Thread by @SamMarkWill

So, this afternoon I got home to find a lovely letter from @northernassist telling me about how they wanted to prosecute me for using the below ticket to travel on the specified route at a peak time.
I paid £1.90 less than the fare they say I should have paid.
A thread 🧵

You may be wondering - "the ticket says Anytime Single, why wasn't it valid"? This is because of a tiny bit of fine print in the 16-25 Railcard T&Cs about a minimum fare of £12 pre-10am.
Most notably, it doesn't apply in August.

So, I need to get a pre-10am train to Manchester on September 5th. After I plan to arrive, I'll have about 1 hour before changing to a London train.
I'd travelled on this particular pre-10am service a couple of times in August, using the @_Railcards discount with no problems.

On the morning of travel, when I book on the Northern app, I scroll down until I get to that "Cheapest" Anytime service (as you can see). Nowhere is it made EXPLICIT that my Railcard will not, in fact, be valid on any services before 10am this time.
That was my mistake...

Once on the train, the conductor tells me my ticket is invalid due to Railcard restrictions.
I immediately offer to pay for a new ticket, or even take a Fixed Penalty Fare if needs be. He says I can't do either; he must report it and Northern may prosecute me.

He files his report whilst I Google the rules. I figure out it's due to the £12 pre-10am thing, by which stage his report is already gone. I ask him whether the fact I'm going on to London (AKA: spending more than £12 for my journey overall) changes anything. He basically shrugs.

.@jackfifield has done great work; he found that some people are getting fined hundreds for similarly tiny infractions.
Worth saying: unlike say a parking fine, if Northern succeed in prosecution, this will go on someone's criminal record for their whole life.

I've emailed the revenue protection team with all the info I can, so I hope this will work out OK. However, I'm understandably worried that an innocent mistake over a confusing and opaque rule - that only saved me £1.90! - will lead to a punishment of £100s and a criminal record.

So, what needs to change?
Northern: make it clearer that an "Anytime" ticket *isn't* Anytime with a Railcard. Leave app users no room to doubt.
Railcard: publicise your restrictions better. Ideally simplify them or just scrap them entirely whilst you're at it.

Would much appreciate if people like/share this thread so the likes of @LouHaigh may see it.
There were multiple people caught out by this on *literally* just my carriage on that day. TOCs must do better; why would anyone get the train if this is how they will treat you?

Thank you all so much for liking/sharing - evidently I'm not the only one who has been caught out by this rule or similar.
To any journalists wanting to get in touch: tweet me directly please! This response to this has been overwhelmingly big so I have the notifications on mute.

One last piece of irony.
The reason I was going London on that day was to sit my driving theory. The quality of transport up North makes driving a near necessity, sadly, and I couldn't find any test availability in Greater Manchester/Leeds/Liverpool that month.