Greater Anglia Penalty Fare system is not fit for purpose. In error I bought a ticket not realising that my young person's rail card had expired. It was an honest mistake, and one that once I realised I had made it was ok about correcting. However the penalty fare letter arrived months later and more importantly AFTER the 14 day window for a reduce penalty had already expired. This meant that the fee had increased from £100 to £185. I am a university student and so this increase is significant to me. The letter also informed me that my case would be passed on to Prosecutions after the 14 day window had passed. I paid the fee including what had been added because of having passed the 14 day window. I wrote an email to both Greater Anglia and the company ITAL to inform them that the letter with the penalty ARRIVED AFTER THE 14 DAY window had expired and that I had paid the fee. I wanted reassurance that my fee payment was acknowledged and prosecution would not be pursued. A month later in mid-September I received a letter dated 28th August informing me that since I had not paid the penalty fare I was now being prosecuted. I then phoned a number charged at 13p a minute to try and get this thing sorted. I briefly spoke to someone letting them know about THEIR MISTAKE and shortly after FINALLY got a response to my initial email I had sent them back earlier in the summer, this informed me that they had closed my case. I replied to this 'case closed' email asking them to confirm that I would not be prosecuted (again, I am a student and next year will be looking for work in an environment which is already tough). A week later I received an email saying that the case was still with their Prosecutions department and that I must email them to clarify that the Penalty had been paid. In other words I had to communicate between their different departments about THEIR MISTAKE. Needless to say this has been very distressing from start to finish. 1. Receiving the penalty notice AFTER the 14 day window. 2. Their failure to acknowledge the payments had been made, nor to respond to my emails. 3. The costs to call them since they do not respond via email. 4. The subsequent letter and mistaken prosecution proceedings. 4. The failure to let the prosecutions department know that the case had been dropped. It cannot be right that these private companies threaten to take people to court for such minor infractions, when they cannot get their penalty letters to people on time, and when they fail to acknowledge payments that have been made but instead press for prosecution.