A man filmed an interaction with a ticket agent after he was charged extra money for boarding the wrong train.
Jack Taylor was travelling from Newcastle to London and decided to take a train earlier than the one indicated on his ticket.
He paid a whopping £100 for the three-hour journey south, but was shocked when an inspector stopped him.
Just 30 minutes into his journey, Jack was told he had to pay £154 for a new ticket to continue his journey to the capital.
The man, believed to work for LNER, said: “£154 please and 15p.”
Jack Taylor was travelling from Newcastle to London and decided to take an earlier train listed on his ticket.
Jack, rather surprised, asked: “£50?”, before being corrected by the man who said the total was “£154, sir”.
The content creator, who has 265,000 followers on TikTok, said: “Oh, it’s too much money, I can’t pay.”
The ticket clerk said, “It’s non-negotiable, sir. We need to see your ticket again, please. You have several options.”
‘You get off at Darlington, I’ll charge you to Darlington and if you get another train my colleagues will know and that’s a different conversation.
‘Option two, £154 please and you can stay on this train and get to London.’
Jack then said he had no money to spend on another ticket, so he was charged an extra £9.40 to get off at Darlington.
He asked the man, “Do you feel bad for doing this?” to which he replied, “No, sir. Everyone else on this train has paid exactly the same price. You bought the ticket. Have a safe journey, sir.”
A rather unimpressed Jack posed for the camera with the ticket he had been issued before filming himself getting off at Darlington.
A ticket agent charged Jack an extra £9.40 to get off at Darlington.
This situation sparked a debate in the comments, with some people defending Jack and others siding with the officer.
– Well, I’ll have to get off the train and wait here for an hour and a half. What do I do with all my time here?
“I’m going to have to light a little bonfire,” he joked.
This situation sparked a debate in the comments, with some people defending Jack and others siding with the officer.
One wrote: ‘The ticket inspectors were definitely the kids reminding teachers to drop off assignments just as everyone was leaving.’
Another said: “Being penalized for taking an earlier train is crazy.”
A third wrote: “I have never seen ticket inspectors take tougher action than those at LNER, they are by far the toughest.”
A fourth commented: “Advance tickets are like airline tickets – you are limited to the time you have booked and chosen. You can’t catch an earlier or later flight at an airport (and) you can’t do the same (with) a train either.”
An LNER spokesperson said: ‘We always advise customers to ensure they have a valid ticket for the service they are travelling on, especially if their ticket is booked for a specific train.
‘Our station teams, train managers and revenue protection colleagues are available to provide advice prior to departure should a customer have a query about their ticket.’