Over £4m paid out to Greater Anglia by fare dodgers and fraudsters
The rail company's handed out thousands of penalty fares
Last updated 23rd Jan 2022
Fare dodgers and fraudsters paid out over £4m to Greater Anglia in 2021.
Ticket inspectors issued over 54,000 penalty fares in 2021, worth a total value of £1.63m.
Those can be given to passengers who catch trains without buying a ticket, or travel with an invalid ticket such as a child rate or by claiming a rail card discount.
The penalty fare is either £20 or double the single fare where the fare is more than £10 for a single ticket.
The rail company also prosecutes people who travel without a valid ticket, for instance if they were travelling without a ticket and had no intention of buying a ticket with no means of payment on them, or they bought a ticket for only part of their journey.
Last year, Magistrates awarded over £1.7m in fines, costs and compensation in nearly six thousand cases.
Greater Anglia also claims money back from fraudsters, often people who make delay repay claims, for journeys they haven't made.
In 2021, the fraud department secured over £450k in claims.
Another £8k was recovered from passengers claiming refunds with a third party retailer for journeys they never made.
Kim Bucknell, Greater Anglia’s head of revenue protection, said: “People not paying for their journeys or fraudulently claiming delay repay compensation or refunds for journeys they haven’t made are effectively stealing from Greater Anglia.
“It’s not acceptable – it’s the equivalent of going into your local supermarket and either not paying for your shopping or only paying for some of it.
“The railway is now funded by the Government – and ultimately the taxpayer – so not paying for a ticket or making a false delay repay claim is effectively stealing from other taxpayers
“Not paying fares and making fraudulent claims means there is less money available to keep the railway running and improving for everyone – which could result in fares going up higher or other implications.”