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.

You could have been the 10th chancer of the day. It doesnt matter if you looked nice and innocent, scammers come in all forms. He had a job to do and he was doing it, you were being annoying sitting there and trying to dodge paying. What was there to explain? You should have just paid for it when you were told you didnt have a ticket.

Yes he did need to charge you.

He deals with people trying to dodge fares all day - he's heard every excuse in the book.

Being abrupt and assertive will serve him well in his role. (It sounds as if you were whining and excusing not having a ticket and trying to get him to let you off, no wonder he was brusque!)

“I'm a pretty robust person.”

Who’s close to tears when someone doesn’t stage whisper to her discreetly that she’s got an invalid ticket and would she ever so mind purchasing another one thank you?

Not being discreet is their main tactic to get you to buy a ticket. Because they can’t force you to buy one, they can’t arrest you, they can’t even physically touch you and throw you off the train - they’d need to phone ahead and have transport police do that for them at next station (if you hadn’t dodged them first).

“No humanity” 😂

He didn’t find her lying in a pool of blood and steal her purse. He sold her a valid ticket.

Thanks all for the kind and reasonable comments.
I'm not rehashing yet again that I know and accept ideas technically wrong but was not knowingly fare dodging.
For those of you criticising and blaming me for being upset by his brusque manner I can assure you it was rather more than brusque/terse/rude, it was overtly aggressive and intimidating and rather unpleasant. I didn't cry/whine/argue/be entitled or any of the other things accused of. And I do wonder whether he would have spoken to a man in such a way. I'm gobsmacked anyone thinks that is in any way ok.
I was upset but really I've got over it, I'm a big girl ( but my 17 yr old who also gets the train by herself to see my siblings would have been utterly terrified and also wouldn't have had 50 quid handy to pay).
Next time I'll just drive fuck congestion and pollution.

Who’s close to tears when someone doesn’t stage whisper to her discreetly that she’s got an invalid ticket and would she ever so mind purchasing another one thank you?

Yes...because that’s EXACTLY what the OP describes

He didn’t find her lying in a pool of blood and steal her purse. He sold her a valid ticket

Which is his job, which OP seems to have forgotten. It's not his role to judge extenuating circumstances, and use his discretion; save that for your whiny "poor respectable me" letter to complain about the nasty ticket collector. You were on the wrong train and your ticket wasn't valid, end of. It's not his job to give a shiny shit if your previous trains didn't connect!

Loads of people will use the excuse that they've bought the wrong ticket by mistake. How is he supposed to know you're genuine?

But she did need to explain. Advance singles are valid on the next service if the reason you’ve missed your train is because your previous train was delayed. Unless ticket inspectors are now psychic that does require some explanation. It might have been easier to do this at the station but the inspector on the train should have been able to do this or explained why it didn’t apply in the OP’s case.

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

Humm, did you use them back then?

Was having this "good old days" arguement with a friend ony yeserday he thinks thatt BT Openreach should go back to being the GPO and the Gas and electictricy suppliers should be re-nationalised.

Anyone remember the Gasman came to call? by Flanders and Swann;?

Anyone remeber just how long it took to get a line installed?

And I do wonder whether he would have spoken to a man in such a way. I'm gobsmacked anyone thinks that is in any way ok.

No! it is NOT OK there was an instance a while ago where a young girl was 20 pence short on her bus fare so she was put off at a too early stop and then was beaten up and I think raped?

I've had the odd disagrement with such public facing officals and I can be rather intimidating back if need be and will stand my ground.

And no, i don't go looking for trouble and having a lot of experence dealing with the public can understand problems and would aim for a soluition rather than further conflict!

Next time I'll just drive fuck congestion and pollution.

And that is precisley why the railways ought to look at what they are doing and the way their systems are managed and regulated.

I've had the odd disagrement with such public facing officals and I can be rather intimidating back if need be and will stand my ground.

You wouldn’t have any ground to stand in this case. Just an invalid ticket.

It doesn't matter if your frumpy and middle aged or a drunken bag lady. You didn't have a valid ticket and not having a valid ticket will invoke a fine, which you don't have to pay on the spot.
The Inspector was doing his job, you chose to argue with him, then got upset because he didn't use 'discretion' and didn't speak in a lower octave than a stage whisper.
The Inspector was in the right, you were in the wrong. accept it and move on. (next time with a valid ticket)

When I said no humanity I mainly meant the kicking OP getting on here.

ivegotdreadfulpmttoday

Oh I see. Again, though, it’s just people picking her up on her sense of entitlement. It’s not exactly the Hunger Games.

He sounds like a bellend but I imagine doing that job, he’s encountered lots of chancers and has to be slightly aggressive to get his job done.

YANBU, OP, he should have and could have used his discretion. And yes, your attitude and demeaner toward the inspector have a lot to do with how you are treated, so the fact that you were polite to him does make a difference. I travel by train every day and have done for years. Very occasionally I have left my season ticket at home and have often been 'let off' by decent, reasonable inspectors (I have a photo of my ticket on my phone). There was absolutely no excuse for the way in which you were treated and I would complain about this individual if I were you, he sounds like a nasty piece of work.

I wonder where the stage whisper bit came from? Ì errr never said I expected him to speak in a state whisper why on earth would I.
Again. He was aggressive shouting and belligerent. I was not. Nor did I "argue". I apologised in a reasonable calm normal voice.
I am utterly shocked by those who think it's ok to speak to someone aggressively and loudly especially when they haven't been aggressive or argumentative (and despite the assumptions I wasn't. I calmly apologised and tried to explain. When it was clear he was going to do this to try and intimidate and humiliate me. I paid up pretty quickly). I'm 100% certain and train CCTV will completely confirm this by body language alone. Don't forget he is stood over me and at one stage leant right in towards me. I wonder how understanding you would be if this had been you/your daughter/mother....

OP did you buy your ticket from your start destination to your end destination or did you buy separate tickets for both trains and the tube?

He didn't need to charge you - they do have autonomy to make these decisions.

Usually the best thing to do if this happens is go and find the train manager as soon as you can and explain the situation. I've never had to pay for missed trains. I was told that with Advance tickets, if you have to catch a later train due to missing the first one they usually let you use the ticket, it's only if you try and get an earlier train they will charge.

For future reference, you can also get any ticket changed at a ticket counter if they're open, for a small fee.

Justaboy on the subject of phone lines, last time I moved we didn't have broadband/phone for nine bastard weeks. And I'd started trying to arrange it four weeks before that. Private companies don't necessarily mean efficiency. Especially in the case of transport - the UK is a tiny tiny country but moving around it is insanely complicated when it comes to situations like this because someone owns this train, someone owns the other one, someone else owns the line etc so a typical journey involves three or more different companies, none of whom talk to each other, so that when something goes wrong as in this case they can pretend it's nothing to do with them. When in fact they're all involved in getting you to and from somewhere and the customer shouldn't be penalised by the fact that the system has been minutely carved up in this way.

I genuinely didn't realise it was an advance not a super off peak return. I travel to London fairly regularly so I do actually no how the ticketing system works which is why I apologised and tried to explain. It really was a genuine mistake. I have never had such an unpleasant encounter with a train guard before .

I made the comment about the stage whisper because I’ve read 5 pages of you, OP, describing his lack of “discretion.”

Why do you feel he should be discreet about your invalid ticket? To spare you embarrassment? Well, I guess if you’re that easily embarrassed, you’ll be triple checking your ticket validity from now on and his lack of “discretion” is a deterrent.

and has to be slightly aggressive to get his job done.

No he doesn't have to be agressive at all.

Agression dosen't solve problems. What is needed is a change to railway ticketing systems. They will have to accept that its not always the fault of the passenger if they have missed a connection due to another train or service running late.

Lets take a typical railway or most any transport system.

There will be peak times when everyone needs to get to work in the morning and the evening so the trains busses coaches roads whatever will be well loaded. The rest of the day they will be running but mostly empty as there isn't the same level of demand outside peak times.

So in order to drive revenue and to make money they will offer cheaper off peak fares to entice people to use public transport services. All well and good.

However the real problem is/seems to be selling tickets for a particular TIMED service. Now the OP states;

But of course the train was stuck at a red light for 10/15 mins and the tubes were awfully slow.

So she relied on the rest of the rail system which in this instance let her down. Now our "grip" (railway slang for a ticket collecter inspector as he "grips" your ticket) sees that shes on a later service as she was delayed by another part of the rail system.

Now whos fault is that hers or theirs?

Now the grip could accept her reasons and an experenced one usually knows where there is a gen problem or someone is swinging the lead. And its up to the railway to promote its own use and it can been seen here where the grip has acted more reasonably its left a good impression and people will use them again. As can been seen by the OP comments "screw the public transport service I'll take my car."

I think the best way of solvinig this issue is to do away with timed train services, so you use any service after say 09:00 Hrs up to say any before 17:00 then after that say 19:00 hrs onwards.

So thats a simple ticket system and anyone using a service outside those hours for any reason will then have to pay a surchage.

And that to be made plain on the ticket too!

Far less room to have run in's with the poor old grip whos only doing his/her job after all:)

HaroldsSocalledBluetits No thats not very good at all. When i needed a phone for work around 1970 it took ther GPO Six months!

However times they are a changing, there are firms like Gigaclear who are digging Fibre to the home even in rural isolated areas and you can run a phone over Fibre, we've been doing that for years its called VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol and it works very well as its simply another data stream which the net is.

I don't use the landline phone much anymore, with the inclusive miniutes guess where the calls are made from:)

BT and Openreach do need some real competion and they havent had that for a very long time and thats where the main problem is.

When 5G services are up and running you won't need them already I know of some people out in the sticks who use a 4G modem for internet and phone services.

The shape of things to come..