Bristol, Bath and the West

First targets ticket fraud in a hard-hitting campaign

Fraudsters who make fake copies of First change tickets are being targeted in a bid to wipe out the problem for good. The company is redesigning the tickets to make them harder to copy and in addition customers will have to redeem their tickets at travel shops.

Currently passengers who are issued with a passenger change ticket because the driver has not got enough change on the bus can take the ticket to another driver, redeem at a travel shop or use the ticket for another journey.

In a typical month as much as 16 % of change paid out by drivers in Bristol was for fraudulent tickets, which amounts to as much as £40,000 a year.

Customers are now being asked to claim back their change at First travel shops rather than on bus to make the scheme more effective and easier to implement.

The new tickets called ‘change tickets will be issued from February 3rd 2008, passengers will then have a 7days to re-claim monies at First travel shops. A single change ticket is issued up to the value of £5.

Passengers will still be able to redeem tickets on bus until February 2nd but after that date they will need to collect their change from a travel shop within 7 days.

First spokeswoman Rachael Hicks said ‘ Why should honest people be penalised for other peoples dishonesty. Our drivers are being duped but more importantly so are customers. Too much money is ending up in the wrong hands and we cant allow this to continue. We will be reviewing the entire process in due course but we need to act now. I hope people support what we are trying to do here and help us eradicate the problem for good.