Reducing Season Ticket fraud

The Problem

Southeastern was aware of potential fraud by travellers purchasing tickets to allow them entry and exit at gated stations within the London area, but whose journeys are in fact longer. In the past, the only way to identify this was to rely on ‘tip-offs’ from vigilant employees. Despite some success it was felt that there needed a more data-driven approach so Southeastern approached Team Technologies for assistance. 
 

The Solution

Team Technologies was able to provide two reports that enabled Southeastern’s Fraud Managers to target records for specific journeys (typically within the inner London area) and identify the customer’s postal address. Care was taken to present the data in a way that enabled potential fraud to be identified quickly without being lost in the midst of genuine ticket data. 

The Outcome

Within two months, Southeastern had 

• Brought to the point of prosecution one person who has admitted to fraud over a period of 17 months
• Identified a potential fraud spanning 26 months the same day as receiving information
• Identified a further nine potential frauds whose combined fraud amounted to a total of nine and a half years
• Reduced the time to gather evidence and present a case
• Recouped more than the cost of the initial project work 

The Verdict

Paul Nicholas - Head of Crime & Security at Southeastern said: 
 
“It’s important that honest fare paying passengers don’t feel that they subsidising the few passengers who avoid paying for their travel. Team Technologies’ GoldSTAR system has proved invaluable in helping us analyse data and identify potential fraudulent behaviour. This helps us to limit the financial risk to the company of fraudulent travel.”