Penalty Fare Notices

The National Rail Conditions of Travel state that you must have a valid ticket before you board a train.

If you board a train without a valid ticket, you may either have to pay the full Single or Return fare, or you could be issued a Penalty Fare Notice.

If you’re issued with a Penalty Fare Notice, you're required by law to provide your full name and date of birth to the Authorised Collector. They can check whether the details you have provided are correct and will know if they are not.

This is the first increase since 2005. Following a consultation process by the Department for Transport and the rail industry, the £20 penalty fare was deemed not high enough to act as a deterrent.

The Rail Delivery Group estimates that in a normal year around £240 million is lost through fare evasion on Britain’s railways.

Fare evasion means that train operators, rail customers and taxpayers who subsidise the railway are paying for the journeys of those who travel by train without paying the correct fare.

You should pay your Penalty Fare Notice as soon as possible. The initial cost is £50 plus the missing fare, but will rise to £100 plus the missing fare after 21 days.

Making sure you have your Penalty Fare Notice slip to hand, you can pay via the following methods:

• Paying online
• By calling the payment line on 0330 095 9327 (Monday to Friday 10:00 – 16:30)
• By visiting a Southeastern ticket office

As the company that issued the Penalty Fare Notice, Southeastern cannot be considered unbiased when assessing appeals. Therefore, it's handled for us by Penalty Services Ltd, a company guaranteed as independent by the Department for Transport.

Appeals must be submitted to Penalty Services Ltd within 21 days of the date the Penalty Fare Notice was issued to you.

Penalty Services Ltd has three stages for appeal. The first two stages are carried out by their appeals assessors, whilst the third is considered by a panel of appeals assessors who haven't already been involved in the case. If there still remains an issue following this, the Penalty Fare Notice will be upheld and the case is referred to the appropriate passenger watchdog: London TravelWatch or Transport Focus.

You should pay your Penalty Fare Notice as soon as possible. The initial cost is £50 plus the missing fare, but will rise to £100 plus the missing fare after 21 days.

Even if you plan to appeal, you should pay, as you'll be refunded if the appeal is successful. However, it the appeal isn't upheld, you'll have already paid what's due.

If your Penalty Fare Notice remains unpaid after 21 days, our Debt Recovery team will apply additional fees and chase payment. If it continues to remain unpaid, your case will be passed to our Prosecutions office, and you may be prosecuted under criminal law. The current maximum penalty upon conviction is £1,000.

Please contact the payment line as soon as possible on 0330 095 9327 (Monday to Friday 10:00 – 16:30).

As well as making payments, they can also provide you with your Penalty Fare Notice reference number.

If you're unable to get through, then please contact Customer Services, providing your full name and the address given at the time the Penalty Fare Notice was issued. Please be aware that Customer Services has a maximum 10 working day response time, although they will look to reply as soon as possible.

If it's been more than 21 days since your Penalty Fare Notice was issued to you, you should have received a letter explaining that you are no longer entitled to the reduced rate of £50 plus the fare and will now need to pay £100 plus the fare. This letter will have your reference number on it.

You should return the letter to the address stated on it, along with an explanation to say that it wasn’t you that was travelling with us.

Along with your explanation, please also include the below details, as they'll help with your case:

• Date of birth
• Where you were at the time of issue (with any evidence supporting this – such as receipts)
• A recent passport style photo of yourself – we'll then cross-check this with the description taken in the Revenue Officers report or from Body Worn Video footage

We would also recommend that you contact the British Transport Police to inform them someone is falsely using your details.

Firstly, please don't open letters that aren't addressed to you.

Instead, please return the letter to sender by writing “Not known at this address” on the envelope, and putting it back in the post.

Once the letter gets back to us, we'll update our records and carry out a further investigation to track down the individual.

If you know the person and their correct forwarding address, please also provide this information when marking the letter.

Contact us