Yeap Some even can let you off with a warning

Make an appeal, stay patient, and for the future make the maximum effort to understand every detailed rules about each trip ticket and other supporting documents like half-price card your personal ID etc. Having a valid ticket but forgetting my half price card put me in a fine of 5 Fr. initially. When I present myself at the SBB counter to pay my 5Fr fine, I was asked to show my half-price card and I replied it is lost, as I realized lately. And I confirmed that they can find in their computer system being registered with my name, but I do not need it anymore as it is left with one month to expire. They told me they can not process the small fine w/out the card and if I want they can prepare a replacement with another payment of 30 Fr. After-all, if I don't do this, I will be fined a total of 70 Fr after certain days. Not knowing the logical reasoning, I made the total of 35 Fr. payment and got my relief.

The guys who check tickets probably have a certain similarity in action to me on here. Occasionally I get tired of repeatedly putting a neat comment explaining a deletion only to receive an indignant PM from the member asking why (sometimes he doesn't phrase it quite like that!) his post was removed by a power crazy Moderator.

Then, instead of sending a nice little PM back explaining the ruling, the reason for it and wishing the member a good week, as I am wont to do, I write 'Did you read the comment I wrote on the 'deletion'? On those occasions my sympathy is definitely with the ticket guys.

This off-topic post has been deleted by...

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Longbyt

I also think that ticket inspectors have heard every excuse under the sun for not having a valid ticket and "I didn't know I needed a ticket/supplement/my travel pass" is probably the most commonly used one and wears a bit thin.

I was caught two stops out of my travel pass a couple of years ago. I genuinely hadn't thought about it and was genuinely surprised when the ticket inspector caught me out but the mistake lay with me; I hadn't checked.

To be honest, can you imagine how many "appeals" the SBB/VBZ receive on a daily basis with "Please can you reduce/cancel my fine because I didn't know I had broken the rules..?"

I wish I could be a fly on the wall in that office .

I got caught last year for the night tax too. I wrote them a letter explaining my ignorance and they reduced the fine from 80 to 40 chf. The inspector was also very unhelpful, it may be their policy.

I don't actually think it is his job to be helpful. It's his job to catch the folk travelling without a valid ticket. If you read enough Complaints Corner and Transport posts on here, you'll realise the guys are, perhaps regrettably, quite good at doing it.



Another point.
When new members ask about travelling possibilites etc. on here, many helpful members give them the details they ask for. If they were told to check out the Sticky on the Swiss Public Transport System and just ran their eyes over the first post, they would be warned of this from the word go.

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Longbyt

From the night of the 9th of December ( the timetable changes from hereon ), there will be a new ordering code by SMS for the Nachtzuschlag ( Night time Supplement ). It is a flat rate of CHF5

Article in DE

As soon as the site updates, I'll put the new link into the sticky, which will probably give this info too. Great news for folk with fancy phones!

Then perhaps they could look at improving their communication and clarification of the rules. My German is quite fine but things are still quite unclear sometimes and I end up going to the Info desk in HB to get answers. Even a couple of examples would be super helpful. e.g you want to go from HB to Glatt. This is two zones, but Zone 10 counts twice... etc. etc..

To the OP: I can totally believe the ticket checker was not polite to you. I had a case where I was on an S-Bahn, had my yearly Zone 10 card plus my additional 2 zones ticket and therefore was perfectly fine. The ticket taker however, tried to guess that I had gotten on a stop sooner than I had ... trying to tell me that I didn't have a valid ticket. I simply refused to speak any german to her at that point and made her look up the ticket to see where it was bought (which would also show what station I got on at.) She was just on a (failing) power trip. Every other ticket checker I've met has been polite and friendly, but this woman clearly had an axe to grind...

But that's exactly the point - you have the sense to go and inform yourself by asking questions and finding out which ticket you need. There are people who take the risk of riding on the tram or train hoping that the ticket they bought a week last Wednesday will still be valid at 3am in a different city then wonder why the ticket inspector gets a bit arsey with them...

Yes, the onus is on us to figure it out and get the correct ticket, but I still think a little customer service in the form of improved communication would be ideal here. Actually, what would be super cool is if one of the web based time table apps also showed which ticket you need. Quick look on the iphone and I'd see, oh, I need an anschluss for this one. (If this does already exist, please someone give me the info