to make complaint about ticket inspector who detained child and took their phone?

[SmellsLikeTeenSpirits]

15 yo DD bought wrong train ticket today. She got off at stop after the one she'd bought ticket for because of a last minute change of plan with her friends. So a £2.70 journey rather than a £3 one.

At the final destination her and her friend were stopped by ticket inspector. They tried to explain what had happened and pay the excess. He wasn't having any of it. I can kind of sympathise with that.

What I would like your view on / experience of is this:

He detained them for 20 minutes. DD called me and was a bit shaken. I heard him say - you can't talk to your mum now - and then her phone went off. I tried calling and she messaged saying she'd call back in 5. He took her phone off her and went through her apps to try and prove she was over 15 (she looks 16 maybe - no older). In the end he accepted that she was in fact 15 and has written on the fine notice that he verified her age through her Vinted app. DD said she felt really uncomfortable as he went through her vinted page (where she is modelling some crop tops etc) and scrolled through the pictures. I got through to her again on the phone and asked her to put him on the phone but he refused.

Eventually he gave her a fine of £52 and let her go on her way.

Is this acceptable? Am I being unreasonable if I complain. I don't feel that an adult man should be detaining 15 year olds and confiscating their phones? She had the wrong ticket - just issue the fine if you need to?? Or am i being unreasonable - not having correct ticket is a crime - suck it up - the guy was just doing his job?

here you have to give your name and address - if not they call the police. If you give it you get a fine, and if you can go to the local ticket office within 2 weeks and prove your age, that you had a valid ticket, etc, it is cancelled.

That is it. Name and address and nothing else.

Sure they hear made up sob-stories etc etc, but meh. If you do that job you have to learn to ignore that, get the details you need and move on. If you can't do that - you're in the wrong job.

That is is intrusive and bang out of order, I hope you complain.

If your daughter puts a 4 digit screen lock on her phone, so if any weirdo attempts to do the same again they will be unable to because the password will stay private. For your daughter's privacy she will have to keep the password to her self.

that's a good point about the screen lock. Make sure your phone-owning DCs know this: always use a PIN and disable facial recognition.

You should escalate the complaint. I suspect their franchises require them to have effective complaints processes, so if they don't bother then those responsible for awarding contracts need to know.

He took her phone off her!!! Completely unacceptable. The photos she had on her phone are irrelevant He had no authority to do that.
Absolutely complain.
Good luck

Why would a train sit whilst tickets were being inspected? It's not as if the inspector drives it?

It's perfectly clear anyway from the first message that OP's daughter had got off the train.

You seem desperate to disbelieve this young woman. Not everyone lies or exaggerates. NAMALT but an awful lot of men like to abuse their power and treat young women in a way they wouldn’t do otherwise to an older person or a male.

There's some fucking weird comments on here.

A ticket inspector has no authority to detain anybody, and certainly doesn't have any right to go through anyone's phone.

Yes she should have had the correct ticket but she didn't. And there's generally no way to buy another ticket once you're on the train already.

Wow, I am so sorry for your daughter op (as a mum of teens too). That was way out of line and I would report too. Your poor DD.

Please complain. I bought a train ticket recently from a GWR kiosk ant the station and the ticket inspector was very cruel and nasty to me and my child.

In the end another GWR ticket inspector came along, checked my ticket and said “well it isn’t her fault! Is it?” And I was let free (they cornered me and wouldn’t let me through barriers) - He was right up in my face and shouting.

I did complain to GWR while on the train itself and they took it very seriously. It ruined a special birthday trip out for my boy.

It was so bad we feared our return journey & got off a stop early (so we didn’t meet the same inspector) and my DH picked us up in the car.

GWR issued an apology for aggressive and unreasonable behaviour. Citing that if it were elderly, a person with learning disabilities or someone who doesn’t speak English - it would have been much scarier indeed.

Jesus Christ, she's a child. He has absolutely overstepped. I'd be raising merry hell over this. He sounds perverted frankly.

Completely unacceptable and you should definitely report it. He did not have a right to take her phone off her and go through her personal information.

Safeguarding, report him. Guy thinks he's robocop because they gave him a hat.

Sounds as if he was very heavy handed.

That said, your daughter took a risk & it didn't pay off.

I suppose I'm a rule follower but no way would I have deliberately travelled onto the next station.

If there was a chance of travelling to the next stop then "for the sake of 30p" she might as well have got the ticket to there.

The fine acceptable. The other parts not.

Perhaps if so many other people were not thieves when it comes to travel, genuine mistakes would be believed.

The fine acceptable. The other parts not.

I think that sums it up!

How are fines calculated?

If he thought that she was travelling incorrectly on a chid ticket & she couldn't prove otherwise, would the fine have been issued & then could be appealed?

This is appalling .
For context , my 17 year old was recently caught short when her phone died on the train and she couldn’t show her ticket.
The ticket man did issue her with a notice, giving us the opportunity to show that she did indeed have a valid ticket. But he also advised her to use his phone to call her mum, and let her know her phone was dead but she was safely on the train and on her way home.
She has been the victim of over zealous (less sympathetic) ticket enforcers previously though, and when I spoke to the staff at the local station they told me they were often shocked by their heavy handedness and inconsistency too , but the enforcement branch is outsourced and they have no control over them.

Absolutely complain.

Some train inspectors really are arseholes who get off on the power. They can be racist from what I’ve seen and also pick on young people. A middle aged smartly dressed lady who can’t find her ticket gets treated completely differently.

tbh this is why we need ticket offices with people in them to sell you tickets. It is far far far too easy to buy the wrong one from a machine. You might also get the wrong one from the office, but at least then it's not your fault they sold the wrong ticket (unless you asked for something else)

They have a Revenue Protection policy (https://www.gwr.com/help-and-support/penalties-and-enforcements). I'd read that to see if they've complied with their own policies. On the Revenue Protection policy document the final page has contact details for who to contact if you're not happy.

The Revenue Protection and Counter Fraud Strategy document includes the statement "We will... treat all our customers with respect and dignity"

In none of the documents can I see that they can demand proof of age or identity for that matter. They can issue penalty notices, but nowhere does it talk about being "detained".

I would be fuming too OP.

He has no authority to do this, definitely complain.

I wonder if he’d treat a man in the same way?

please complain

For the sake of 30p! Your poor DD. I'd be absolutely raging.

I was at the train station with a broken ticket machine. I took a pic with me visible in the reflection from the non-working screen, in case I got any bother about it. On the train I could see the 'Revenue Protection' folk, who are clearly outsourced bouncers and their company will be getting a slice of the fines too, I suspect. I managed to avoid talking to them (they were moving down the train away from me). When I got off the train I said to the guy "I need to buy a ticket from the airport as the machine wasn't working" and he just waved me through the gate. I'll take that

Her friend should have called the police or another adult. That is not ok behaviour. He wouldn’t scroll through a man’s phone would he.