Getting a fine or bill in the post is never nice – and even less so when you’ve done nothing to warrant it, as Rebecca Westaway, 58, found when rifling through her mail.
Ms Westaway, who lives with her 88-year-old mother in the Heald Green suburb of Manchester, was shocked to receive a penalty fare notice from Metrolink among the post sent to her address – despite not having travelled on the tram she had supposedly avoided paying for.
Moreover, the notice was addressed to another name – spurring the 58-year-old to send back an initial letter back to Metrolink unopened, before a “final reminder” forced her to take a more active response.
She believes that a fare dodger caught by officers on Manchester’s tram railway had tricked ticket staff by giving them a false address.
An initial protest to Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) provoked a response that the operator doesn’t handle complaints and that she should contact Metrolink directly. Further correspondence eventually led to TfGM apologising to Ms Westaway and cancelling the fine.
But the incident has sowed doubt in her mind about what would have happened if her elderly mother had been living alone and received the penalty fare – and sparked concern about a wider spate of ticket-dodgers giving the wrong address.
“I love writing letters,” she told the Manchester Evening News. “But if I hadn’t been here, what would my mum have done?
“You don’t know, because they’ve got our address, are we going to have a bad credit rating? Are we going to have bailiffs at the door?
“How can we as homeowners protect ourselves when something like this happens?”
Ms Westaway knew the fine couldn’t apply to her because her long-term illness constrains her to staying at home and only venturing out occasionally in her car.
“We don’t tend to use public transport,” she said. “I’ve been ill for a while so we haven’t even been going out.
“I’m sure this isn’t the first time it’s happened to somebody. I suppose they have to take what the person gives them as information. But there has to be some other way.”
Ian Davies, TfGM’s interim network director for Metrolink said: “We have received Ms Westaway’s complaint and having looked into the matter can confirm that she is not liable for any fine and will not receive any future correspondence from the operator on this matter. We are sorry for any inconvenience or upset this has caused.”
While those dodging paying train fares are liable for penalty charges, giving false information to ticket officers constitutes a further offence which could lead to more serious action and go on offenders’ criminal records.
