Capital Resolve DCA chasing Greater Anglia ticket debt

[fiira4513]

Hi,

 

I received a letter in the mail from Capital Resolve this morning on behalf of their client

(Greater Anglia train service) requesting payment of £62.60

 

This all scales from a charge around £4.20 last year for an unpaid ticket due to their on-board card machine refusing my card

(there is no ticket machine at the station to buy before hand)

 

And my account with more than enough money for the purchase as I had to withdraw later in the day to get home (from the same card that was refused)

 

I explained this in a written letter with receipt proof to Greater Anglia (or whoever deals with payments)

and told them that I was refusing to pay as it was there problem resulting in me not buying a ticket,

and not my own. (to which I never received any reply)

 

Is there anything I can do to fight this,

should I just ignore it?

 

Should I offer to pay the original price of £4 something?

 

Thanks for any help or advice you can give for this as I feel charging over £60 for what is essentially their own fault,

is a bit over the top.

[dx100uk]

what the hell is a no powers Debt collection agency doing chasing a rail fare debt?

 

so you never recieved anything from GA?

 

doesn't sound right to me

 

when was this ticket issue

[fiira4513]

To the best of my knowledge I never received anything from GA, other than the first letter to which I replied stating that I owed a fare of £62.60. (this was from IRCAS)

 

Just dug through the records I have of it, and the original fare was £2.60 and was issued on the 22nd of August last year.

So how they got from £2.60, to £62.60 is beyond me. Considering I had to buy a stamp in order to send my first letter to them, which was never replied to, I feel the most I should be forced to pay is in the £2.30 range..

 

As stated above, I'm willing to pay the £2.60 fare fee, even though the reason I couldn't pay was due to a fault in their equipment (or the very angry woman attempting to use it)

 

Any idea's on this one?

[honeybee13]

Hello there.

 

In case the IRCAS letter is important, would you be able to type up what it says please, minus any personal info?

 

HB

[fiira4513]

Dr Mr,

 

The above Unpaid Fare Notice was issued by GREATER ANGLIA,

in accordance with the National Rail Conditions of Carriage,

as production of a valid ticket or other authority to travel was not possible.

 

We note that an appeal was received by the Independent Appeals Service (IAS).

 

An assessment was made and you were requested to pay an outstanding amount within a specified time.

 

Since you failed to respond to this request a subsequent Reminder letter (with additional administration fees) was issued.

 

However, according to our records payment has still not been received.

 

Only if we receive payment in full, including the administration charges, within 14 days of the date of this letter, will the matter now be closed.

 

You can pay online at our website ircas.co.uk, by telephone (0844 544 8458), or by post.

Full details of all the payment options are given on the reverse of this letter.

 

Failure to respond to this request will require that we refer the case back to our clients,

GREATER ANGLIA who may, in turn, decide to take further action,

including prosecution, in order to recover the debt.

 

Please ensure that you quote the Unpaid Fare Notice number at all times.

 

If you have already paid the outstanding amount, please accept our apology for this reminder.

 

Yours sincerely

 

xxx

 

Amount due: £62.60

 

That's the letter in full, and the only letter i had received until today's letter from Capital Resolve.

 

The letter I just gave you was sent on the 15th of October 2013.

 

Nearly 2 months AFTER the original fare. (22.08.13)

Edited February 17, 2014 by honeybee13
Staff member's name edited.

[honeybee13]

Thank you very much for the above, hopefully it will help the guys to advise you more fully. I've removed the name of the staff member, as we don't normally show those.

 

HB

[fiira4513]

Ah okays, thanks for that

If there is any more info I can give that might help, feel free to ask. I don't have much in terms of communications to them, but I'll show what I can

[honeybee13]

Hello again.

 

I expect the guys will be along later, they'll ask you what they need to know.

 

HB

[dx100uk]

i would suggest GA decided to take things no further

 

these guys are just a dca trying it on.

 

let mego delve

 

this has come up before here

[fiira4513]

Yea I was thinking the same thing as I had never had any dealings with GA themselves.

And it seems a bit of a steep jump from 2.60 to £60 extra.. double, or triple the original price I could understand but not that much.

 

Thanks for all the replys so far as well

[dx100uk]

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?415838-IRCAS-fine&highlight=IRCAS

[fiira4513]

Just had a quick read through that and it seems a little different to my situation ( I think atleast )

 

I don't own any sort of rail cards and I would usually travel a single stop to get to work (and back)

 

The problem with that stop is, there is no way of buying a ticket for the journey at that station

( I would have to travel 30 minutes in the wrong direction to catch another train in order to buy a ticket at the station )

So I usually just paid cash (or card, as I had done on other days on that same train) for the return fee.

 

The day I got the unpaid fare, the ticket machine "refused" to accept my debit card

(that had been used before on that train, and worked)

even though there was enough money in the account

(I proved this by getting a withdrawal receipt from a bank at the other end station for my return trip)

 

So would you recommend me to email Capital to tell them I refuse to pay their extra fee, just ignore it..

or go about this in another way?

 

Still not too sure where to go with this.

Thanks again,

and sorry for missing anything you already pointed out/answered

[dx100uk]

i would suggest you open comms with GA here

 

they would be aware of the failure of the ticket machine i hope

 

if they are

you should not have anything to pay

other than the fare. i think

 

dx

[fiira4513]

Thanks for the reply, I'll give that a go tomorrow and post back any response I get

 

Have a good night / evening

[Old-CodJA]

I think that you need to look at the whole thread of what appears to have happened here

and take a little care with your further correspondence.

 

I urge you to read all of my response before you do anything further

 

You say that you tried to pay when on train and that the machine refused to accept your card payment.

 

We don't know what the reason was.

It may have been a machine or communications failure,

but unless it was a type of card that cannot be used in these circumstances,

let's just say that payment failed.

 

You were issued an Unpaid Fares Notice,

which states on it that you have 21 days in which to appeal in writing, or pay the fare due.

It isn't a penalty, it just asks you to pay the fare due within 21 days.

You failed to do so.

 

Firstly, you will need to explain why you didn't pay the fare of £2.60 when given an opportunity to do so.

 

You don't say what you wrote in your first letter,

but just because the ticket machine didn't work,

doesn't mean your journey was free.

You made the journey and because of a failure,

GA gave you an explanatory note allowing you to pay that fare within 21 days.

 

You could have taken that notice to any GA booking office to pay,

or paid on-line,

or by telephone,

or sent the payment by post as explained on the notice,

but it seems that you did none of these.

 

Why not?

 

If these notices are not paid or successfully appealed,

whether reminders are sent or not,

the opportunity can be cancelled and further action taken

 

Now for some better news,

you may find that this is still relatively easy to deal with,

dependent on exactly what date in August the unpaid fare was incurred?

 

If you can tell us that I'll respond again.

[The Urbanite]

I wonder what the basis was for appealing against a prevously unpaid £2.60 fare?

[fiira4513]

As a reply to your post - The date I received the unpaid fare was 22.08.2013

 

the reason why I refused to pay was mostly due to my own anger at the way I was treated on the train by the staff member,

and by the trains not actually running on time / being delayed for over 30 minutes to an hour.

(Which in hindsight I know is stupid, but young and stupid never mixes well)

 

The card that was refused on the train had worked on that same train before (with the same machines)

but for some reason it wouldn't work (according to the staff member) when I tried paying on that morning.

 

I don't have a copy of the letter I sent (probably down the back of the cabinet somewhere if I kept a copy)

but it said I was refusing to pay for the fee due to it not being a problem with my card (I sent them a bank receipt showing my available balance,

from the same day my card was declined, which showed there was enough cash in the account for the machine to work)

And for the way the staff member treated me when the card failed

(she said I knew my card wouldn't work and I was doing it simply for a free pass travel

(even though I had to buy a return ticket later in the day to get home))

 

Thanks for any comments on this

[andydd]

A couple of points,

 

many debit cards don't work on their wireless card machines,

 

Ive had this problem with my LLoyds debit card on GA,

but Ive never been issued a penalty charge,

 

they normally say,

pay the other end

or have on some occasions phoned through and debited my card over the phone

or once took an imprint of my card and debited the money a few days later,

unfortunately youve made it worse by your refusal to pay.,

 

I also note that I have had a few demands from DCA's for penalty/outstanding fares for old flatmates

who have long since moved and they havnt yet issued court action for the amount owing,

(in general it cant realistically be cost effective to issue court proceedings for less than £100 or so).

[dx100uk]

I see what OJ is getting at here

 

who is your bank?

 

there have been numerous times where by natest/rbs/Lloyds many others etc etc

cards have failed due to these computer problems they [the banks] were having last and this year.

 

dx

[fiira4513]

Bank is Natwest, and the same card had worked on that train before and after the day I got refused.

 

I generally try to have the actual cash on me for the travel,

but there is no cash point between myself and the train station where I live,

so it wasn't possible on that day.

 

I think I just caught the staff member on a bad day

and she outright refused any sort of 2nd attempt on the machine

and instantly called through to whoever they deal with to report my card as refused

and took my name / address etc.

 

And yea, looking back at it,

I should have just paid it and been done with it.

. but anger and youth clearly don't make a good mix when it comes to using a brain

 

I even suggested for her to issue me with a return ticket price on the unpaid fare

and I would pay it in whole for the trip back, which she outright refused

(meaning I had to then buy an extra single for the trip back,

which was nearly the same price as the return to start with)

[firstclassx]

HE WASN'T GIVEN A PENALTY.

 

He was simply given 21 days to pay the fare he should have paid - if the OP's bank has decided to restrict his debit/credit card ability to be used in offline environments - that isn't really the railway's problem. Correctly, the staff member asked for them to pay later on, and even gave 3 weeks to do this, and takes 2-3 minutes to do online.

 

However, because the OP got into a bit of a huff about not getting his journey free, he decides to ignore the UFN.

 

What will happen now is as follows:

 

DCA will make attempts to collect payment.

If that fails, the DCA will return the matter to the train company.

The train company will then go for the criminal approach under Section 5 - Regulation of Railways Act 1889, and, as part of their evidence, will no doubt produce a letter from the OP stating that he refuses to pay the amount, which effectively proves intent to avoid paying the fare, meaning a criminal conviction and fine.

 

They have until April 2014 to bring proceedings.

 

End.

[dx100uk]

I cant quickly find the info

 

but you need to search google or yahoo etc

or the news sites to see if that day was one of their system crashes

whereby no-one could use their cards.

 

there have been quite a few!!

 

dx

[andydd]

I cant quickly find the info

 

but you need to search google or yahoo etc

or the news sites to see if that day was one of their system crashes

whereby no-one could use their cards.

 

there have been quite a few!!

 

dx

 

Its just not crashes, certain cards, for example Lloyds debit cards don't work full stop, some staff are aware of this and have told me the reasons but I cant recall it.

[Old-CodJA]

I cant quickly find the info

 

but you need to search google or yahoo etc

or the news sites to see if that day was one of their system crashes

whereby no-one could use their cards.

 

there have been quite a few!!

 

dx

 

 

 

 

That fact would not prevent further action in this case.

 

The OP was given a printed notice allowing the fare only to be paid without penalty within 21 days, but then failed to do so.

 

There will normally have been further reminder letters and the TOC will have evidence of these on file if they were to take further action, although the company is not obliged to send any reminders.

 

It seems that the fare still remains unpaid and there is a possibility that they have applied for a summons in time, but have given a final opportunity to resolve this through their DCA.

[dx100uk]

there you go...

 

simple plain and to the point.

 

dx