Leap Card based Luas fine Appeal

Quizmaster96

So earlier this morning I had the "pleasure" of recieving my first ever fine for anything really. I really do feel like i've been wronged. The thing I live 20mins from town so I usually walk or take the bus from right outside my place to batchelors walk which is €1.50 with the student leap card. I top my leap card by €5 usually and that gets me 3 bus rides. I seldom ever use the luas, probably once in the last 3 months and when i used it I got a ticket. With Dublin bus you get this credit thing if you have no credit there is this €5 deposit you can dig into. Yesterday I had around 5c on my leapcard but I could still get the bus and it should up as -1.45 on my leapcard. I stayed at a friends house in Rathmines after a night out so I decided to get the luas back into town this morning. I swiped card thinking it would be the same as the bus and that I could dig further into the €5 deposit but it didn't tag and it showed red. I got on the luas anyway eventhough i saw there were checkers on board, I thought they would be able to tag it with their scanner. I didn't go up to them straight away which I probably should have and when the came around e said that despite the fact I genuinely didn't know he had to give me a fine. He said I could appeal if wanted and showed me the email address to write to and also told me the details of how to pay the fine otherwise.
Do I have a case? And how should I plea?

January

Moved to Commuting & Transport.

omicron

Quizmaster96 wrote: »

So earlier this morning I had the "pleasure" of recieving my first ever fine for anything really. I really do feel like i've been wronged. The thing I live 20mins from town so I usually walk or take the bus from right outside my place to batchelors walk which is €1.50 with the student leap card. I top my leap card by €5 usually and that gets me 3 bus rides. I seldom ever use the luas, probably once in the last 3 months and when i used it I got a ticket. With Dublin bus you get this credit thing if you have no credit there is this €5 deposit you can dig into. Yesterday I had around 5c on my leapcard but I could still get the bus and it should up as -1.45 on my leapcard. I stayed at a friends house in Rathmines after a night out so I decided to get the luas back into town this morning. I swiped card thinking it would be the same as the bus and that I could dig further into the €5 deposit but it didn't tag and it showed red. I got on the luas anyway eventhough i saw there were checkers on board, I thought they would be able to tag it with their scanner. I didn't go up to them straight away which I probably should have and when the came around e said that despite the fact I genuinely didn't know he had to give me a fine. He said I could appeal if wanted and showed me the email address to write to and also told me the details of how to pay the fine otherwise.
Do I have a case? And how should I plea?

On both bus and luas you can only dig into the 'deposit' as long as you have a positive balance. As you were already on a negative balance, you cannot go further into this negative balance hence why it wouldn't tag on. You don't have a case here.

Slippin Jimmy

So you knew it didn't tag on correctly and decided to get on anyway? No case to appeal.

punisher5112

You already knew how it worked on the bus so how was it going to be any different on the Luas.

Why not top up by €10 and then keep an eye on balance every time you use your card as it shows on the display.

You had the chance to top the card up at tvm at luas stop so as said above you have no case to plead.

If this is the sort of behaviour that is going on I am glad they are been caught and it annoys me so many are getting away on the bus as there is no checking.

foggy_lad

Quizmaster96 wrote: »

So earlier this morning I had the "pleasure" of recieving my first ever fine for anything really. I really do feel like i've been wronged. The thing I live 20mins from town so I usually walk or take the bus from right outside my place to batchelors walk which is €1.50 with the student leap card. I top my leap card by €5 usually and that gets me 3 bus rides. I seldom ever use the luas, probably once in the last 3 months and when i used it I got a ticket. With Dublin bus you get this credit thing if you have no credit there is this €5 deposit you can dig into. Yesterday I had around 5c on my leapcard but I could still get the bus and it should up as -1.45 on my leapcard. I stayed at a friends house in Rathmines after a night out so I decided to get the luas back into town this morning. I swiped card thinking it would be the same as the bus and that I could dig further into the €5 deposit but it didn't tag and it showed red. I got on the luas anyway eventhough i saw there were checkers on board, I thought they would be able to tag it with their scanner. I didn't go up to them straight away which I probably should have and when the came around e said that despite the fact I genuinely didn't know he had to give me a fine. He said I could appeal if wanted and showed me the email address to write to and also told me the details of how to pay the fine otherwise.
Do I have a case? And how should I plea?

You have not been wronged at all.

If you had taken the time to read about how the leap card works you would know that there is a €5 emergency purse but that you must have at least 1cent credit to use it and that no journey can be paid for with a negative balance.

You should have topped up at the luas stop before boarding the tram, you chose not to do this. What exactly were you expecting the ticket checkers to do? they can't let you off with it in any way and there is no way they can validate any leap card, they can only direct those who have reached their daily/weekly cap who may have failed to tag on to do so at the next stop.