Two university students amassed about £157,000 in train ticket refunds by defrauding the delay repay system.
Chinese students Li Liu, 26, and Wanqing Yu, 25, “exploited a loophole” in the rail refund system to make a small fortune while living together at their flat in Leeds, West Yorks.
Under the delay repay scheme, passengers can claim compensation when a train arrives late.
But Liu and Yu discovered that there were no automatic cross-checks to find out whether a customer had already had their ticket refunded, a flaw that proved central to their fraud.
The pair would first claim refunds for train tickets – pretending they no longer wanted to travel – then pocket extra cash by applying for delay repay compensation on the same journeys if the trains ran late, Leeds Crown Court heard.
When British Transport Police arrested them, it was found that Liu had illegally acquired £141,031, while Yu had received £15,712.
The duo, who have been held on remand since their arrest, admitted charges of conspiracy to defraud and possession of criminal property. Liu was given a 30-month prison sentence while Yu received a 17-week sentence.
The court heard that they had multiple bank accounts and had created 16 fictitious identities to help conceal their fraud.
They also used a 20-SIM card adapter in a single phone so they could closely monitor their scam, and make it appear that contact was from different phones and people.
The pair even did research to discover which services across the country were often late, and would buy tickets to these in advance. When the trains were late, they would then apply through the national scheme for compensation, having already claimed a refund for the tickets.
Their scam was first realised by CrossCountry Trains, but several other companies were also affected. It was found that the scam had been in operation since 2021.
The court heard that Liu, who had no previous convictions, had started a one-year course at Leeds University last year.
He had previously applied for an advanced computer science course at Birmingham University.
‘Remorse and shame’
Yu, who also had no previous convictions, was on a one-year English-teaching course at Leeds.
In mitigation, Justin McClintock said that Liu would “carry the remorse and shame for the rest of his life”.
He said there was a “much more positive side to his character than reflected by his offending”.
He said that Lui also wants to return to China to reunite with his family.
Little mitigation was offered for Yu after Judge Howard Crowson said her sentence would mean that she is released imminently because of the time she had already served on remand.
Judge Crowson told them: “You identified a weakness in the system, and between you, you abused that weakness.
“There was some sophistication, you created false identities and created a large number of bank accounts in order to conceal that you were behind the fraud.”