Help - Son issued with court summons for non payment of train fare - wrong person and wrong address

[Jesuswasacapricorn]

Awake and worried about potential repercussions of this. I'll try and explain it as simply as I can without giving info - all names have been changed to protect the innocent 😀

1. Joe Bloggs - address in the North - date of birth 01.01.2003
2. Joe Bloggs - address in the South - date of birth 01.01.2006

Son (Joe Bloggs 1) gets a court summons at his home address for non payment of a train fare by Reading Courts, travelling on GWR in January. He's never travelled on that train and was at uni in an exam at the time it was issued. The first covering page of the summons has his name and our address in the north.

On the actual court summons itself it has the name of Joe Bloggs 2, address in the south and date of birth as 01.01.2005 and also 01.01. 2006.

I am concerned about where they have got my address from and if it will affect a/ my son's credit rating and b/ his job prospects - he has just got a job today to work in finance.

I'm awake fretting that this will affect his ability to get a mortgage and they'll search him and see this against him. What the hell do we do to sort out this?

We've emailed the revenue person at the train company that's on the summons and son has called the revenue protection where he now has to prove it wasn't him - the guy on the phone called him dude - that's another rage in itself. He has the evidence of being in his final exam.

I'm absolutely fuming that they've broken GDPR by messing up all this information and caused stress when its nothing to do with him. And the original Joe Bloggs won't get his summons.

I may be being stupid here but whilst I agree it's concerning the covering letter has his details on the summons doesn't have any of his details on so he isn't the person they are expecting in court and therefore doesn't have to prove anything.

Just write back pointing out that the person they've sent it to and the intending recipient are different.

Also real Joe Bloggs probably didn't give the true details so they've sent it to the next 'best fit' they could find.

I know I'm fretting over something I probably don't need to be. I just had a thought that woke me up - what about his job? And its sent me down a rabbit hole. I may pay for a credit check just to see if there's anything there.

The summons will have all the information about you how to respond to it on there. All your son needs to do is to write a covering letter to send with the plea form explaining that it wasn’t him, where he was, who can confirm that and the inaccuracies in the summons. Then wait.

The plea form gives Joe Bloggs 2 name and address and not my son's. All of the official paperwork details Joe Bloggs 2 and not my son. Its only the covering page that from GWR that gives my home address.

If it was addressed, instead of to Joe Bloggs, to Jack Smith you would probably put “not known at this address, return to sender” on the envelope. Joe Bloggs 2, with a different date of birth, does not live at your address. Surely his birth certificate would be enough “evidence”? I would however engage rather than ignore. And I’d write a complaint about the unprofessional call handler.

Worst case scenario - it goes to court, he attends with his has a cast iron alibi and the judge finds in his favour.

The other person not getting the summons is nothing to do with you. They could have given a false name/DOB/address they have never lived at. If DS has an unusual name, this could have been done by someone he knows. If the original person has the same name (you'll never know TBH) they could have never put themselves on the electoral roll anywhere, it's easy enough done if you live with other people. So the only address they could find with that name was DS and since the DOB is similar they've presumed it's the same person.

At the moment there's nothing for his employer to find, he doesn't have a CCJ until it goes to court and he won't get one either because thankfully he was in an exam which can be proved and not eg passed out drunk alone in his digs, at the time of the offence. Try not to panic.

If he does go to court it will probably just be him in the room with the Judge. I had to attend as part of my job recently and that was as a result of a mix up too. I explained the situation to the Judge very carefully, she made very careful notes and that was the end of it. It sounds much worse than it is.

Nothing will show on a credit check at this time - only after a court case verdict against DS would anything show.

NB I think credit checks are free these days.

You’d be wasting your time doing a credit check, if a debt is proven it would only be registered if a CCJ was obtained - this is nowhere near that stage. Your son just needed to respond to the correspondence in writing with the proof he has that this isn’t him - which he’s done. I’d be wanting an explanation and apology for the error they’ve made but let them sort out the error. You’re going down a rabbit hole with thoughts of this impacting his job, mortgage and entire life. It’s an error that can be sorted.

Who do we reply to GWR or The Court itself?

It seems strange that there is a covering letter from GWR if it is a summons.
Usually you get a summons, plea form and an evidence bundle. Ultimately if he has received a summons he needs to respond to it. Chasing GWR seems futile based on your experience. The hearing is booked if he’s been summoned and will go ahead. Explain everything to the court via letter, he doesn’t need to attend. GWR has effectively handed it over to the courts and so my advice is to respond to the summons, ignoring it could result in a worse situation.

A secondary aspect of this, perhaps contact the Information Commissioner about the GDPR breach.

As for the GWR response, after the 100 lies and excuses they receive for those who avoid payment (which should be called theft as that what it is), not easy to tell the one genuine mistake or explanation.

So send it back saying not at this address.

You are right to be concerned. There’s been a bit in the press lately about the single justice procedure and its flaws. A lot of train companies have been over using it. Is this what is being used against your DS /[his southern namesake]?

If you have home insurance with legal cover, it might be worth asking for some advice. Alternatively citizens advice are very good. But I personally would address this with the courts rather than ignoring it.
Also, just to say, if your DS is completely innocent (which he sounds), eventually common sense will come through, and this will go away. It’s just going to take a bit of effort.

All the above posts have explained it very well, so please stop fretting, there is no damage to his credit rating yet. Just write back, with evidence.

Call the court and explain. The people at the court will be a lot more sensible than the GWR person you spoke to who it sounds like didn't understand the situation. Your son cannot attend the summons and explain anything he is not the person summoned you can't just walk into someone else's court date.

You would be notified before a CCJ is applied and a court summons comes before a CCJ. Don’t pay for a credit check, use check my file and cancel after 30 days free. I doubt it’ll show anything.
As for his job, there’s not really anything to tell them at this point.

In the very unlikely event that this gets on his record, he can show this mixed up letter as proof that it’s an error. But it won’t.

sort the court stuff out - plenty of advice above
report GWR to the ICO (the GDPR issue, not the "dude" call handler - make a separate complaint about that)

Admin errors like this are tiresome and disconcerting.

In my town there are two roads with the same name. My elderly parents lived in one of them. At the same number of the other road, there lived a chap apparently "known to the police". Dad discovered this when official police / court documents arrived there, which were duly returned to the bodies in question with a polite email follow up from myself. He had opened them in error as when you've lived in a property for 40 years and only get mail for yourself, and you're elderly, you tend not to scrutinise your mail that much.

Still didn't stop the police turning up mob handed one day, knocking on the door with the quiet genteel street where my parents lived full of cars and vans, much to the intrigue of the neighbours. They were reasonably apologetic for the "postcode error" but it was an irritating situation, and obviously a waste of police time etc.

Sounds like your son will be fine OP, though I completely understand your concerns. Hope it all gets sorted with the minimal amount of stress.

So my plan of attack is to photocopy letter received and all evidence and son's id. Send with a letter to both clerk of court and GWR revenue protection (copying them in on each letter) detailing the error and asking for confirmation that there is nothing outstanding against my son. Does that seem like the best course of action?

This is good. I had similar (though not with gwr, and in my case totally different name on the envelope to people living at my house). I emailed the company and informed them that a serious looking letter had arrived at our house, addressed to someone
a)we do not know
b) who doesn’t live here
c) has not lived here the whole 6 years we’ve lived here.

I explained I didn’t open the letter as it’s not addressed to us, but didn’t want to just leave it due to the seriousness ( the outside was labels who it was from).

from what I understand of your situation you can perhaps explain that the letter was opened, as it initially looked like it was addressed to your son (same name) but upon opening it, you realised it was not (different location and d.o.b mentioned in the letter).

I think if you can find a contact to write a email to (even if it’s a general one and not the correct dept - they can pass on internally as needed) you will feel some relief that you have been able to explain in writing and will have something to refer back to down the line.

good luck!

edited for a multitude of typos

You obovisly need to let the powers that be know that they have got the wrong person but worrying about job prospects and future mortgagability is a total overreaction on your part. Talk about catastrophising! They've made a clerical error and your son can easily prove it wasn't him. The birth dates don't even match.