"Peter Smyth" wrote in message
...

"Terry Casey" wrote in message
...
A friend went to Goodmayes station on Friday morning and asked for a
single
to Southall, for which he was charged £5.10. He set off via Liverpool
Street
and Paddington but when he got to Southall he was told his ticket was
invalid and he would have to pay again - £3.10.

He explained that he had asked for a ticket to Southall and pointed out
that
the ticket included zone 4 (both Goodmayes and Southall being in zone
4.)
No, he was told, it was only valid on the underground and he would have
to
pay again - £3.10 please! In that case, he asked, could he just pay from
Ealing Broadway and was told that, as he had already admitted travelling
from Paddington, the suggestion could trigger a £20 penalty charge! £20
or
£3.10 - take your pick, he was told!

He elected for the £3.10 option and, to add insult to injury, a comment
from
another passenger as he left the station made it clear that, in that
person's eyes at least, he had been caught for fraudulently evading his
fare!

He is understandably livid and, when he told me about it, was going to
take
it up with 'one', who issued the ticket. However, I am not sure that
this
is the right way to go. His ticket is a Standard Day Single to U1234,
valid
by any available route and, on checking the NR website for details of
the
new zonal fare structure, I note that £5.10 is the correct fare for his
journey, including the underground.

I am assuming that the U in U1234 means that the ticket is also valid on
the
underground (to differentiate it from the £3.10 ticket which isn't) but,
presumably, at Southall it is taken to mean that it is ONLY valid on the
underground!

Unless there is a way that he could have been sold the wrong ticket for
the
correct fare at Goodmayes, I feel he has been the victim of First Great
Western incompetence and that it is to FGW that he should complain. Is
my
assumption correct?

The correct ticket is a SDS Goodmayes - Southall for £5.10. A SDS
Goodmayes - Zone U1234 is £4.40 and would only be valid at Underground
stations in zone 4.

So it seems that One sold the cheaper ticket at the more expensive price
for
some reason and they are at fault (although FGW probably should have given
your friend the benefit of the doubt).

Peter Smyth

I took the details off the ticket itself and it definitely shows the price
as £5.10 - surely it would be impossible to issue the wrong ticket at the
correct price (unless there is a software problem or programming error.)

Terry