A man who was fined by Merseyrail despite buying a ticket said the rail company should not be using third party ticket sellers.
Jake Lindop was travelling into Liverpool from Chester with his girlfriend on November 26 after buying tickets on the Trainline app.
But Mr Lindop was fined when he reached Liverpool Central for not having a valid ticket - despite showing them evidence on his phone that he had bought one.
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The 28-year-old from Connah's Quay in North Wales told the ECHO he normally gets off the train at Liverpool Lime Street where he can then print his tickets.
But due to travel issues his train went to Liverpool Central where he was given an on the spot fine of £20 - even after he said he would get the train to Lime Street to print his ticket.
Mr Lindop said he doesn't think Merseyrail should give travellers the option to buy tickets on third party sites like Trainline if they don't accept it as proof of travel.
He said: "It's an outdated system - if you travel to Manchester you have the option to use the tickets on your phone but Merseyrail is behind in the sense you have to have a physical ticket.
"Especially with the pandemic and how so many places have gone completely cashless and paperless, it feels like Merseyrail are far behind.
"I also don't understand how you can collect your ticket with Trainline at Lime Street but not at Central.
"I think it's pretty ridiculous to be honest."
Mr Lindop told the ECHO he walked over to Lime Street after being fined to print his ticket to show he had proof he made the journey legitimately to dispute Merseyrail.
But despite this he was told by Merseyrail he didn't have sufficient evidence he had travelled with a valid ticket.
He was later send documents which said he could either pay nearly £180 - including £150 which contribute to Merseyrail's prosecution costs - or he'd have to go to court.
Although he wanted to challenge the rail company, Mr Lindop said he decided not to take the issue to court after he read about how a similar case dragged on for 16 months.
He added the prospect of going to court over the matter made him feel his only option was to plead guilty and pay the fine.
He said: "When they send the big dossier they make you feel your only option is to plead guilty and pay the money because you don't want to get into anymore trouble and go up in front of a court.
"It's almost like they back you into a corner and give you no other option other than pleading guilty."
In his most recent contact with Merseyrail, Mr Lindop agreed to pay £120 to avoid going to court.
Suzanne Grant, Commercial Director at Merseyrail, said: “Merseyrail operates a long-established ‘buy before you ride’ policy on our network, and part of this policy is that passengers must be in possession of a valid printed ticket before they begin their journey with us.
"Whilst we can’t discuss individual cases, where a passenger is travelling using a booking reference number for a ticket purchased from a third party, they should ensure that they have a physical ticket in their possession before boarding our services, and this is made clear at the point of purchase.
"We don’t currently have the technology needed to validate electronic tickets, and unfortunately this opens the risk of a customer simply refunding their ticket once they have completed their journey. For this reason we cannot accept them.
“We understand that the pandemic has accelerated demand for smarter ticketing options, and in January we introduced new systems at our ticket offices to allow tickets purchased via third parties to be printed and collected at our stations.
"This is already proving popular and is the first stage in what we hope will be significant future improvements to our ticketing offer.”
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