Fare Dodger Pays Up after Emigrating to New Zealand

Is this related to Penalty Fares increasing?

I'm sure many of you know that from the 12th June - on the spot penalty fares for travelling without a ticket will increase from �10 to �20 (Actually many of you probably won't, as you're all law-abiding Pre Pay Oystercard owners or Annual or Monthly Travelcard owners).

But in what seems like a PR person's dream, someone decided to make a back payment of all the fares they had dodged just two days after Sheriff Ken had announced that Penalty Fares were doubling. I'm sure LU's PR department thought it would be a good idea to publish this story two days afterwards to try to soften the blow and make any dodger think of the error of their ways rather than moan about the increase in the fine.



The person anonymously forwarded used notes to London Underground and said, as a born again Christian, his years of persistant fare dodging in the London were wrong.

A. Christian (who hardly sounds like a hardened fare dodger to me) wrote: "Occasionally the train would be about to leave the station and there was no time to buy a ticket from the ticket machine, so I usually paid at the other end when asked for my ticket by ticket collectors.

"In some of these cases there was no-one collecting tickets at the other end so sometimes I would buy a ticket from the machine at the other end of my journey, then rip it up and put it in the bin. Other times I did not pay for the ride at all. (WHAT A CRMINAL - HE OUGHT TO BE SHOT)

"My life is radically different to what it was then. I can't stand the thought of stealing and therefore I enclose this money to cover my fare.."

So different he felt that he ought to cough up four hundred quid to make amends. How exactly he came to the figure of �400 I'm not sure. You'll be pleased to know that London Underground decided to give the money to Great Ormond Street Hospital, rather than put it towards "much-needed income which can be used to fund improvements to our trains and stations."

Read the full story here.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Friday, June 03, 2005 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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