This is my first posting on here, but I wanted to share my own experiences of the Penalty Fare scheme. I hope I have not fallen foul of any house rules, please let me know if I do.

I have fallen foul twice of the penalty fare system through, I consider no fault of my own.

The first time was back in the early 00's, when I was in London and the oyster card system was gradually being rolled out on the various tocs in regards to using oyster cards on the over-ground trains, some had at that time implemented it, some hadn't.
Not being a regular traveller to London, I checked the map in regards to which overground trains had or had not rolled out oyster. To my cost I found even the map being issued at the time was not correct.
One nameless toc that hadn't rolled it out on their trains at that time were handing out penalty fares with some relish at London Bridge, even though the map said they could be used.
I did not appeal at that time, as that in itself is a hassle.
There-in lies the first crux of the issue with this scheme ^ they will rely on 99% of people not challenging the scheme in the first place and pay up on receipt of the penalty fare.

The second time I fell foul of the system was when with only 10 minutes until the train left, the ticket office was shut (due to staff shortages - their fault, not mine) and the only ticket machine was broken.
Again not to name the toc involved, due to the short platforms the guard was not available to pay the fare so I was accousted by an RPO on the train who refused to allow me to buy the ticket for the journey being made on the train. I repeated my willingness to pay the fare that I would otherwise had done, but the RPO point blank refused.
He accompanied me off at that station and issued a penalty fare, despite my protests and willingness to pay for the ticket for the journey being made. There was no "grey area" or mitigating circumstances. He kept chanting ^Penalty Fare^ like some kind of mantra. When he wrote the incorrect spelling of my address on the ticket , he then could not confirm the address I had given him was a geniune address.
(Because he had mis-spelt my address). And then guess what, he then blamed for for deliberately mis-leading him!

This time I appealed, but the appeal system is a joke, there is no recourse to appeal, the standard response is "either pay up" or be threatened with heavier penalties/fines.
Even though I had set out clearly the dates/times, trains taken, and even photo evidence that the ticket office was closed, any evidence was pretty much ignored, dismissed out of sight.
"Please pay up or face heavier fines/penalties when we pass your refusal to pay up to out debt collection agency."
The "Debt Collection Agency" they pass the non-payments of penalty fares to share the same office as the Penalty Fare Administration scheme. Hmmm.
On further investigation, the executive or non-executive directors of the said "penalty fare administration" scheme are all ex-directors\managers of various tocs that have or are about to outsource their revenue protection business to the penalty fare administration scheme. Hmmm.
Shockingly one of the "non-executive" directors of the penalty fares scheme also sits on the DFT^▸ (Department for Transport) executive board so has lobbying powers at the highest level of government. Not good.
In my opinion the whole thing is a revenue raising exercise and a scam.

Disgustingly, the people these schemes are aimed at, who go out of their way to commit fare evasion, wont have the means to buy a ticket anyway, let alone pay the fine, so they will continue to flout the rules and continue to travel without a ticket, give false addresses etc. So raising the amount is not going to stop this.

Therefore in conclusion, the only way to pay for the administration of this scheme will be to further trip up and encapsulate more and more genuine passengers into the penalty fare system to pay for it, and of course up the cost.

Sorry for the long-windedness of post, but I felt I needed to share my experiences of this very unfair system. As someone has already alluded to on this thread, this is the wrong path for the railway system to punish and penalise genuine fare paying passengers, given that the most experienced of us can fall foul of the complexities of the ticket system (nearly being mis-sold the wrong ticket the other week by a clerk, I had to correct her as to which ticket I needed) or genuine mistakes or circumstances that can arise (ticket offices closed, broken ticket machines, lack of ticket machines, queues, etc. etc.).