‘I saved £1.85 on a train ticket – now I might end up with a criminal record’

Sam Williamson was pretty chuffed that he had saved £1.85 on his train journey.

The 22-year-old consultant living in Charlesworth, Derbyshire, was heading down to London last month to sit his theory test. He had struggled to book a test closer by.

So as he’s done so many times, Sam booked an ‘Anytime Day Single’ ticket on the Northern app from Broadbottom to Manchester, intending to change to board a second train to the capital on September 5.

Sam scrolled down until he saw the yellow sticker of the commuting word, the green ‘cheapest’ label. Using his 16-25 Railcard, he bought a ticket for £3.65 rather than £5.50.

Now, he’s potentially being taken to court and faces a fine and a criminal record after Northern sent him a letter last week for paying £1.85 less than he should have.

‘It’s mad and definitely distressing,’ Sam, an Oxford University graduate whose post on X about this experience has gone viral, tells Metro.

‘The company potentially trying to prosecute me feels like a wildly disproportionate response from Northern over an innocent mistake that could have been settled in minutes if they had allowed it.’

Sam, from Glossop, a town 15 miles east of Manchester, is one of several people who purchased a ticket advertised as being valid at ‘any time of day’ and have been taken to court by train firms.

This is down to a clause in the terms and conditions for the 16-25 Railcard, that slashes rail cost by a third.

Sam assumed that as the ticket was ‘anytime’ he could use it anytime. But the train conductor looking down at him just before 7.30am said otherwise.

According to the terms and conditions, the 16-25 Railcard has a ‘minimum fare that applies from 4.30am to 10am Monday to Friday’. This read-the-fine-print policy doesn’t apply to journeys made in July or August, the last time Sam made several similar journeys with his railcard.

‘I was totally unaware of the Railcard T&Cs which state that discount does not apply on journeys less than £12 before 10am Monday-Friday from September to June,’ Sam says.

‘I’d naively assumed that being unable to get the discount before 10am was an app error instead of a consequence of this very niche rule which few railway users would be aware of.’

Sam says that, much like the more than nine in 10 Britons who don’t either, he hadn’t read the Railcard’s terms of use in full when he agreed to them four years ago.

‘I was not commuting frequently at that point, so even if I had thoroughly read the T&Cs at the time I doubt I would have noticed such a specific detail,’ Sam says.

So he was ‘surprised’ when the conductor informed him his ticket was invalid.

‘At the time of the incident, I did my best to fix my mistake – I offered to buy a new ticket, pay the difference or a penalty fare, whatever was necessary,’ he explains.

‘Given the monthlong silence, I had assumed that Northern had looked at the details of my case, particularly the tiny difference in fare price, and dropped the matter.

‘However, once that letter came through, I realised that I would have to deal with even more anxious waiting and potentially significant legal consequences.’

When buying a train ticket on the Northern mobile app, trains before 10am will not have the Railcard discount applied. But rides after this time will, with users also offered the option to buy the ‘anytime’ ticket.

Sam had done just that, with the first train journey listed as ‘cheapest’ being just before 10.30am before buying the ‘anytime’ trip.

Northern describes an ‘Anytime Day’ ticket as having ‘no restrictions on the time of day that you can travel’. The webpage does not mention the restriction for Railcard-carriers, nor does the app when buying one.

In Britain, rail-operating companies can issue court summons if someone is caught travelling without a valid ticket and fails to pay the penalty fare or resolve the issue. Northern says it considered this a ‘last resort’.

‘Anytime’ ticket-holders ending up in court for using the ticket before 10am, a practice first reported by The Bolton News, have been handed fines of more than £450.

Northern’s letter to Sam, dated October 2 and from the firm’s Debt Recovery and Prosecutions Unit and seen by Metro, offered Sam the opportunity to ‘explain’ what had happened before taking further action.

‘Failure to respond to this reasonable request within 14 days… will result in legal action being taken,’ the letter continues.

Sam says he has emailed Northern’s revenue protection team explaining what happened.

‘I still remain optimistic that Northern will see sense and choose not to proceed any further, not least after seeing the massive reaction that my posts have garnered,’ Sam says, ‘but for now, I am still in suspense.’

The Department for Transport told Metro: ‘Ticketing has become far too complicated, which is why we have committed to simplifying it for customers, as part of the biggest overhaul of our railways in a generation.

‘We expect Northern to ensure their policy on ticketing is clear and fair for passengers at all times and have instructed the operator to review the details of these cases urgently.’

A Northern spokesperson told Metro: ‘As with all train operators across the UK, everyone has a duty to buy a valid ticket or obtain a promise to pay voucher before they board the train and be able to present it to the conductor or revenue protection officer during a ticket inspection.

‘The overwhelming majority of our customers – upwards of 96% – do just that.’

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