 for having done nothing more than misreading the time on the ticket and getting on the wrong train? The departure time on my ticket read 15:40 whilst I had it in my mind that it was 14:40. I only found out that I was on the wrong train when I had to show my ticket. When I was fined a whooping £ 119.50, I felt furious and taken advantage of. I made a small mistake, nobody came to harm (the train was about three quarters empty - which made the whole situation even more pathetic) - and now they try to squeeze the most out of me. Disgusting is too tame a word to describe such behaviour. Has anybody else been in a similar situation?

Send a written complaint to the train operator.

how have you been taken advantage of? thems the rules. you made a mistake and whilst i agree with you that £119.50 is a criminal amount to fine someone, i don't see how you have been taken advantage of. is there anyway you can appeal the fine?

Did you buy the ticket online? I ask because the different fares are clearly stated, as are the trains your ticket is valid for. As far as I know if you get on an invalid train you are charged the full fare on the day. If you buy the ticket over the phone I imagine it's easier to make a mistake.

Hi BooyHoo
I just feel that East Coast is trying to exploit a minor mistake and make the most money out of it. Formally speaking, they are right: my ticket was valid for another journey. I just feel that what they are doing is completely unfair towards the customer. They are trying to charge me the amount of an undiscounted full fare single ticket. How about taking off the amount I paid for my vaild ticket and make it count against the full price? Out of fairnesss, good will and care for the customer. They are entering into a real battle zone with customers if they continue like this.

They ARE trying to exploit you for a tiny mistake. I don't see the train companies saying sorry when you pay £176 for one child and one adult who have to spent the 5 hour journey sat on the floor by the toilets. (yes that was me, more than ten times). DO write and state your case.

Hi ilovesooty - I bougth the ticket online and even had it sent to my place to make sure things would run smoothly on that day. It's just such a lousy way of treating people. It looks to me as if they are trying to charge customers more money whenever the slightest opportunity to do so arises. It's a way of victimizing customers. I don't think it will take them far in the end.

FurKnickersAndNoCoat - How awful is that! And by the sound of it you paid the full price and were probably guaranteed a proper seat. It's exactly that which annoys me most. They claim all rights for themselves and don't give the customers any at all. It's a completely antiquated attitude - kind of top to bottom. Rather unbearable. In any other situation, they would not stand the slightest chance of survival.

You should have got off the train and waited for the one that you should have been on.

I would have gladly done so and, for fairness sake, the guard suggested this too but then she also realized that the following train, i.e. the one I had the ticket for, was a through train, which did not stop at any of the stations I could have got off. So, in a way, to me it feels as if I am being fined £119.50 just because I couldn't change the train because there were no shared stops! Oh, it just makes me feel so angry!

I can understand your upset OP, but essentially you were traveling without a ticket for the train you were on. You made an honest mistake and it probably is worth writing and asking them to be nice to you, but it's not an unusual way to manage travel. Airline tickets are all for specific times and days too, the only difference is that they check your ticket before you board (some train operators do that too). I am sympathetic, I've done similar things myself (like traveling once without my family rail card) and it is very galling and a little bit humiliating to be caught too.

Thanks, nooka, for your understanding. It just wouldn't be possible to board a flight with the wrong ticket for the reasons you stated. I feel that if they impose such draconian fines and run their railway services as if they were flights, they have to check tickets similarly thoroughly as airliners do before the beginning of the journey. Their whole behaviour is just so completely inconsistent and unfair towards the customer. I don't think an airline company could afford to run like this. PS: What I got from browsing through the net is that they charge you an additional £20 in admin costs if you write them a letter and they have to reply - it's that kind of customer care!

I would call them and ask for a bit of leinency (sp?) as it was an honest mistake, it does bloody hurt because that isn't a small amount of money. But you were on the wrong train and from their point they can't make seperate rules for "honest mistakes" and "thieving bastards" but sometimes if you are extra nice and say please with a cherry on top they might be able to help you over the phone.

Gah. That's a big fine.

Thing is, you booked a seat and paid to be on a particular train. There may well have been someone standing and not able to sit down because of that reserved ticket sticking out of the top of that seat. Indeed, if everyone who had booked to be on a particular train got the wrong one, there would be people unable to sit down, or people who have paid lots to be on any train unable to get on.

From their point of view, they have probably given you a heavily discounted ticket. You do not say how much you originally paid for your return journey - but I'm guessing it wasn't £119.50 but some kind of off peak super saver discount jobby?

If you then just get on any train, you are "taking" the rights of someone who had paid full fare, but without paying as much, which isn't really "fair". If they didn't fine like this, people could buy the cheapest fare, get any train they liked, and be quids in. If they charged a "nominal" fine amount like say £30, same as a parking ticket, once again you'd still be quids in if you'd only paid £40 for your original ticket, so people would purposefully do this to save money - it'd be on Moneysavingexpert.com for sure!

Rail travel is frightfully expensive in this country and I'm not really defending the train operating companies in that it is disgraceful that people who have paid for tickets dont have seats etc but to be fair that is a separate issue and one that isn't really going to be helped by people getting on a train they are not booked to be on.

If its any consolation, most of them are not making much profit and the running of the trains is generally one big headache.

Their customer service is generally shite though, it has to be said.

You got the train an hour early? Whoops.

I also think you should write to them and beg. It annoys me that there never seems to be any leeway these days for genuine mistakes from any of these official bodies.

Good luck

The problem really is the outrageous cost of rail travel in the UK. This is a tiny little island - what single journey could possibly justify a single fare of £119.50??? It is sad to think that it is almost always cheaper to drive than use the train.

It is probably fair to charge the full fare to a passenger travelling on a train with a ticket that is not valid for that journey, but the full fare should be nowhere near £119.50. You can take a return flight to mainland Europe for that price ffs. The 'discounted fares' should just be the fares. However, then more people might use the trains and we would all have even less chance of getting a seat on popular routes.

The whole system needs overhauling, but I don't see it happening - they can't just rip up all the railways and start again. I don't know what the answer is but YANBU that a fine of £119.50 is utterly disproportionate.

Don't get me started on the Virgin policy of having HALF of every train between Liverpool and London made up of first class carriages (with one person in each carriage, sometimes not even that many) and then hundreds of passengers wedged into the remaining standard class carriages. It makes no sense.

Sorry you are being unreasonable - how many times do you think the ticket inspector has hard the words 'sorry it was a mistake' when a passenger presents a ticket for a cheaper fare unfortunatly many people are cheats and try to get a cheaper fare, how does a TI who has heard that excuse 100 times that day know you are one of the few that have made an honest mistake, do you have a neon sign with honest person tatooed on your forehead.

I would agree that the penalty fares are steep and I would agree that the whole fare structure should be changed as it is very confusing, however you as a passenger have the responsibility to check you are on the correct train and when you purchase a ticket you agree to abide by the train companies T&Cs.

For further clarification I would suggest you go onto the Consumer Action Groups transport forum (shit at links sorry) they have regular contributers who are ex and current Revenue Protection people and they will give you sound advice.

They will most likely say the same as me but can advise you if they think you may have grounds for appeal.

You have my sympathy. You should be able to reclaim the cost of the original ticket by writing to the train company as you did not use it and were forced to buy a new one.

I lost one of my return tickets on a train once. I still had all the outbound tickets and some of the return leg tickets and the credit card receipt. I was travelling with a child and it was obvious what had happened. The guard still charged me £80 single ticket for that leg of the journey and refused to accept the family railcard. Totally taken advantage of and the guard was being utterly obnoxious and sarcastic about it but I knew if I said a single word he would have thrown me off the train.

I know abuse of public transport staff is wholly wrong but I also think that train and airline companies deliberatley manipulate the fact thay have you physically trapped to impose extortionate and unerasonable conditions. I am not surprised that some people flip.

East coast do this.

Was it a fine, or was the £119.50 the fare for the journey that you didnt have a ticket for? Why did you not get off the train and wait an hour for the one that you did have a ticket for?

I dont like East Coast either, but tbh it sounds like this problem was of your making, why did you choose to pay an additional £119 rather than get off at the next platform and wait for an hour?

You should have got off the train and waited for the one that you should have been on

Yes I agree. YOU made the mistake and wouldn't have been fined if you had done what the inspector told you to, even if it meant waiting a bit for the train that did stop at the station you wanted.

Imagine if everyone said 'Oh sorry, I made a mistake.'

Bet you'll check the departure times properly now

And you didn't get fined for being on the WRONG train, you were fined for continuing your journey without a correct ticket for that particular train.

YABU

You didn't get fined. You had to pay the standard single fare for the train you were on.

If you buy a cheap advance fare it will only be valid for the booked train. Them's the rules.

The real problem here is the utterly exorbitant charges for train travel, that is massively unreasonable.
When it comes to getting on the "right train" I do think the train companies are awful. Recently I had a ticket for Virgin trains at 2.30. The 2.30 train was delayed and didn't arrive till 4pm. I was not allowed to get on any of the trains going to the same place which arrived and left in the intervening 90 minutes because I didn't have a ticket for those trains and would have been charged penalty fares. So I missed my hospital appointment which I was travelling back home for. Appalling customer service, agree it is all about the rights of the train company and no thought for customers.

It wasn't a fine - they were charging you the price for the train you were actually on.

You have my sympathy - but unfortunately it is unlikely that there is anything you can do. If they didn't enforce this policy the popular trains at peak times would be full of people who had paid about half the price of that journey saying they had made a mistake. A fine for travelling without a ticket would be much less than what you paid and it might well be that it would be in someone's interests to buy a cheaper ticket and pay the fine and still get away with less than the cost of the actual journey - hence them charging you for the actual ticket.

You won't get a refund, I don't think - I missed a train once due to being ill. I had to pay £145 to get home even though I had already paid £30. They were very sympathetic but no refund.

x-posted with Amateurish