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.

Sorry OP, i might have missed it, but did you tell the conductor that your connecting train was late? I know you've said it was a different carrier, but I've been allowed to use a different train on an advance single ticket on a Scotrail train because my Virgin train was late. They didn't bat an eyelid.

Doesn't sound reasonable if it was another train that caused you to be late. I'd make a complaint and see if you can get your money back.

You should be able to reclaim the price of the unused ticket though
This above is incorrect - it's an advance ticket they are not refunded. States in t&cs

Also the scanners scan for dates not times.

My advance is to always speak to train manger/conductor before boarding the train about these things.

I assumed that people automatically get the fine, rather than the option to buy the new ticket. The signs seem to allude to that. I am in a more rural area though.

Did you buy a ticket through London using the tube or was the train from your sister’s and the tube bought separately?

I'm a railway guard, working for a mainline company. I have more knowledge of the types of tickets, the rules and byelaws than anyone on this thread except sunshinefinally. I've checked, scanned and sold more tickets than any of you have had hot dinners. And, you know what? I'm siding with the OP.

If you have missed your booked train and the fault lies with the railway (I speak of "the railway" in the collective sense as it shouldn't matter whether two trains are operated by the same company or not) then your ticket should be accepted on the next available journey. I can look on my work phone and see easily whether a passenger is telling the truth about a delayed connecting service. Many guards will use their discretion and extend this to delayed ferries or even delayed flights and other reasonable excuses. One thing you haven't stated though OP is who the delayed train was operated by. If London Underground then the rules will be different.

Ideally, if you have missed a train for which you had an advance ticket you should go to the ticket office or speak to the guard before boarding to see if they are prepared to write out an endorsement. Worst that can happen is that they say 'no'. In this case you didn't realise that it was an advance ticket until challenged and trust me, you won't be the only one to miss a detail tucked somewhere down the bottom of an m-Ticket.

Yes, guards do have discretion and it should clearly have been exercised in this case. I routinely exercise my discretion when the railway has been at fault or a genuine mistake has occurred. Yes, we get a few chancers but I almost always give the benefit of the doubt. It doesn't stop me chucking off the worst offenders but I can usually tell the difference between someone who has genuinely made a mistake/lost their wallet etc and someone who is trying it on.

Above all though, I certainly wouldn't dream of talking to a passenger in the manner you've described. Aggressive behaviour only creates confrontation. While an assault can happen to any guard, some guards (the aggressive ones) get thumped more often than others.

And yes, you ought to have the second ticket refunded.

You may be able to appeal this and get a refund. I travelled with Virgin recently, I’d had quite a complicated series of journeys and on the last leg realised I’d left my ticket at home. I had an email confirmation, an app showing the booking and DS texted me a photo of my ticket and the inspector still made me buy another one. £67 for a journey that had cost me £14 in the first place. He told me I could apply for a refund and I did. They said no at first, I persevered, and got it in the end. You should be able to get one too, if you explain the circumstances.

(I’ve become an expert at appeals lately - 2 parking fines and an HMRC charge as well!)

She did mention she used the tube aswell-so i dont think its quite straightforward

my Understanding of the travelling through London was that it depended on how the ticket was bought, ddraig. So if the OP bought the ticket from her sister’s to her destination then the ticket was valid, but if she’d bought the ticket for her sister’s, the tube ticket and the advanced single separately it’s not quite so clear cut. Although discretion is allowed and there’s no reason it couldn’t have been accepted as valid.

Either way it’s worth a go at getting the replacement ticket refunded and making a complaint about the attitude of the conductor. Depending on the operator of the train that was late, then there’s a chance of a partial refund on the £20 as well.

OP I get it. You know you were technically in the wrong but it still stings because your intentions were not to deceive.

I was in your position as a young-for-my-age 18 year old. My connecting train was late and so I got on a later train than I'd planned to not knowing my ticket wasn't valid for that also. I didn't realise my mistake until the conductor challenged me about it, and since I couldn't afford a replacement ticket, I was thrown off the train in the middle of nowhere at 9pm in winter. The station I had to alight at had no waiting room, and it was dark and freezing cold. The only other people at the station were two guys in their 20s smoking weed who kept staring at me. As it was, they obviously meant no harm but I was scared and intimidated, and it took all I could not to burst into tears until the next train came along. Only 30 minutes but the longest 30 minutes of my life. I know rules and rules, but sometimes a bit of compassion wouldn't go amiss.

Sorry this happened to you. I had a similar experience, only way more costly. I was back in the UK visiting and had arranged a week in London to see my sisters... found a first class ticket for me and kids from Newcastle to london was actually only a little more than the regular ticket for those dates, so I reserved it and was so excited as I had never been 1st class before, nice to get tea and coffee etc. The journey down was lovely.

On the way back the taxi I rang to take us to the ststion never showed. We waited 30 kins and nothing. Rang again, nothing. I had built almost 2 hours to get across london into my journey, but by the time the third taxi finally got us to the ststion, we missed the train by 10 minutes.

No matter, I thought. It won't be reserved seating, but i still have return tickets. It had been 5 years since I was last in england on trains. I had no idea there were now more than one train line operating the route.

Within 10 minutes of setting off, just after we were settled into seats, the collector came round. I handed the tickets over and he was just horrific. Acting like I was a criminal trying to defraud the company with fake tickets. He demanded I buy 4 tickets on the spot, and when I said ok, but could I move us to 2nd class because i would have never sat in 1sr if I had known my ticket wasn't valid... he refused, saying I either bought 4 full price 1st class tickets or would be kicked off with a fine at the next stop.
I had to ring my mum in tears as I didn't have 310 pounds in my account and she had to pay over the phone for me. It was utterly humiliating and even though my tickets probably cost more than the rest of the people paid in the carriage, I felt like poor scum and didn't even dare have the free tea when they came round, just cried most of the way back. Totally spoiled the trip and honestly it pretty much put me off returning home at all...

Why can't they be nicer about it? Would it have killed them to allow us to move to 2nd class, given we had proof of the misunderstanding? Is he on commission for selling the most top tier tickets?

Interesting post there Grip DdraigGoch!

I can't quite see why such a fuss is made if you do miss a train and the next one has space thereon. After all the railway has contracted with you in principle to transport your ass from station A to B

As long as its off Peak service times does it really matter?.

This of course is totally distanced from anyone trying to bilk paying for a ticket.

And railway ticketing a mysterious society in itself!, one day someone who managed Easyjet will revolutiise that process:)

It sounds like things far more pleasant when British Rail ran things.

Your big mistake was to post in AIBU.

Chat next time op.

Something like this happened to me. Very similar. I was younger in those days weren't we all and I played merry hell. I really dug in my heels and would not be intimidated. They held me up at the other end (Cambridge) and I simply would not budge. The guy was an atrocious bully and there was no need at all for his aggressive intimidation. They got fed up with me in the end and let me go.

Now I'm older I would have no such fight and would have paid up and cried when I got home.

And now you're being bullied on here! Chat next time

Some people have no humanity. The man was clearly a bully. I’m with you OP

I’m with you OP, aggression is just so unnecessary.

Read @DdraigGoch lovely post & take heart from it

No YANBU...
Ugh d these responses bizarre...

You had the wrong ticket, genuine mistake caused by trains being late, and the ticket you usually buy which would have been valid.

The ticket guy was overly aggressive and rude when you tried to explain.

Of course that's not alright...

If someone has made a mistake it's possible to tell them so and that they have to correct it, without being aggressive and intimidating.

Imagine if everyone did that.

What, bought a ticket for a journey then. Missed the train-got on a half an hour later one (that wasn't full, wouldn't have been any more expensive and would have been going anyway with or without the OP)?

Well it would be anarchy wouldn't it?

Of course the conductor could have used discretion. Of course he was unnecessary in his aggression.

This sort of shit is why public transport will never replace people driving themselves in this country.
It's prohibitively expensive, confusing, and you are screwed if you make a mistake (or even get delayed through no fault of your own). And additionally we are now expected to put up with being shouted at by the people who work on it?

Brilliant.

I don't know why you are getting such a hard time here OP, YANBU, the conductor sounds a right jobsworth and an unpleasant one at that.

Not his job. He has to fine you

You're wrong. I missed my train Liverpool to Edinburgh recently. Just basically got my times mixed up and ended up on the one an hour later than I'd booked. The conductor came round, I apologised, we had a bit of a laugh about the circumstances re my missing the train at which point he said he would move me up to first class as there was more room in there. So I ended up having a really nice trip. There was no need for OP's conductor to be such a twat

He should have used his discretion. What an arsehole.

For future reference- If there has been a delay on the tfl network that made you miss a national rail service you can go to the ticket office, they’ll likely check the story as far as possible and then stamp your ticket to let you travel on another service (works from London Liverpool Street to Norwich anyway!)

It was then I realised my mistake and said "oh no I'm so sorry I didn't realise.." And then tried to explain what had happened.

That was your mistake. What you should have said is 'how much do I owe you?' but by starting to go into explanation mode he thought you were trying to dodge paying. No need for him to be rude but ticket inspectors have to put up with a lot of shit so he wrongly pegged you as another fare dodger.

Why shouldn’t op explain what happened! She’s not being unreasonable! Mistakes happen. The delay wasn’t her fault and who wants to pay twice for a ticket when the it was the train who caused delay in the first place? Great business plan! Delay your trains and charge twice for a ticket because apparently most of you would pay it with a smile!

Clearly not a fair dodger if you already hold a ticket for an off peak train but are riding an off peak train. Perhaps different if you’ve got an off peak ticket and are riding a peak fare train.

Yanbu

They can use discretion. He didn't have to charge me

No, he can't use discretion. It's a condition of carriage under the Transport Act (can't remember the date oftomh) that all passengers must have a valid ticket. If he had let you off he would have been breaking the law and could have lost his job. I know some staff will but they really aren't supposed to.

Contact the train company and request a delay repay for the ticket you couldn't use (the details should be on their website. Also phone and make a complaint about the delayed train and ask if the extra ticket you bought can be refunded.

But really, the man should have been polite but he was following the law by selling you another ticket.