I had a situation with Southeastern a while back. One of their Revenue Protection Inspectors issued me with a Penalty Fare somewhere in the region of £68, so I was legally required to provide them with my name and address. I appealed on the basis that the ticket I presented to the inspector was valid for the journey I was undertaking, only he wasn't sufficiently trained on how to determine the validity of tickets. The favoured approach is issuing a Penalty Fare or calling the British Transport Police over verifying the validity of the ticket. The appeal was upheld because I was right about the ticket. Because I presented a valid ticket for inspection, there was no way I was giving Southeastern any of my money towards that Penalty Fare, so I made a part payment with a £50 Rail Travel Voucher. I later lodged a Subject Access Request to Southeastern for all information they held on me. In the response, I found out that a member of staff from the Independent Penalty Fares Appeals Service (IPFAS, part of Southeastern) decided to email out my details to various entities, not all of which were Train Operating Companies. The IPFAS were trying to find out the origin of the voucher I had paid with. I reported this suspected breach to the Information Commissioner's Office. This was the ICO's response.

Hello CAG, I'm a long time follower but first time poster. Firstly I'll give a quick background to the situation... My 15 year old son and my 13 year old daughter travel back on the train service that runs from Meldreth to Royston every day. The fare they pay is £1.20 each for a single ticket. They always have the cash on them to do this as I give them £10 every four days to cover it off. They were both issued with a Penalty Fare Notice by First Capital Connect on the 13th November for failing to present a valid ticket. This was because they were unable to purchase one at Meldreth station. The ticket machine was spitting their coins out and there was not a member of staff manning the ticket office at the point they were at the station, so were forced to board the train and try and purchase a ticket from the member of staff on the train itself. The ticket inspector refused to believe their story nor accept their cash and chose to issue a PFN to each of them instead much to their disbelief. Once I found out about this I composed a letter to send to appeal against both PFNs. I took the liberty of quoting back to them extracts from the First Capital Connect Revenue Protection Policy (the section entitled Penalty Fares):- "In order for us to issue a Penalty Fare, it must have been possible for you to purchase the correct ticket before you boarded. So for example, if the ticket office was closed and the ticket machine was not working, a Penalty Fare will not be issued. Please bear in mind our staff are able to check whether ticket offices are open or if our ticket machines are faulty." And the National Rail Conditions of Carriage document:- "Train Companies must make tickets and reservations available at stations, over the internet or by telephone as appropriate. Where there are no facilities at the station, tickets will be available for sale during or at the end of the journey." I received two emails back from the Revenue Protection Support Services with attached PDFs with regard my appeals. Both are identical, one for each child. They both uphold my appeal against the PFNs and only require that we pay the current outstanding balance. Good news one would think. However there is a problem... There appears to have been a cross-over during the appeals process. Whilst my appeals against the PFNs have been upheld they have seen fit to apply a £20 administration fee against each of the outstanding PFNs. We received two letters in the post from the RPSS on Monday of this week indicating to us that £40 was now outstanding against each PFN and we were expected to pay it within 14 days or they would add a further £20 administration fee on each notice. Obviously I do understand (as they saw fit to outline this in the first paragraph of their rather unnecessarily condescending letters) that, and I quote "any appeal which may have been made is a wholly separate matter from the legal requirement to make payment" but seeing as how the RPSS has just squashed the two fines why have they left the administration fee outstanding? The reason I am posting this is to ask for some advice/guidance about my options moving forward. I understand that the appeal process is separate to the payment of the fine, and so I would like to avoid being told that perhaps I should have just paid the fines in full at the same time as submitting the appeal to avoid this happening, I sent the appeal in early enough to be well within the deadline. It is not my fault that they may take a little while to process things at their end but I do also understand that they would have refunded me any monies owing should this have been the case. However, this is not the case and the situation I find myself in begs the question - what do I do now. Do I have grounds to either refuse to pay the administration fee and only submit the full payment of the travel fares themselves (£2.40 in total)? What about sending them £2.40 plus an additional sum that I consider fair to cover the cost of their automatically generated letters which went into franked envelopes and were sent in the post? Do I pay in full and then try and claim it back through the Small Claims Court process? Fundamentally I believe this fee to be unfair. Are they entitled to recover far beyond the punitive damages caused to them during the process of issuing two PFNs that should never have been issued in the first place? Does the appeal going in my favour have any likelihood of going towards a compelling argument to have the administration fees squashed and for me to simply pay the £2.40 and be done with it? I feel very aggrieved that this is happening. I sent a very well put together (if I do say so myself) letter appealing the whole thing and it was successful, so to have defeat snatched mercilessly from the jaws of victory by expecting me to effectively still part company with £40 along with the original train fare - well it would have just been cheaper to pay the fine and not bother appealing...at least then I would have saved £2.40 plus the cost of a first class stamp! Ideas, suggestions, advice, guidance (possibly complementary brownies) all gratefully received. Many thanks, Nathan

Hello, I have been given Unfair fare notice from east coast railways. The fault was restricted ticket and the ticket was in valid on the east cost lines. I have pay 105 pounds. Are Revenue protection support services genuine ? will they send the receipt if I pay them ? How many days will it take for them to send receipt.? The incident happened on 23 july