In message , Dave
writes
So if you had a trolley full of shopping at your local supermarket, but
not every single checkout was in operation - would you leave without
paying whilst taking all the goods and claim it was the supermarket's
fault? Or would that be considered theft?

*If* there was absolutely no opportunity for you to purchase a ticket
at your destination, then (and only then) would I say you had a point.
If you had an opportunity to purchase a ticket at your destination, but
chose not to do so simply because there wasn't someone there to *make*
you buy one - that makes you a thief.

As I stated. Someone in a London Underground uniform announced to the
queue for the ticket office that if anyone wanted to pay at the
destination that they could and then opened the manual gate and let
quite a few people (including me) through.
Not all the ticket machines had queues as the two main ones were out of
order. Not all the ticket offices had queues as only one of them was
actually staffed.
If there had been massive queues for ticket machines and all ticket
offices then sure I would have waited.
The point I was making is that they couldn't handle the number of people
at the single ticket window open because the machines were not working
and they didn't have the other ticket window open. Because of this they
had to let people travel without tickets on the basis they would pay at
their destination. I can assure you without doubt that I wouldn't be the
only one who didn't pay. And Im sure others claimed to have started
their journey in a different Zone to Zone 5 (which Harrow is in)
--
CJG

CJG writes
In message , Dave
writes
So if you had a trolley full of shopping at your local supermarket,
but not every single checkout was in operation - would you leave
without paying whilst taking all the goods and claim it was the
supermarket's fault? Or would that be considered theft?

*If* there was absolutely no opportunity for you to purchase a ticket
at your destination, then (and only then) would I say you had a point.
you had an opportunity to purchase a ticket at your destination, but
chose not to do so simply because there wasn't someone there to *make*
you buy one - that makes you a thief.

As I stated.

Yes you did. Repeating it doesn't change the facts.

The staff gave you a break by letting you travel without buying a ticket
beforehand. You abused their trust by choosing not to purchase a ticket
at the destination.

Just pointing out that other people may be as dishonest as you does not
negate your actions. No-one forced you not to buy a ticket at your
destination - that was your choice. You *chose* to be a thief.

--
Dave

In message , Dave
writes
The staff gave you a break by letting you travel without buying a
ticket beforehand. You abused their trust by choosing not to purchase
a ticket at the destination.

Stop trying to sound like they were doing me a favour!
Just how long would you wait in a restaurant for the waiter to come with
your bill before you walked out? 2 hours? 3 hours?
--
CJG

On Thu, 31 Jul 2003 21:32:08 +0100, CJG
wrote:

In message , Dave
writes
The staff gave you a break by letting you travel without buying a
ticket beforehand. You abused their trust by choosing not to purchase
a ticket at the destination.

Stop trying to sound like they were doing me a favour!
Just how long would you wait in a restaurant for the waiter to come with
your bill before you walked out? 2 hours? 3 hours?

Not an accurate comparison.

In a restaurant you consume the product _before_ you pay.

In a supermarket you consume the product _after_ you pay.

A more reasonable question would be.

How long would you wait in a checkout queue before wheeling the
trolley out without paying?

Rob.
--
rob at robertwoolley dot co dot uk

CJG writes
The staff gave you a break by letting you travel without buying a
ticket beforehand. You abused their trust by choosing not to purchase
ticket at the destination.

Stop trying to sound like they were doing me a favour!

They let you travel with pre-purchasing a ticket.

Just how long would you wait in a restaurant for the waiter to come
with your bill before you walked out? 2 hours? 3 hours?

Get up and find a member of staff, or you could tot-it up yourself and
leave the appropriate mount of money.

Stop trying to justify yourself - it's quite simple you can't. You made
a choice to be a thief, however you try to gloss it over.

I just find it bizarre that having done that, you choose to boast about
it in a public forum. Very odd.

--
Dave

In article , Cal Nihoni
writes
If you were honest, you could have purchased your ticket from the
machine at your destination - but you decide not to do so and publicly
admit your guilt as well. How odd.

Get real. How many people would do that? Just you I think.

The fact that others are thieves doesn't mean he should become one.

[And, yes, I have paid in similar circumstances.]

Perhaps London Underground have done their sums and *overall*, their
"apparent incompetence" plan of allowing ticket purchase 80% of the time and
not worrying about the 20% that get away gets them more money than paying
people to allow/enfore ticket purchase 100% of the time, so be it. It's
simple economics.

I was once told that Marks & Spencers, many years ago, changed from
doing detailed daily stocktakes to having a much looser system because
the savings in staff pay (and the staff benefit of reduced need for
unsocial hours) outweighed the losses from additional theft.

It may be both economic and realistic to live with a certain level of
theft rather than try to stop it happening, but the thieves are still
thieving scum.

--
Clive D.W. Feather, writing for himself | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8371 1138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Written on my laptop; please observe the Reply-To address

Clive D. W. Feather wrote:
In article , Cal Nihoni
writes
If you were honest, you could have purchased your ticket from the
machine at your destination - but you decide not to do so and
publicly admit your guilt as well. How odd.

Get real. How many people would do that? Just you I think.

The fact that others are thieves doesn't mean he should become one.

[And, yes, I have paid in similar circumstances.]

You mean you have voluntarily donated[1] the price of your journey to LU by
buying a ticket for another journey of the same price? How very generous of
you. However, I think many people would regard not paying in these
circumstances not as theft but as LU allowing them to travel free by not
providing the opportunity for payment *for that journey*[1].

([1] The point here is that in the absence of staff at the destination, the
only way to pay is to purchase a ticket from the machine for the reverse
journey, which would not have been valid for the actual journey undertaken,
and is therefore technically a donation.)

To take another example, if you inadvertently overrun by 5 minutes the
paid-for time at a parking meter, do you regard that as the theft of the
extra 20p or whatever? If so, how do you proceed? Or like most people, do
you just drive away relieved that you've got away with it? I'm just trying
to explore how absolute your view of theft is.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

Richard J. wrote:
([1] The point here is that in the absence of staff at the
destination, the only way to pay is to purchase a ticket from the
machine for the reverse journey, which would not have been valid for
the actual journey undertaken, and is therefore technically a
donation.)

And indeed that reverse-journey purchase simply serves to skew London
Transport's statistics, since they will think an artificially high number of
people are making the B to A journey when they're not; presumably they will
then concentrate on providing extra staff at B since this is - to them -
where all the tickets seem to be being bought, and ultimately removing even
more staff hours from station A, which was the short staffed one in the
first place.

OK I accept that the above is tenuous and taking things to extreme, but just
demonstrating that the "everyone who doesn't pay even when LU can't be
bothered to let them pay" brigade are technically making the issue worse.

To take another example, if you inadvertently overrun by 5 minutes the
paid-for time at a parking meter, do you regard that as the theft of
the extra 20p or whatever? If so, how do you proceed? Or like most
people, do you just drive away relieved that you've got away with it?
I'm just trying to explore how absolute your view of theft is.

Precisely. Sometimes life gives you these breaks and it's only natural to
take them.

On Thu, 31 Jul 2003 20:17:09 +0100 CJG wrote:
} In message , Dave
} writes
} So if you had a trolley full of shopping at your local supermarket, but
} not every single checkout was in operation - would you leave without
} paying whilst taking all the goods and claim it was the supermarket's
} fault? Or would that be considered theft?
}
} *If* there was absolutely no opportunity for you to purchase a ticket
} at your destination, then (and only then) would I say you had a point.
} If you had an opportunity to purchase a ticket at your destination, but
} chose not to do so simply because there wasn't someone there to *make*
} you buy one - that makes you a thief.
}
} As I stated. Someone in a London Underground uniform announced to the
} queue for the ticket office that if anyone wanted to pay at the
} destination that they could and then opened the manual gate and let
} quite a few people (including me) through.

I would suggests that the option being offered was to pay at the
destination or wait to pay there. Not to pay at the destination or not
pay at all.

Matthew
--
Il est important d'être un homme ou une femme en colère; le jour où nous
quitte la colère, ou le désir, c'est cuit. - Barbara

http://www.calmeilles.co.uk/

"CJG" wrote in message
...

As I stated. Someone in a London Underground uniform announced to the
queue for the ticket office that if anyone wanted to pay at the
destination that they could and then opened the manual gate and let
quite a few people (including me) through.
Not all the ticket machines had queues as the two main ones were out of
order. Not all the ticket offices had queues as only one of them was
actually staffed.
If there had been massive queues for ticket machines and all ticket
offices then sure I would have waited.
The point I was making is that they couldn't handle the number of people
at the single ticket window open because the machines were not working
and they didn't have the other ticket window open. Because of this they
had to let people travel without tickets on the basis they would pay at
their destination. I can assure you without doubt that I wouldn't be the
only one who didn't pay. And Im sure others claimed to have started
their journey in a different Zone to Zone 5 (which Harrow is in)

Passed to the appropriate revenue inspectors manager.