Appealing Luas fine

Cosmic Maybe · 08-02-2013 12:42am #1

I was in a rush to get the Luas today and as it was at the stop when I arrived I quickly swiped my Leap card and got on. However, when the ticket inspector came around he said that I wasn't tagged on and gave me a €45 fine. This was despite his machine telling him that I had over €10 on my card and therefore would have no reason to be fare evading. I know that there's already a lot of threads relating to Luas fines but none of them seem to say how things worked out in the end i.e. was the fine successfully appealed? So basically my question is whether anyone has ever successfully appealed a fine in the past? And how reasonable/lenient are Veolia?

foggy_lad · 08-02-2013 1:07am

Cosmic Maybe wrote: »

I was in a rush to get the Luas today and as it was at the stop when I arrived I quickly swiped my Leap card and got on. However, when the ticket inspector came around he said that I wasn't tagged on and gave me a €45 fine. This was despite his machine telling him that I had over €10 on my card and therefore would have no reason to be fare evading. I know that there's already a lot of threads relating to Luas fines but none of them seem to say how things worked out in the end i.e. was the fine successfully appealed? So basically my question is whether anyone has ever successfully appealed a fine in the past? And how reasonable/lenient are Veolia?

There is nothing you can do as it is your own responsibility to ensure that you tag on and off properly.

Dravokivich · 08-02-2013 9:26am

10euro on the card without tagging on is no different than 10euro in your pocket without buying a ticket.

Granted you attempted to tag on, but you need to be certain you've tagged on.

corktina · 08-02-2013 10:05am

i'd just pay up and be more careful next time

Cosmic Maybe · 14-02-2013 11:05pm

corktina wrote: »

i'd just pay up and be more careful next time

Just a quick update on the situation.

TBH the posts above weren't very helpful, why exactly would you just pay up and not appeal?

It doesn't make sense, when you consider it takes all of 15 minutes to draft up an email and send it. All they can say is that the fine still stands or that its been cancelled. Its seems like a no brainer to me in that you have a 50/50 chance of paying the fine versus a 100% chance.

Anyways I sent them an email last Friday morning outlining the facts. Unfortunately I got a letter today saying that the €45 fine still stands. However, the only good thing is that you have 2 weeks from the receipt of the letter to pay the fine. If I hadn't appealed I would have only had 2 weeks from the date I got the fine. So that effectively gives me an extra week to pay. Just thought it might be useful if anyone else was in a similar position and was holding out for payday!:D

bridgepeople · 15-02-2013 10:54am

I don't think the previous respsonses were unhelpful. Why ask for advise here if you only want to hear what you want to hear?

I think you are massively overestimating the chances of your appeal being successful. Instead of 50/50, I'd rate it at less than 1% chance of success. While I have no doubt you are being honest here, how could Veolia realistically accept your defence? As a precedent, it would mean that anyone caught without a valid ticket could say they tried to tag on quickly but it mustn't have worked.

sparks11 · 15-02-2013 12:20pm

Same thing happend me last week. I tagged on at the stop before boarding, and heard the scanner beep, and looked at the scanner and it had told me I had tagged on.

During the trip, inspector gets on, scans my ticket and tells me loudly enough so that everyone in proximity heard I hadn't scanned on.

I was positive I had (see above) so I told him his machine was faulty.

After he continued to fiddle with my ticket it suddenly scanned.:rolleyes:

He slopped off without so much as a "sorry".

If you are sure you (attempted) tagged on I would ask luas for cctv of station at time you tagged on and see what happens.

lucernarian · 15-02-2013 12:47pm

bridgepeople wrote: »

I don't think the previous respsonses were unhelpful. Why ask for advise here if you only want to hear what you want to hear?

I think you are massively overestimating the chances of your appeal being successful. Instead of 50/50, I'd rate it at less than 1% chance of success. While I have no doubt you are being honest here, how could Veolia realistically accept your defence? As a precedent, it would mean that anyone caught without a valid ticket could say they tried to tag on quickly but it mustn't have worked.

Telling people to "be more careful" next time is useless. It's hardly like law-abiding customers wouldn't want to tag on in the first place, like they need a reminder from some stranger on the internet and anyway the threat of a fine is more than enough inspiration to be cautious next time.

Also, no one actually tried to answer the OP's question about how reasonable or lenient Veolia are. I can't even see how one could claim there was any "help" in those responses. I don't mean to imply your own post was particularly unhelpful or stupid, but I can't fathom how any objective person could describe the above as helpful... Maybe Corktina's bit referring to paying up (i.e. not to waste time appealing) could be construed as useful help or advice.

I think if people ask a question on this forum, they could at least expect some sort of direct reply to it even if it's not sympathetic etc.

corktina · 15-02-2013 1:28pm

but you can see Veolia problem though, can you not? How do they differentiate between genuine errors and people who deliberately don't log on? The second group would be by far the larger I would guess.

Dravokivich · 15-02-2013 1:57pm

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

Telling people to "be more careful" next time is useless. It's hardly like law-abiding customers wouldn't want to tag on in the first place, like they need a reminder from some stranger on the internet and anyway the threat of a fine is more than enough inspiration to be cautious next time.

The customer needs to be sure they've tagged on, which is what all the earlier comments referred to.

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

I think if people ask a question on this forum, they could at least expect some sort of direct reply to it even if it's not sympathetic etc.

The OP did get direct and honest replies. You should check out similar threads referring to appealing fines where it's clear the OPs in those instances are taking the piss.

lucernarian · 15-02-2013 4:02pm

Dravokivich wrote: »

The customer needs to be sure they've tagged on, which is what all the earlier comments referred to.

The OP did get direct and honest replies. You should check out similar threads referring to appealing fines where it's clear the OPs in those instances are taking the piss.

I have seen similar threads and commented in them, there is a prevailing hardline attitude taken to all those queries pertaining to appeals of fines, no matter how innocuous the question or unfortunate the situation, even to the point of being rude and impetuous with the OP. Oftentimes, the people asking these questions are newbies too.

Personally, I like to ask questions of someone with a suspicious story before assuming their culpability... Or at least answer their questions if they appear to be genuinely interested in the answer or need to know etc.

Dravokivich · 15-02-2013 4:18pm

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

no matter how innocuous the question or unfortunate the situation, even to the point of being rude and impetuous with the OP.

I don't see where that happened here...

lucernarian · 15-02-2013 6:41pm

Dravokivich wrote: »

I don't see where that happened here...

I was referring to similar threads about appealing fines and whatnot. I said so in my reply.

Cosmic Maybe · 17-02-2013 10:14pm

bridgepeople wrote: »

Why ask for advise here if you only want to hear what you want to hear?

Why give advice if you're not going to answer the original question?

Dravokivich wrote: »

The OP did get direct and honest replies.

Direct replies to what exactly? Considering I never asked for retrospective advice - I asked whether anyone had successfully appealed a Luas fine - both those comments are redundant.

From looking at threads relating to transport fines in general I think some people are a bit over zealous in their eagerness to tell people that they were in the wrong.

Btw I agree 100% with everything To be confirmed has posted.

msshono · 17-02-2013 10:43pm

OP as you've discovered appealing is a waste of time, no matter how honest you are or what history they can see on your card of regular tagging on.
On one occassion, I thought I had tagged on (scanned the card & jumped on not realising the tag-on hadn't worked - as regularly happens) got checked by inspector between getting on and the next stop, said I'd get out and tag on at the next stop, they could check my trans history but they didn't care, issued a fine and the appeal was declined. But I've since, on 3 occasions seen them allow other people get off and tag on at the next stop and not fine them!

My card hadnt being working since the new year, took anything up to 5 attempts to get it to tag on/off and sometimes it just wouldn't work at all. As a result I was over charged for trips when I couldn't get the card to tag off - I sent the card for replacement with details of when I was over charged, requesting a refund (my trips are the same every day of every week). My card was replaced and the letter it came with stated my overcharging would be addressed by Veoila but 2 weeks later and, big surprise, no response, so im still out of pocket. I made a compliant in the past to Veoila about inspectors agressively blocking the tram doors when the tram stops at the platform and trying to stop people passing them on the platform by creating a blocade with inspectors, with backlog of customers thrn queuing to be checked and 'let through' (I am not prepared to be delayed getting to work by agressive ticket checkers). Also about the fact the machines would not accept debit cards for quite some time. And, no surprise, they didn't acknowledge my complaints.

So all in all, they don't seem to be prepared to take much interest in customer service or rights, aside from the issues of appeals.

Is there somewhere else you can complain, like an ombudsman type office?

EdenHazard · 23-02-2013 1:43am

I remember few years ago I paid for a ticket at sandymouth but the machine swallowed my money. I went to your man at the desk and he was like saying it to them if they get on. They did get on and they fined me. I flat out refused to pay the fine and nothing was ever done about it.

jjcczz1221 · 26-04-2013 6:08pm

sparks11 wrote: »

If you are sure you (attempted) tagged on I would ask luas for cctv of station at time you tagged on and see what happens.

Same thing happened to me and my wife. We did swept our cards and I wrote Veolia an Email to appeal against the fine. I detailed the exact time of the day (As we were travelling with my Mum who bought an return ticket) and asked them to check the cctv...

I received a letter from them a few days after and it says, they have reviewed my appeal and the I still have to pay for the fine as I/my wife DID NOT HAVE A VALID TICKET WHEN TRAVELLING.

It is a complete waste of time! They were probably not even bother to check if the machine was faulty. :mad:

Hilly Bill · 26-04-2013 10:05pm

Do you swipe the card on the Luas or just hold it still like at the barrier in train stations?

_Kaiser_ · 26-04-2013 10:50pm

Sounds to me like more of a problem with Leap (again) rather than anything the OP did.

There's a whole thread dedicated to problems with this card and the piss-poor way it was implemented and the technology behind it.

If they want to be issuing fines, they'd want to be very sure their technology is up to spec. I lived in Holland for a few years in the mid-80s where they had card readers and all that too (and the buses ran on time to boot with timetables for that stop 30 years before DB caught up with that idea!) and never had any problems despite being a kid and taking 4 buses a day.

But then this is Ireland where the "ah sure it'll be grand" approach is the norm, and anyone with a complaint must have an agenda/be lying etc - as evidenced by the high horse holier-than-thou responses on this thread.

markpb · 27-04-2013 6:36pm

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

Sounds to me like more of a problem with Leap (again) rather than anything the OP did.

With all due respect, given the number of Leap cards in use, if there was a structural problem like this, don't you think we'd have heard of more than one or two people who had problems with it? It sounds (to me) like the OP swiped too quickly or in the wrong part of the pad, failed to tag on correctly and was fined. It's an honest mistake and an unfortunate one but I don't see why you see it as proof of some sort of monumental cockup.

They've been operating a smart card solution on Luas since 2006 and Leap on Luas since 2011. If you think their technology isn't working, feel free to provide actual examples rather than just hand waving and Irish-bashing stereotypes.

Appealing Luas fine

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