Paris metro fines
 

Hello, my family of 4 was traveling via Metro and we were stopped by inspectors. When we were unable to produce our tickets, we had to pay 33euros each, which I paid via credit card on site. Afterward, my daughter found all our tickets from earlier that day hiding in her pocket. Do we have any recourse to get a refund?

Also, what constitutes a valid ticket? Just one stamped the same day? I ask because we kept our tickets each day and we could hardly tell which ones were used and which ones were yet unused. We kept the used ones separated In a different pocket, but really can't tell which exact metro trip we used them for, since we took multiple round trips per day.

Any help is appreciated.

If you have the correct tickets for the correct day and time, I would certainly apply for a refund. You can usually make out the date stamped on the tickets, but the time might be in code, so if in doubt just provide all of the possible tickets.

By email, you do this: adresser un mail via le site ratp.fr, rubrique "plus d’infos voyageurs", onglet « contacts utiles ».

By post, you write to this address:

RATP Service Clientèle
TSA 81250
75564 PARIS CEDEX 12

A ticket is basically valid for one trip. They are valid a certain time from the moment you validate them. I throw my ticket in the nearest wastebin when I finish my journey.

Try your luck with RATP - but don't have high hopes - as far as they are concerned, you could have 'found' tickets later on and pretend these were yours...

It's difficult to tell the validated tickets from the unused ones. The best trick I know is to fold them over once you've used them. That way you can keep them separate or mix them up and it won't matter. The agents can scan them if they need to even if they are folded. Good luck on getting your money back.

I have never had any problem getting a fine cancelled -- in the US, France or the UK -- when I was in good faith. The UK was the best, because I admitted that I was in the wrong and was just ignorant, and they refunded the fine anyway. Most of the customer service departments of any of these administrations are delighted that anybody even makes the effort to contact them. The truly guilty of course would never bother to do so.

It's worth a try. If you produced them on the spot, it wouldn't have been such an issue.

Of course to be valid it has to be the one you were using on that particular train at that time.

Manouche, such a simple and clever idea, thank you. To add on, throw the folded ticket into the trash container as soon as you have passed through the exit gate of the destination.

Thank you everyone for the replies. I will certainly contact RATP and try my luck at a refund. I was definitely ignorant and just unaccustomed to subway / metro travel in general as I live in Phoenix, AZ where metro travel is close to non-existent. Thanks again!

We were nearly nailed in May for not having our tickets--the ordinary kind you get in carnets of 10. We protested vigorously and won through application of that favorite French tool, logic. 1. On 5 previous trips we'd never been stopped before. 2. Right after you go through the gate there is always a wastebasket, presumably for tickets (with many tickts on the floor around it). 3. There is no sign anywhere in the system noting a requirement to retain tickets. 4. Not even the RATP website states this requirement.Ergo, how can total strangers be expected to know? 5. Showing the rest of our carnet surely proved that we were in good faith.

Of course we may have been let off mainly because as two 70-year-old American tourists we diddn't 'fit the profile' of the usual fare-beater.

Residents later told me that inspectors customarily prowl around the beginning and end of each month.

So . . . your tickets. And follow Mnouche's brillaint advice to fold your used tickets so as not to confuse them with unused ones.

There are signs EVERYWHERE saying that you must keep your ticket. In French.

I often have that problem - wearing the same coat when out and fishing through pockets with stacks of metro tickets and putting them through the barriers to see which one was still live. Folding it is such a perfectly simple and good idea!

OP I hope you get your refund.

The good thing about folding the used tickets - fold them only one time - is that if you are going to use the bus, and will be transferring (where allowed to do so), the folded ticket (once unfolded) can be validated in the machine.

If you happen to be in the Metro/RER system and have to re-insert the validated ticket to exit, the unfolded tickets work fine, too.

But when you are back on street level, and finished with the tickets, head to the nearest trash can!