Court for £1.90 fare error.

Court for £1.90 fare error.

A man who paid £1.90 less than he should have for a train ticket faces being taken to court by a rail firm despite admitting his error and offering to pay a fine or a new fare.

Sam Williamson, 22, from Glossop, has been threatened with prosecution by Northern after he mistakenly bought an invalid £3.65 ticket from Broadbottom to Manchester using his 16-25 railcard last Thursday.

He said the “tiny infraction” was an “innocent mistake” due to him not knowing the railcard could not be used until after 10:00 and he feared he could be landed with a huge fine and a criminal record.

A spokesman for Northern said everyone had “a duty to buy a valid ticket” before they board the train, and added that 96 per cent of customers “do just that”.

Mr Williamson, a university graduate, was travelling to London via Manchester to take his driving theory test when the conductor told him his ticket was not valid because of the railcard’s terms and conditions.

They stipulate the card cannot be used for fares below £12 between 04:00 and 10:00, Monday to Friday.

The rule does not apply in July and August, when Mr Williamson used his railcard on several similar journeys without falling foul of the rules.

“I said, ‘I am really sorry, this is my mistake, can I buy a new ticket?’,” Mr Williamson said.

He was told he could not buy one or pay a penalty and a travel incident report was filed by the Northern conductor.

Mr Williamson said this was “quite stressful”, and he felt prosecution was an “unreasonable” response to “fundamentally, a difference of £1.90”.

Northern has asked him to explain what happened in writing within two weeks and warned that legal proceedings could follow.

Ridiculous waste of everyone’s time. And he offered to pay the difference. Hardly The Brinks Mat.

And there are several other cases being shared on social media with people being told to pay hundreds by courts for underpaying fares by only a few pounds.

Sales agent Cerys Piper  didn’t even know she was being prosecuted for incorrectly using her 16-25 railcard until contacted by a journalist.

She bought an Anytime Day Return ticket to travel to work in Wigan and used the railcard to get £1.60 off the £4.80 ticket price.

But before 10:00, these railcards cannot be used to get discounts on Anytime tickets if the fare is under £12 – which Cerys says she was unaware of. The court issued her a fine of £462.80 and she now has a criminal record.

At the heart of the matter is a ticketing system that customers think is too confusing and feels like it is trying to catch them out.

These are a few of the many difficulties passengers might encounter:

Companies say passengers should check rules and regulations, which are freely available for people to read. Customers argue they are not made clear enough when buying tickets to begin with.

Typically a train company will write to a passenger who has been suspected of fare evasion by a conductor.

They will review the circumstances and decide whether to prosecute for evasion, for a byelaw offence – which is much less serious – or take another action, such as settling out of court or dropping the case entirely.

News Update:

Northern Rail has admitted to breaking fare rules and is withdrawing prosecutions related to fare evasion involving the 16-25 Railcard. The company announced on Monday that it will review past cases where passengers were not given the opportunity to pay the fare difference. This decision follows media coverage of cases like Sam Williamson’s, where Northern Rail threatened prosecution over a minor fare discrepancy.