‘It's getting silly': The influencers teaching commuters how to fare-dodge

Telegraph

14 hours ago

TikTok influencers are promoting fare-dodging on the London Underground in viral 'bumping' videos that have racked up millions of views.
In dozens of videos seen by The Telegraph, TikTok users show off by pushing through the barriers at Transport for London (TfL) stations and other rail services, a practice known as 'bumping' on the app.
One account holder had uploaded more than 50 videos of them skipping the barriers at different Underground stations. A video with 72,000 views celebrated 'bumping from London to Scotland by train'.
Some clips have attracted hundreds of comments celebrating different techniques for squeezing through the barriers. Another with 128,000 views showed off 'TfL hacks', including codes for opening gates at stations.
In one video, a masked TikTok user who has just jumped a station barrier says: 'At what age are we gonna stop bumping trains? It's getting silly.' He suggests he might start paying rail fares when he is 25.
'Normalised'
Earlier this week, a government report found that rail staff feared fare-dodging had become 'normalised' and was viewed by offenders as a 'victimless crime'.
A report from the Office of Road and Rail said: 'As well as occasional opportunistic fare evaders, there are some individuals who use a range of techniques to persistently underpay and avoid their fares.'
Staff reported being met with 'aggressive and abusive behaviour' when trying to check the tickets of fare-dodgers.
Some videos on TikTok showed fare-dodgers filming their interactions with station staff, goading them or trying to talk their way out of paying for fares.
Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, said: 'There is an epidemic of fare-dodging in this country. Yobs are laughing at working people who do the right thing. It's a disgrace. I am sick to my back teeth of it – the authorities need to be shamed into action.'
Last week Mr Jenrick filmed himself confronting fare-dodgers at Stratford Station amid growing public anger that petty crime is going unpunished.
Writing for The Telegraph last week, he said: 'I watched as people flooded through an empty barrier, while the enforcement officer was on his backside, feet up, watching on. It was a perfect encapsulation of Broken Britain.
'For ordinary hard-working citizens travelling into work on their morning commute, the sight of somebody slipping through the barriers without paying is a slap in the face.'
However, on TikTok, many commenters praised the barrier-jumpers, encouraging them to try to dodge-fares at other stations. Some videos included people vandalising the barriers at stations.
One video seen by The Telegraph was captioned: 'My excuse for bumping is that I don't support TfL funding. Bumping is a choice, I'm not broke.'
Some channels are entirely dedicated to 'bumping'. One explains to uses 'how to bump narrow gates' on National Rail.
The video says to wait until there is an 'influx' so the 'guards are distracted and s---'. It then says fare-dodgers should 'scope out your victim', follow behind them and cover the sensor on the gate. The user says 'follow for more bumping guides'.
£400m a year
The Government has said that fare-dodging costs the taxpayer £400m per year. Failure to pay on the Underground can result in a £100 fine, although this is halved if paid within 21 days.
Deliberately dodging fares is a criminal offence and can lead to a criminal record and fines of up to £1,000.
Sir Sadiq Khan has been expanding a team of professional investigators at TfL to catch persistent fare-dodgers. The transport authority has a target of halving fare-evasion by 2030.
It is estimated that passengers avoid paying for up to 3.4pc of all TfL journeys.
TikTok has long struggled with users sharing videos of petty criminal activity or extreme pranks to bolster their online following.
Last year, The Telegraph found evidence of gangsters advertising for cannabis farmers on TikTok. People smugglers have also used the app to recruit people for small boat crossings.
Influencers have meanwhile undertaken increasingly extreme pranks, such as a wave of TikTok users posting videos of themselves trespassing in people's homes.
After The Telegraph reported the videos to TikTok, the social media app took many of them offline.
Siwan Hayward, TfL's director of security, policing and enforcement, said: 'Fare evasion is unacceptable. That is why we are strengthening our capability to deter and detect fare evaders, including expanding our team of professional investigators to target the most prolific fare evaders across the network.
'This builds on the work of our team of more than 500 uniformed officers already deployed across the network to deal with fare evasion and other anti-social behaviour, keeping staff and customers safe.'