Hi no not at all. The interaction was very friendly to be honest. She gave me two options of paying for a full ticket (again) or to explain to Thameslink why I thought I was in the right. Considering I thought I was in the right due the advice I was given, I thought it would be quite simple to explain the case. Had I known what this would result in I would have just paid the fare. These two options were another thing to the penalty fare - which she specifically said she would not give me.

But if I plead guilty I will receive a criminal record, no? No I sent the letter via post as this was the only option.

Hi, I replied with the letter and recommendations above, but have now received a Single Justice Procedure Notice. The way I understand it I can plead guilty and pay a fine of £135. I think this results in a criminal record. In addition to the above it turns out there was an additional stuff up on my part as I started my journey at a "non-London Terminal". I thought a London terminal was a station in London. I am now looking at legal advice. I have read in an article that a person called Thameslink and settled their fine over the phone. I'm not sure if this is possible but I will have to try. I will add additional details tomorrow.

Thanks for the input @BazzaS I'll make sure to include this info. Although, I find the idea of paying additional admin fees due to their faulty advice pretty distasteful, I will include this. Thank you!

Thanks @dx100uk I'll see how this goes and note it down here.

Hi, I was wondering if I could get some advice on an odd situation I’ve found myself in. I received a “Notice of intention to Prosecute” letter from Thameslink, this is off the back of a Revenue Protection Officer (RPO) taking down my details because I travelled with an off-peak ticket during “apparently” peak times. --- A bit on why I was doing this: Returning to work after during the pandemic was very intermittent and ad-hoc. So I needed a different solution to buying weekly/monthly tickets. Initially I got a couple of daily tickets. However, Thameslink also sells a carnet ticket – essentially a book of 5 tickets, valid for 3 months, where you physically write the date of travel. Perfect for pandemic travel. Carnet tickets, however are off-peak. Also on the Thameslink website there is a statement saying the following. "The morning peak is generally from when the first train of the day leaves to the last train arriving in London before 10:00am. In the evening it is generally between 16:30 and 19:01 for services leaving London. " I thought the statement was quite ambiguous so contacted Thameslink customer service on twitter, noting down the statement and the direct link asking “The way I read this means if I leave London any time before 16:30 I can use off-peak tickets. Is this correct?” To which they replied “this is correct” --- So I assumed travelling out of London in the mornings counted as off-peak. Considering I was sometimes all alone in a 12 carriage train, I didn’t think any more about it. The RPO advised me that the advice from customer service was wrong and even conceded that due to me having evidence of this conversation, she wouldn’t even give me a penalty fare. Since then I’ve been buying daily tickets again and now even started using their smartcard (oyster like). So now I’m wondering if anyone can give me any advice on what to include/not include in my reply. I couldn’t sleep at all last night as the wording in the letter seems really harsh – talking about criminal prosecution etc. From my point of view I checked their website, even contacted their customer service – I don’t really see how people could be expected to do more. I would be really grateful for any advice. Please let me know if there're other details you'd like. Thank you very much!