While I was in London last month, I got slapped with a £20 penalty fare for a trip that’s usually £2-£3. This was for a travelling without a ticket, because, you know, it’s really easy to get out at your destination if you don’t have a ticket. That last part was sarcasm, by the way. Actually, I was travelling without a ticket to find someone to deduct the ticket cost from my Oyster card (the Oyster card is basically a card you can use for paying for transport in and around London). This was because the Oyster machine at my original station wasn’t reading my card, instructing me to “seek assistance”. Of which, at said station, there was none.
So I took the train in, went directly to the first official I could find, and asked him to deduct the fare. Instead, he docked me £20 and told me I could appeal online.
No doubt, by now you know I feel I should get this money back – my appeal should be successful. Unless the people are heartless bastards, in which case they have me by the short and curly letters of the law.
But what I didn’t expect was that my appeal would be rejected because “assistance must be sort [sic] prior to continuing travel”, despite me plainly stating that I only travelled because I could not find any assistance at the station when I “sort” it. Furthermore, there seems to be no way to reply to the appeal letter online or re-open the case.
And I can’t even query to find out, since their website has no “contact us” link. In fact, there’s no way to kindly inform the webmaster of the fact that it’s a good idea to inform people that session control is handled with a 30-minute timeout if you wish them to upload supporting documentation – especially if you don’t tell them until after the appeal is lodged.
Oh well, I guess it’s back to snail mail now: the only lead I’ve got left is
The Independent Appeals Service
PO BOX 212
Petersfield
GU32 9BQ