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?

Stella
2 days - that is so pathetic.
I was on a train in the appalling snow, coming back from London with DS - it literally stopped at Coventry for half an hour, and then we were all thrown off and told to make our own way back to Birmingham.
Were they interested in paying us back for the taxi fare to Birmingham? Were they hell!!

emsyj - you are the embodiment of rationality! The only thing madder than train fares is house prices. The original purpose of these things is now totally secondary to making vast quantities of cash. The OP is absolutely right, it is ridiculous that we have to go through this elaborate palaver of different advance booking fares etc. The profits are certainly not spent on disabled access I can tell you that. Definitely try an appeal.

thb I wasn't bothered about having to pay, I was in the wrong. I just couldn't believe that I was accused of lying, there was no need for that at all!

Snow was a nightmare, I had the cat with me in a carrier and the journey took 9 hours from Sheffield to Taunton. I was kicked off trains twice and honestly at one point thought I was going to have to spend the night at Birmingham New Street.

I found a load of other people trying to get to Taunton and we managed to find something by working toether, it was hell trying to find an attendant to tell us what was going on. At one point we were dying for a fag so a few of us lit up on one of the platforms (bad I know but I had been 5 hours without and we could not get out of the station due to ticket barriers). At least three attendants materialised out of nowhere to tell us to put them out (where the hell had they been hiding?)

Sorry for this really late wrap up - I clicked myself out for a few days to get dirty boots planting seedlings and probably forget about this horrible train companies. It's been shocking to hear about these terrifying train experiences that some of you have been through. So much seems to have gone wrong. Some services just appear to run better and more efficiently if they are not privatised - for me, the railway is one of them. Look at Switzerland: trains are almost always on time, they ran at regular intervals, serve the whole of the country (even those remote places in the Alps that, per se, are not lucrative) and don't cost an arm and a leg (provided you have a half price card) - and they are run (with a few expections) by the Swiss National Railway Society (SBB), a public body. It can be done! But it takes commitment to do it properly. The problem in the U.K. is that there is no consensus on what services should be provided by private companies and what services should be run by a public body. Worse still, the underlying current is to privatise everyhing that possibly can be, which is not always in the best interest of the public. What will this tell us about a possible future privatisation of the NHS? I dare not think!
PS: Some of you suggested that I should have got off the train at the next stop. Unfortunately, that was not an option. As the train I had a ticket for did not stop at any of the stations I could have got off, which would have left me in a situation of having to buy a new ticket for a future train going down to London during the rush hour time span at an unknown price (at least £119.50, but possibly even more). So, I decided to stay on. It's true that the £ 119.50 was the price for the new ticket I was forced to buy; I called it a fine because I felt penalized for having to fork out such an exorbitant amount of money.

I knew I would be expected to pay 60 quid for a new ticket but was really annoyed as I felt it wasn't fair, so when I got on the right train I pretended to be asleep (yes that old trick still works!)

Don't rely on that working - a couple of years ago I was (genuinely) asleep on a train and the ticket inspector actually shook my arm to wake me up. I had a valid ticket but he obviously thought I didn't and was just pretending to be asleep. I remember being quite shocked at being manhandled like that, can understand why they do it but it still seems very rude.

I am shocked reading so many of these stories.

When I was around 6 months pregnant I had been on a train and had had my ticket checked etc. no problems but when I got off the train I couldn't find my ticket. The barrier inspector refused to let me through unless I paid for another ticket £100ish I think. I explained that I couldn't possibly not have had a ticket because there had been a inspector on board and I showed my husbands ticket and receipt to prove we had bought 2 tickets. I was held behind the barrier and was not allowed out until I paid for another ticket. It went on for ages and I even called over a passing policeman who couldn't help.

After a really long time I was so angry at the situation that I jumped over the barrier when the guards turned their backs and ran for it!! ha ha!

So the £119.50 was not a fine but the standard fare to travel on the train you were on? That sounds reasonable enough actually, though you could argue that they should have just charged you the difference between that and the ticket you bought, instead of making you buy a whole new ticket.

That's how it works though. The cheap (often ridiculously cheap) advance tickets are conditional on you travelling on a particular train. If you're not prepared to keep to that agreement (which you entered into when buying the ticket) and carefully check that you're on the correct train, then you should buy a standard ticket which gives you more freedom about when you travel.

When I've travelled with East Coast, they always have multiple announcements before departure asking people to please check their tickets to make sure they're valid on that train! You would have been told when you bought the ticket as well, and it probably said on the ticket itself. I know it's annoying, but it was your mistake. If you turned up at the airport wanting to get on a different flight from the one your ticket was for, I'd imagine you'd pay a lot more than that for a walk-up ticket, if they even had space to let you on at all!

I think there is a lot of 'fare-dodging' going on as well, people trying to get away with the wrong/no ticket, out-of-date or fake/borrowed railcards etc. I've known many people who have done this routinely. If it wasn't for that, they might be a bit more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to people who've made a genuine mistake. As it is, there are so many cheats that it's difficult to know who is genuine and who isn't.

I know what everyone's saying about it being the rules and all, but I think what the OP is getting at is the lack of flexibility. If it was a packed train and your mistake meant you'd taken someone's booked seat, fair enough, but on a train with tons of room what's the problem?

A similar thing happened to me and what was really galling was the attitude of the ticket collector. He was officious and pompous and just LOVED making me pay the extra. He also took great pleasure in telling the guy next to me that he was on the wrong train and would have to change. Hard to convey in writing but his whole manner was 'You are wrong and stupid'.

I think these things should be sorted out on a case-by-case basis, with allowances for human error and common sense. Not that hard really, surely?

But that would take a level of empathy and understanding - something sadly lacking in Virgin train managers imho.

If a hospital appointment runs over so you miss a train, and you show the appt. letter but they still won't let you on the next train, that's seriously lacking.

I bet the problem for the inspectors is that so many people try it on. I have seen it so many times when travelling - people with tickets for the wrong train, no railcard, sitting in first class with a second class ticket. Loads of people try to get away without paying the proper fare. And they always plead ignorance / mistake / lost ticket.

Unfortunately, the rest of us fare paying passengers have to suffer when we make genuine mistakes because of the actions of these scallywags.

If you just had to pay the difference in fare, that would enable people to play the system. e.g.

Train A 8:30 = £120 (the train I want)
Train B 9:30 = £30 (next train)

I'll just pay £30 but travel on train A. If I don't get caught then I'm a winner. If I get caught, I pay the difference and I'm no worse off.

The thing is - I was absolutely hundred percent sure I was on the right train. It did not occur to me for a split second I got the time wrong and therefore did not even bother to check my ticket - certainly a learning experience. Anyway, you can't compare train travels to flights as the whole procedure is a completely different one and therefore trains should not be run as if they were flights. It just doesn't work like that. It's outrageous that train companys can get away with absolute lousy customer treatment. If this were an air carrier, I would never ever book a flight with them again! The crux is - there is no choice!!! If I want to go down to London on the train, I have to use East Coast. That's why these train companies can get away by treating customers so badly. And that's what annoys me about the privatisation of certain services - there is no genuine competition and there is no genuine choice and therefore privatisation turns out to be a monopoly and that just is bad news for customers. This monopolistic situation gives these companies licence to be as rude and exploitative as they want to be. A friend of mine who has had a similar experience recently called them "nazis". For me, that really sums it up: "Oh sorry, I am only doing my job. Don't blame me, blablabla...." and we all know what that ends up in. It's foul and unbearable and should not be tolerated. Full stop.

Yeah, I know if they just introduced a single fine for having the wrong ticket, people could play the system. How about a single fare for times outside rush hours and one for travelling during rush hours and a fixed fine for travelling with the wrong ticket and bring fares in line with each other so that paying the fine would never be cheaper than a cheap ticket plus fine.
And how about introducing some common sense into this system that seems to have become so Kafkaesque that using it becomes a scary experience where "they" just wait for you to take a wrong step so that they can pounce on you and squeeze your last penny out of you presumably because they can't make a profit otherwise!

I'm with you, mollybloom. It's lack of choice that allows them to behave this way. Airlines like Ryanair might have crap customer service and policies but at least you can choose to fly with them or not.

Contact your MP. That's ridiculous.

This warms my cockles: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8223262.stm

Ephiny - are there still "ridiculously cheap" fares available on British trains? Or are you confusing "reasonable and fair prices for standard journeys and distances" with "ridiculously cheap"? It may be that a tiny, tiny percentage of all tickets are available at "ridiculously cheap" prices, but they are only a small fraction.

There will always be a hard core of people who will attempt to ticket dodge (although in many stations this becomes more difficult as they introduce barriers, etc.); however, when more honest people feel tempted to fare dodge because of the outrageousness of the fare, then something's wrong...

This article makes depressing reading.

It's the rules they get to operate under, am sure they bank on revenue like this, generated through genuine mistakes which can be allowed to implemented due to chancers and cheats

I was on a train a while back and the woman next to me had the wrong ticket on an extemely busy train - right time but wrong day by a week - and the guard was fine, said he saw it as a genuine mistake, and she rang her other half to vent as he had booked the ticket..

Maybe they are on commission or have been trained by traffic wardens..

Thank you for that the link to that heart-warming story. That really cheered me up:-))

I've had two horrible situations with trains - one where they changed the rules about whether you could buy on the train if you were in a hurry ("you should have seen the poster madam, it was on the platform" "erm, well I was running for the train") the other when I bought a return to my destination at a London rail station, the underground was delayed and so by the time I got to the connecting service out of London heading north, it was no longer off-peak. Not that I'd known, I just asked for a return to xxxx when I bought my ticket.

The first one stays with me because the inspector was so clearly loving the fact that I was almost tearful because I couldn't afford the fine. He was really getting off on it

I don't think there should be cheap fares for certain trains and higher fares for others, should just be one reasonable fare, that's it, that's what it costs to get from A to B.

I honestly think the OFT should look at ticket pricing and how train copmpanies go about their business. For them to fine you such a large amount is completely unfair and unreasonable. I think the train company should be made to change their standard terms and conditions. They should be able to fine fare dodgers but not people who have got on the wrong train.

I like the fact that I can buy cheap advance fares for specific trains. I don't see why I should have to pay the same as expense account business types at peak times if I am prepared to book in advance and maybe travel at less convenient times.

I used to love to travel by train when I could just turn up and buy a ticket at reasonable price' but never use them now, partly because I'm sure I'd finish up in one of these horror stories and partly because I can never plan far enough ahead to get the " cheaper" prices.

I now travel only by coach if my DH is not going too and therefore driving. Coaches may not be the fastest or most comfortable way to travel half the length of England, but, at least, I know I will get a seat, will not have paid the wrong fare and do not have to book weeks in advance (24 hours is more than enough usually).