I recently travelled from Walton-on-Thames to London. I intended to get off at Vauxhall, and had bought a £5.65 ticket to do so. On an earlier journey to Walton-on-Thames, I had gone from Vauxhall directly and assumed that the same train terminating at Waterloo would get me back to my intended route.
I did not realise that I needed to make a change in order to get back to Vauxhall, until we went past this station and I ended up at Waterloo. A ticket person stopped me there, and said I would be sent a fine for going to the wrong station and was incredibly rude suggesting it was stupid of me to not check where I was going, despite the fact that I was clearly distressed and crying by this point.
I've now been sent a fine made up of £8.90 fare avoided (not sure how this works since the ticket was not that expensive) and also £100 'operational and administrative costs' which seems excessive.
The letter says I can pay the fine or email to request a court hearing, and may have the Court's costs added to the fine. Not sure what to do as I don't want to risk paying more extortionate admin costs but I also feel this is incredibly unfair for what's clearly a genuine mistake.
Thoughts?