To think he didn't need to charge me

[memorial]

Yesterday I travelled from Cardiff to London for a birthday treat to see Hugh Jackman bought for me by my sister.
I bought my train tickets in advance at £50.
We had a wonderful time though the £20 train ticket back to my sister's house was galling. And again this morning back to London.
I left my sister's house in plenty of time (according to TFL planner). But of course the train was stuck at a red light for 10/15 mins and the tubes were awfully slow.
I raced into the station just to see the train doors closing. Never mind I think it's super off peak midweek I'll get the next train in half an hour.
So I do. Scan my ticket at the gates and settle down for the journey. A busy but not full train with no seat reservations.
About 10 mins in a rather brusque ticket collector comes round. I show him my ticket and he gets quite aggressive loudly telling me I need to buy a ticket. I am genuinely gobsmacked and explain what happened.
He points out (rudely and very loudly) that my ticket was an advance single and only valid on the train I missed.
I am very apologetic and say I usually buy a super off peak and didn't even realise this and again explain how I just missed the train.
He again very loudly and rudely says I can buy a ticket or get off with a fine. He really is talking to me like I am a criminal fare dodger.
So I pay another £50 close to tears. What a horrible end to a lovely birthday treat.
So while I accept that my ticket wasn't valid, did he really need to be so rude and aggressive and surely he could have used a bit of discretion. I clearly wasn't trying to take the piss.
Feeling really sad and disappointed. Have spent £140 on train tickets plus tube and feel like a naughty school child.

But the system does allow that, just. Advance single tickets on a timed service are valid for travel on the next available service if the reason for missing the train was due to a delayed train. (There are a couple of other reasons). The only thing it doesn’t do is allow you to travel flexibly because you choose to. For that you’d need a different ticket.

The problem is that the system is so complicated that people don’t necessarily understand all the terms and conditions of the different tickets they use.

Lazydaisy. You are a complete idiot and looking for a fight.
My use of the word discretion (and as understood by every other poster except you) was used as in "he could use his discretion ie CHOICE whether to charge me or not".
Not in the way you've interpreted it so you can paint me as some feeble flower. I didn't really care that he wasn't discrete ie quiet/stage whispering. As I think I have made perfectly clear numerous times. I actually don't think I've mentioned being embarrassed at all. I wasn't. I don't embarrass easily. What he was was loud/aggressive/intimidating towards me. Making me feel getting uncomfortable and bullied.
Got it now??
That is not ok. And if you think it is put your daughter and mother in that situation and tell me it's still ok.

The system is complicated. I really don't think anyone can deny that. I travel a lot and usually book a super off peak for all the reasons rehashed on here. I know it can take longer to go 20 miles from my sister across London than the 2 hours cross country to Cardiff.
In this case I can only imagine Trainline through up 2 advance singles as a cheaper option and I just clicked without looking.
YES that was my fault. I absolutely accept that. And in fact I absolutely intended to take that train. I literally missed it by a minute. And I didn't realise the type of ticket I had on my app so less likely to look at it. If I had I would have gone to the ticket office first. The scanners didn't stop me. So the first I knew was Mr aggressive.
YES I accept I should (and did) pay. It's seems utterly unfair and uncompromising to me. But I accept others to do not see that.
Still not accepting that it's acceptable to intimidate anyone when you are in a customer facing role. Especially not a single woman who really wasn't being antagonistic in any way.

If you miss your train that you have a specific ticket for, you go to the ticket office and get it dealt with there. You cant just get on any train you want without the correct ticket

I’m a Londoner and feeling quite defensive about our apparently shit public transport. ☹️

@whyohwhyowhydididoit. It really is awful. I was so stressed last weekend running through the airport, because my train was forty minutes late because he just decided to stop the train on the tracks for forty minutes. A train on the way to the AIRPORT! Everyone in my carriage was panicking about missing their flight. A lady in the airport shot me daggers for being late and shouted "hurry" at me. She said "you are very lucky " (very angrily) you made it by one minute

@Memorial. My daughter once fell asleep on a train and missed her stop by around 3 stations. She got gripped by the ticket inspector and handed a fine. She didn't pay the fine and ended up in the magistrate court where she was fined a whopping £475.
My response was it served her right for not paying the original fine and no, i won't lend her the money to pay the court fine, she can pay it at a fiver a week or go to prison for not paying it. Her choice.
She paid it at a fiver a week, ended up with a criminal record and never fell asleep on a train again.
The inspectors are there to do a job, not to use 'discretion' It would be like me using more gas this week than usual and expecting the supplier to let me off with the extra that i used because i didn't realise i had used it.
Pay the fine and stop whinging.

Actually no it's not the same at all. It's an utterly bizarre comparison.

Rest assured Londoners that however shit your transport may be it is light years ahead of the rest of the UK.

@Whowasit you sound unhinged.

It is the same @Memorial. She argued with the ticket inspector the same as you did, with the same end result. She thought it was unjustified and the ticket inspector was inappropiate in his approach.
unhinged?@Harolds. In what way?

@Harolds

Whowasit. Apologies that wasn't directed at you. It was the paying a gas bill comparison that I was talking about. Thread moved a bit quick.
Have to admit you don't sounds very nice. I can't imagine treating my daughter like that.

I am part English and I have there before, a long time ago, so I am saying this from my point of view. What on Earth has happened to England? I was in London for three days. One of the days a man in a restaurant started saying that he was going to kill everyone and two security threw him out. I saw fights on the streets. I saw racism more than I have seen anywhere else, and racism not only hurts the people you are doing it to, I saw it hurting the people doing it. I saw alot of very cold , nasty, unempathetic people. Look on the news today, two women were attacked and left covered in blood on a bus in london. I was honestly shocked at the place. It is like a hell

Apologies if this has been said but I travel a lot by train. If I miss my connection because my first train is delayed I can get on the next available train by the same operator.

@Memorial. I would do anything for my kids, but sometimes you just have to take a hard line.
Please don't cast aspesion's on my mothering. Ta.

Please don't cast aspesion's on my mothering. Ta. smile

She’s not the only one. And I expect more will be along presently.

“I'm not entitled. I paid the ticket. So I've paid twice for the same journey.”

You didn’t pay twice for the same journey. You paid twice for two different trains.

I have a prebooked super off peak ticket in front of me and it clearly states valid only on the train on the ticket.

Ah well, such is life on MN @Butchyrestingface.

That should say prebooked an advance ticket not super off peak.

@memorial I am staggered by some of the spite directed at you on this thread.

I agree with you that being shouted at and humiliated by a ticket person is completely unnecessary. It's just not acceptable. This has happened to me twice and the first time two inspectors stood towering over me, shouting at me and laughing with each other about me in front of a packed carriage of commuters. They fined me as well as charging me the price of the ticket for the correct train and I ended up in tears, not from the costs but from the shouting and humiliation. I actually complained to the train company afterwards about their attitude (not about the fine or extra ticket) and they were both given a talking to about how to treat passengers.

About 10 years later I was again on the wrong train - I'd only just purchased my tickets from the station machine so I have no idea how it was the wrong train - with my two boys, one of whom is severely autistic. Ticket man comes along and points out quietly and kindly that our tickets were for the next train in half an hour's time, so we could get off at the next stop and wait for it. I explained that I didn't think DS1 would cope with that so asked if we could pay to remain on the train we were on. Nice kind ticket man agreed and all was sorted.

There are ways and means of doing things....and being shouted at and humiliated is not acceptable.

Just accept it, OP. All the posters who weren’t there, didn’t read your post properly and have never met you know better than you do, OK? You whined and you argued and you are a boomer and you probably put cats in wheely bins or something.

Being sensible for a moment, I have seen some aggressive behaviour by train conductors. Usually directed at quiet, polite people.

I was on a train to Newcastle and two Japanese girls got on at York. They had bought tickets from a machine and hadn’t realised that cross country tickets weren’t valid on Transpennine services. Why would they?

The conductor was really aggressive with them, immediately: just as the OP describes. It was really uncomfortable to watch; it was obviously an innocent mistake and the girls’ english wasn’t great, so it must have been intimidating for them.

I and a couple sitting nearby politely intervened to suggest to the conductor that he let them off at Darlington to pick up the next Cross Country train instead of (as he was insisting, much more expensive) their buying two new open singles to Newcastle. No. He wanted those girls punished and threatened to throw me and the other people off the train “if you carry on arguing with me”.

Jobsworth. I bet he had his eyes on his commission. He could have been polite and still taken a hard line, but no. He had to be aggressive. I’m with you, OP.

To the PP who said her train just stopped on the track 40 minutes ‘for no reason’. I am quite certain there was a reason. Drivers don’t just stop for a break or to call their mums.

The driver will have obeyed a signal to stop. There are two possible reasons. A train further up the line might have been might have been halted by breakdown or staff/passenger illness in which case all the trains behind have to stop and wait so they don’t crash. Sadly it is equally likely that the train was halted because somewhere further up the line had committed suicide by jumping in front of a train. When that happens everything grinds to a halt for the police to attend, undertakers to clear and remove the remains (in a respectful manner), the shocked/traumatised train driver to be replaced, all of which takes time. It happens quite often and can cause huge delays.

I am a commuter, spend thousands on train journeys, and this would still happen to me I was stupid enough to think an Advance ticket was the same as a super-offpeak. You need to research before you travel.

Did someone really just say that to teach their daughter a lesson about fare skipping they would refuse to help her out with a fine, and if she couldn't pay it, they'd let her go to prison?
For falling asleep on a train?

But the OP wasn’t chancing her arm, was she? She didn’t deliberately get a later train just because she felt like it. She missed her train because of delays to her tube. Research wouldn’t have stopped her missing her booked train and expecting a practical and civilised response by the staff of the train she took.