The fraudsters said they were offering “an affordable public service”.
The group, who are not being named by the BBC, said in a statement: “The train companies keep stuffing their pockets with public subsidies while treating the operation of rail services as an inconvenience.
“No-one should be ashamed of getting one over companies like Southern Rail.
“We wish one day everyone will be able to use an affordable public service. Until then, we will be providing it.”
Bullshit. It’s fraud. Plain old-fashioned theft. Any attempt to disguise it is just wibble – self-righteous wibble it may be, but it’s still bollocks on stilts. These people are stealing. And anyone caught with a fake ticket deserves their fine or gaol sentence and criminal record.
How much does it cost to print a credit card sized ticket and post it, £2 max.?
And they charge £110, whose pockets are being stuffed there then?
Yep, plus the victims of the theft are not rail companies, but other passengers whose ticket prices will have to be raised to compensate for the shortfall.
Indeed. I can accept thieving scum. What really irks is their attempt to paint themselves as doing some sort of public service, when, in fact, they are merely lining their pockets by stealing.
This is the key: “we will be providing it.”
If they were putting on a train, paying for the staff, helping maintain the signalling and rail infrastructure, then they would indeed be providing a service, but they aren’t.
Maybe they’re just trying to seed a defence & hope M’Lud accepts it. I think even the dimmest judge will see them for the mendacious chancing toe-rags that they are.
I’ll admit that, in my youth, there were a few occasions when I had a desperate need to get home after a night out and traveled on the last train either in the toilets or in the desperate hope that the inspector had already made his rounds and that he wouldn’t be back again before we reached my stop, but this takes taking the piss to an entirely different level. If they were passing these tickets to people for nothing then yes, I’d buy their ‘power to the people! Smash the corporations!’ spiel as being something like sincere, but they’re no different to the sort of shitbirds who sell fake event tickets or run scams on people hoping to secure rental properties when they have no right to do so. The fact that the tickets work at the moment just means that they are going to stop working soon, and anyone credulous enough to have bought one will deserve everything they get.