Were these paper tickets or etickets?
E-tickets, there is a solid paper trail basically.
Chiltern will be dealing with all the "offences." You will not be pursued by any other TOC for these offences.
Great that's good news!
One thing which I am freaking a little out is whether they have grounds for the fraud act. However, they did not mention it in their initial letter and they clearly had this ready and waiting to go so I hope as long as I am transparent it will not suddenly make this more serious.
I have drafted a response now, I have found evidence I did not make 2 of the journeys, 2 of the ones they also added are not showing as requested for refund in my bank statement, or the trainline account, or in my emails so hopefully this was their mistake. This leaves 3 I cannot account for. Please see below:
"Dear Economic Fraud and Crime Unit,
I have filled in the sheet with my best knowledge of why I refunded tickets, and will give more evidence and detail below.
My refund for 29/1/2022 was because I tested positive on a COVID-19 lateral flow test before leaving for my journey, hence I did not make it. Please find attached my subsequent results for the test I did that same day and for a test in Oxford the next day, showing I did not travel as I stayed home.
I am confused about the journeys on the 6th July:
On my Trainline account it says my journey from Oxford to Cardiff central was not refunded and I cannot find evidence of my request on my bank statements or emails (see attached).
That day I did travel from Oxford to Cardiff central on the train and didn’t request a refund as I recall.
Please find the travel history of my account attached showing the trip as not refunded.
On the planned return journey from Cardiff to Yatton on 6th July, I recall we had some problems with delayed trains. I therefore bought a new ticket from Cardiff to Bristol Parkway instead (completing my journey to my boyfriend’s house by Taxi, receipt attached) and then requested a refund for the trip Cardiff Central to Yatton as I made my journey the other route (see also attached).
For journey: NUMBER, the data show I refunded at 7pm on 2/7/23, 1 minute after purchasing a new ticket to Oxford departing from Bristol Parkway instead. I then travelled to Bristol Parkway station by car. This change was due to a cancelled train (see email attached). I do not know why I refunded the NUMBER.
In terms of the 3 remaining, some are genuine because I live in Oxford and my partner lives between Bristol and Yatton so sometimes he would offer me a lift instead of getting the train there or back. This would be why I have only made one leg of the journey on several occasions and refunded my ticket going the other way as I did not get the train.
In the interests of full transparency however, I have previously refunded tickets during this timeframe when I did make the journey. This cannot be excused by the cost of living crisis but that was my motivation. I have since seen the error of my ways and understand this is not only illegal but represents a serious loss of revenue for the rail companies.
However, I do not have the details available to me of which occasions these were, so in the interests of honesty and making up for lost revenue I am going to say it is possible that one or more of these are refunds I was not entitled for. This includes the 3 journeys between Oxford and Yatton/Bristol:
Again I understand the severity of this and am hoping that through my honesty and sincere regret, that we can settle this dispute.
I can honestly say I will never refund a used ticket or travel without a valid one again, this process has really opened my eyes to the severity of these offences. Please note none of these refunds are from the last 6 months - I have since educated myself on the conditions of carriage and the severity of breaching them.
I am deeply sorry for the potential 5 trips I erroneously refunded (if a refund was indeed requested for NUMBER and NUMBER), and am more than willing to cooperate and compensate for this in the form of a settlement.
Warm regards,
My name"