A friend recently travelled on an underground ticket that was zone 2
and 3 only, she travelled from brent cross through to kennington on
the northern line.

They just moved to the area so did not realise that you had to get a
zone 123 if you are travelling through zone 1, we thought you only
needed this if you got off the train at any station in zone 1.

Anyway she got stopped at the station at Oval and they took her
details and gave her a degrading telling off in front of the other
customers and were very rude in dealing with her, which is now what I
have come to expect of LU staff.

They read her rights to her and we recived a letter in the post from
LU saying that she has 10 days to write back and give her side of
story, so they can prepare a case to take to court. This seems a
little bit harsh when the entire tube system is littered with warnings
a £10 fine for travelling without a ticket and here she is travelling
with a ticket but not realise that she needed a different ticket.

She is now worried that she will go to court get a fine and a criminal
record.

Has anybody else come across and delt with this??? and have any advice
on what we should do or what could happen? do they treat LU fines like
a car fine or do you get a criminal record which seems a little over
the top???

pcuz wrote:
A friend recently travelled on an underground ticket that was zone 2
and 3 only, she travelled from brent cross through to kennington on
the northern line.

They just moved to the area so did not realise that you had to get a
zone 123 if you are travelling through zone 1, we thought you only
needed this if you got off the train at any station in zone 1.

*We* thought? You mean that even you, with experience of the system
from what you've said, thought that it was cheaper to go from Brent
Cross to south of the river than from Brent Cross to, say, Euston?
Doesn't that seem a bit illogical?

Anyway she got stopped at the station at Oval

You said she was going to Kennington.

and they took her details and gave her a degrading telling off in
front of the other customers and were very rude in dealing with
her, which is now what I have come to expect of LU staff.

Stories like this never explain how the passenger reacted when
challenged. Remember that this appears to the revenue guys as yet
another one trying to defraud LT out of £1. Was your friend contrite or
did she attempt to defend her illegal journey? In what way were they
rude?

They read her rights to her and we recived a letter in the post from
LU saying that she has 10 days to write back and give her side of
story, so they can prepare a case to take to court. This seems a
little bit harsh when the entire tube system is littered with
warnings a £10 fine for travelling without a ticket and here she is
travelling with a ticket but not realise that she needed a
different ticket.

She is now worried that she will go to court get a fine and a
criminal record.

Has anybody else come across and delt with this??? and have any
advice on what we should do or what could happen? do they treat LU
fines like a car fine or do you get a criminal record which seems a
little over the top???

AFAIK, LU only prosecute if they "believe that you are trying to avoid
paying the correct fare", to quote from the Conditions of Carriage (see
http://tube.tfl.gov.uk/content/about/COC.pdf )

I suggest she writes a grovelling apology, explaining the circumstances
and (if true) that she was new to London, and that she would willingly
pay the £10 penalty fare (I assume this was not paid at the time).
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

pcuz wrote:

Has anybody else come across and delt with this??? and have any advice
on what we should do or what could happen? do they treat LU fines like
a car fine or do you get a criminal record which seems a little over
the top???

Since when has a criminal record for fraud been "over the top"?

On 21 Nov 2004 13:44:13 -0800, (pcuz) wrote:

A friend recently travelled on an underground ticket that was zone 2
and 3 only, she travelled from brent cross through to kennington on
the northern line.

They just moved to the area so did not realise that you had to get a
zone 123 if you are travelling through zone 1, we thought you only
needed this if you got off the train at any station in zone 1.

Anyway she got stopped at the station at Oval and they took her
details and gave her a degrading telling off in front of the other
customers and were very rude in dealing with her, which is now what I
have come to expect of LU staff.

They read her rights to her and we recived a letter in the post from
LU saying that she has 10 days to write back and give her side of
story, so they can prepare a case to take to court. This seems a
little bit harsh when the entire tube system is littered with warnings
a £10 fine for travelling without a ticket and here she is travelling
with a ticket but not realise that she needed a different ticket.

She is now worried that she will go to court get a fine and a criminal
record.

Has anybody else come across and delt with this??? and have any advice
on what we should do or what could happen? do they treat LU fines like
a car fine or do you get a criminal record which seems a little over
the top???


You account is filled with the a number of inconsistencies, which I
have to say is not unusual on this NG when someone is fishing for a
loophole to get themselves or someone they know out of an often quite
justified fine.

First you say "a friend," and "_they_ just moved to the area," but
then you say "_we_ thought you only needed..." and then "we recived a
letter..." etc. This sort of thing looks odd and leads people to
suspect that you are taking about either a) yourself, or b) someone
more than just a "friend." The latter would be significant if it's
actually someone you know a bit better and would have had more
occasion to point out what ticket "she" needs to get from one side of
London to another.

The bit about the person in question having, "just moved to the area."
Hmmm... right. My own experience is that people in that situation
tend to be hyper-paranoid about getting the right ticket, rather than
just blithely assuming that the first one they pick up is going to
work. And was it actually a single-journey ticket, or a Zone 2/3
Travelcard? If the latter, it beggars belief that someone could have
gone through the process of acquiring one and not know the fare
structure.

Next we have the fact that you say "she" was heading for Kennington,
but got nabbed at Oval, which is the next station on. Were it the
other way around, one might be inclined to suspect that her ticket was
checked by inspectors on the train, but this can't have logically been
the case.

Lastly we come to the point others have raise, i.e. that how the
person stopped for apparent fare evasion reacts to being challenged
goes a long way to how they are treated. The situation you've
outlined - for all its anomalies - doesn't appear to merit the
treatment your "friend" got, unless "she" got very gobby with the
revenue protection/station staff.

Of course, if your "friend" _is_ new to the area, I expect "she" can
produce documentation to that effect (recent utility bills to previous
address elsewhere, Council Tax documentation, etc.), which may help
prove the claimed ignorance on "her" part.
--
Nick Cooper

[Carefully remove the detonators from my e-mail address to reply!]

The London Underground at War:
http://www.cwgcuser.org.uk/personal/...ra/lu/tuaw.htm
625-Online - classic British television:
http://www.625.org.uk
'Things to Come' - An Incomplete Classic:
http://www.thingstocome.org.uk

On Sun, 21 Nov 2004 23:50:21 +0000 (UTC), "Brimstone"
wrote:

pcuz wrote:

Has anybody else come across and delt with this??? and have any advice
on what we should do or what could happen? do they treat LU fines like
a car fine or do you get a criminal record which seems a little over
the top???

Since when has a criminal record for fraud been "over the top"?


Clearly when fraud hasn't been committed!

Nigel wrote:
On Sun, 21 Nov 2004 23:50:21 +0000 (UTC), "Brimstone"
wrote:

pcuz wrote:

Has anybody else come across and delt with this??? and have any
advice on what we should do or what could happen? do they treat LU
fines like a car fine or do you get a criminal record which seems a
little over the top???

Since when has a criminal record for fraud been "over the top"?


Clearly when fraud hasn't been committed!

I suspect that much will be blindingly obvious to the vast majority of
people.

In article ,
(pcuz) wrote:

A friend recently travelled on an underground ticket that was zone 2
and 3 only, she travelled from brent cross through to kennington on
the northern line.

They just moved to the area so did not realise that you had to get a
zone 123 if you are travelling through zone 1, we thought you only
needed this if you got off the train at any station in zone 1.

Anyway she got stopped at the station at Oval and they took her
details and gave her a degrading telling off in front of the other
customers and were very rude in dealing with her, which is now what I
have come to expect of LU staff.

They read her rights to her and we recived a letter in the post from
LU saying that she has 10 days to write back and give her side of
story, so they can prepare a case to take to court. This seems a
little bit harsh when the entire tube system is littered with warnings
a £10 fine for travelling without a ticket and here she is travelling
with a ticket but not realise that she needed a different ticket.

But lots of people do this because it's a lot cheaper than getting a
ticket for all the relevant zones. They take a chance that they don't get
caught in the same way as those that don't bother buying a ticket take
that chance, as do those in the past that travelled from zone 5 to zone 1
with just a season ticket coving zone 1 and zone 5.

Revenue protection probably get the same story hundreds of times, they've
got to decide if the person is telling the truth or not - like the "well i
had the ticket when I got on the train!" "I am only 15", "I didn't know I
needed a child photocard" (just about every adult masquerading as a child
on the busses use that excuse" etc. etc. I'm sure they're pretty good at
sizing the person up. In the end, whatever the excuse, a valid ticket is
needed - no valid ticket then a fine or taken to court and let the court
decide. Personally, I would never believe any excuse, I'm not that
trusting any more!

Roger

She is now worried that she will go to court get a fine and a criminal
record.

Has anybody else come across and delt with this??? and have any advice
on what we should do or what could happen? do they treat LU fines like
a car fine or do you get a criminal record which seems a little over
the top???