AIBU to think that the Ticket Inspector was a 'Jobsworth'?

Conductors on the trains I most commonly travel on sell tickets on the train. This seems like a civilised approach.

Should have applied for Rail ticket sooner 😂

Feeling really cross . I arrived back from doing the flowers at church to find two communications from the Post Office, one saying they could not deliver a parcel and the second, which is the one which annoys me ,saying that there's a fee to pay and before I can take delivery I must pay £5.
Nowhere does it say where this is coming from, so I could pay £ 5 merely to find it is unrequested mail . Is it too much for the Post Office to put the name/address on the form. I am not moaning about the fee, although it does seem rather excessive, but the fact that I cannot find out if I actually want this letter before I pay it.

welbeck

i think OP was lucky not to have been charged twice, outbound and return.
i believe travelling without the correct ticket is an offence of strict liability, therefore intention is irrelevant.
agree with GSM.

And the young fare-dodgers? Liability turned out not to be so strict after all.

I went on the train yesterday to meet my sister-in-law. The conductor did the rounds to check tickets and a few seats in front of me there was a person who had a ticket for Transport For Wales trains; the train was Transport For West Midlands so their ticket wasn’t valid. The conductor very politely pointed this out and said he would let it go on this occasion but said the traveler should be careful in future. I thought the conductor handled it politely and very well.

the main thing is OP's son had a good outcome re hosp visit.
is £35 really that important.
it wouldn't bother me, (esp having evaded paying an earlier £35 due), unless i was living in absolute penury.
which thankfully i am not.
change your mindset OP for a happier life.
all the best.

coaches are cheaper, esp for unplanned journeys.

i think OP was lucky not to have been charged twice, outbound and return.
i believe travelling without the correct ticket is an offence of strict liability, therefore intention is irrelevant.
agree with GSM.

Truffle43

Harsh as it seems she was just doing her job. Rules are rules and she could probably lose her job if it was picked up elsewhere. If all customers are treated in the same way with rules applied it does make it a fair service. There would be chaos and an out cry if some people didn’t have rules applied and some did.

But surely, that was exactly what happened? The lads with no ticket apparently got away with no rule being applied to them..? I do sympathise with a ticket inspector faced with a stroppy group of lads - but if 'rules are rules' then why not apply them to everyone..?!

Bumface

I once got into an argument about a Senior Railcard.

I was travelling about a week after renewing my railcard and I had it with me. A ticket inspector rolled up and demanded to see my ticket so I handed him the ticket and railcard. His face lit up and he said "This railcard went out of date over a week ago". I politely pointed out that it was for the current year and not last year and he blanked me.

He then asked a group of rather stroppy young men for their tickets one of them said "We haven't got tickets. What are you going to do about it?"

The answer must have been nothing as he moved swiftly away down the carriage.

The point I was trying to make in my original post was that the particular inspector I encountered seemed very willing to bend the rules when it came to a menacing group of young, male fare dodgers.

I quite understand that he did not want to take them on but what I failed to mention was that they travelled all the rest of the way to London and then jumped the barrier at the terminus and ran off. I expected them to be escorted from the train by the police at one of the numerous stops or at the teminus, as I have seen happen in the past.

I understand completely how singingnutty must have felt as there was no intention to defraud anybody in their actions and £35 is quite a surcharge. I know it was possible to claim it back but there was the hassle factor to consider. I think anyway that the balance of probability is makes it extremely unlikely that the e-mail was forged.

I think that rather than using discretion, GoldenAge the inspector realised your cousin had learning difficulties and was confused, and probably doubted her mental capacity. They probably have training about how to deal with people such as your cousin and those with other obvious mental health problems such as dementia.

I have a digital senior railcard, it’s on your phone within seconds . No waiting for it to arrive in the post

My 84 yr old cousin who is physically capable but has done learning difficulties and poor attention was travelling back from Devon to London two weeks ago on a ticket purchased with her senior railcard and was asked by the ticket inspector to produce thst card which she hasn’t even thought to carry with her despite several reminders. She wanted to charge her the additional £35 but my cousin argued very loudly as is her normal way of dealing with confusion and eventually the inspector left her alone so there is the authority to use discretion. I’m sorry you got an inflexible inspector.

It clearly states that you cannot use a senior rail card until you get it. I went to our local station, bought it and got it at the same time.

NanaTuesday

Germanshepherdsmum

She was applying the rules. She probably has no discretion in the matter. You could have been producing an email to someone else or a fake for all she knew. You can get a refund. I have seen enough fare dodgers to know that ticket inspectors have a hard and sometimes dangerous job.

Sorry , I think you are wrong as there is always room for discretion & in this instance, Yes card should have been in person but that person has clear evidence of it being processed.
Clearly a jobsworth .

I agree NanaTuesday, applying the rules with no discretion and regardless of context and circumstance, not to mention supporting evidence, is the very definition of a jobsworth.

Regrettably the inspector was doing what she was supposed.to do, and I guess she did tell you that you could claim it back
In a similar situation, I needed to make a train journey to a funeral , I hadn't been able to commit to it in advance as was waiting for test results and a hospital admission, so the night before, I got one online and have an e card
Bit of a pain as have to make sure that the phone is charged but actually I want it charged anyway, I take a power bank with me on journeys
I'd let my card expire as wasn't planning any journeys for a bit planning to get a new one just before I planned to travel
An e card works fine

When I ordered my railcard, there was a facility to download a digital railcard. Did you not have that choice?

orly

You have no excuse. The rules are clear. You make your situation worse by trying to gather support for calling the RPA a "jobs worth".

Omg that is really harsh , the poor OP is obviously distressed enough without having damning reactions.

I cannot help but wonder what would happen if your electronic device such as mobile phone ran out of battery?
Yesterday dh & I travelled on National Rail using a senior rail card .
Both of us have an app which holds both tickets & cards .
It was a long day & battery power was getting lower by the hour , so yes modern technology is not as helpful or as simple as that .
What would have happened if my phone had run out ?
On both journeys we had allocated seats in different carriages. A very busy midday train outbound & DH had the pleasure of said ticket inspector , I on the other hand never saw him/her/ they appear in my carriage!

My husband and I have e-cards So no issue waiting for the post.

Personally, I think that there should be a way to still be able to se the card if you’ve opted for it to be posted, after all you’ve paid for the card.

I guess he was just doing his job.

There was a programme on recently about the number of people who defraud public transport. Staff who work for the train, tube and bus companies were being asked to apply the rules whenever they came across someone not paying any or only part of their fare. She was obeying orders, clearly.

If there weren’t so many ‘rules’ in this day and age, then honest people wouldn’t have to keep inadvertently breaking them! Dishonest people get away with it time and time again as they know all the tricks! ( Just look at shoplifting, for example!) In this case I can’t see why an understanding inspector couldn’t have taken that email as proof. The passenger could easily have been asked for proof of ID-bank card etc and email address ( on phone!). Too much trouble and an easy notch on their belt. Give them a crowd of yobs, ticketless and intent on causing trouble and they’d run a mile. As with so many things, honest citizens are easy targets as they can be cowed into submission so easily for fear of breaking ‘the rules’. Makes me so cross and I always, always challenge, politely but firmly. Call me a bolshy old bag or whatever-I was a bolshy YOUNG bag once!

Germanshepherdsmum

She was applying the rules. She probably has no discretion in the matter. You could have been producing an email to someone else or a fake for all she knew. You can get a refund. I have seen enough fare dodgers to know that ticket inspectors have a hard and sometimes dangerous job.

Sorry , I think you are wrong as there is always room for discretion & in this instance, Yes card should have been in person but that person has clear evidence of it being processed.
Clearly a jobsworth .

I travelled to London once, a long time ago and there was nobody in the ticket office on our station. I went to the machine and it was out of action. The train arrived so I got on and I went straight to the restaurant and asked To buy a ticket and she called the train guard. He said he’d be back in a minute and we arrived in London an hour later and he still hadn’t come back. The lady went looking for him through the train and guessed he’d gone to the loo… So she told me to go and explain to the guys on the barrier and they will sell me a ticket. The guy on the barrier was so rude, he wouldn’t accept my explanation and pointed me to assign that said you must not get on the train without a ticket, he £100 and when I objected he said he would call the police and have me arrested, I was totally shocked. I just paid the hundred pounds! And he charged me an excessive amount for the actual ticket and didn’t give me a return either, so I had to buy that when I was coming back. That was definitely not a day out for me.

I can’t help feeling if you were trying to defraud the railway would you really take the trouble to fake an email saying your railcard was in the post ! I don’t think you were unreasonable and you did have a ticket. I hope you claim the refund.