They go stealthily and don’t pay any fines. Millions of dollars in debt from the Poles

The largest number of free riders in the BIG InfoMonitor Debtors Register comes from Mazovia. At the end of January, their number reached almost 20,000, and the total debt exceeded 34.5 million PLN. It is followed by Silesia (17,000,690 debtors and over 20.9 million in arrears) and the province. وودód (respectively: 13 thousand. 295 people and almost 12.7 million PLN in debt). In contrast, the inhabitants of Podkarbassy (2.2 million PLN) and Podlasie (2.8 million PLN) have the lowest arrears. At the same time, Podlasie has the highest average arrears per capita – 1947 PLN, which indicates that those who travel without a ticket do so often.

According to data collected in the BIG InfoMonitor Debtors Register, in January of this year, the number of debtors exceeded 99,000, and together they have approximately 141 million PLN in arrears to be repaid. Compared to last year, it lost almost 44.5 thousand. People using transport without a valid ticket, arrears decreased by about PLN 53 million.

The pandemic, remote work, remote learning, fewer spending opportunities and financial concerns related to COVID-19 have made passenger transportation less used, but also many people with different types of backlogs have used the coronavirus time to put their finances in order and “unshared.” From the record of debtors by debt repayment – explained the great information expert, Łukasz Rączkowski.

He pointed out that from the beginning of the epidemic until the end of January of this year. The number of debtors in BIG InfoMonitor decreased by 112 thousand. to 2.13 million people, total arrears in excess of PLN 3.5 billion to PLN 39.15 billion

Who is the most stealthy? The stats are clear

According to experts, in financially difficult times, there may be more debtors, because, as the Poles say, when there are problems with money and there is a shortage of life, the first idea is to postpone the settlement of cable TV subscriptions, then phone and Internet bills, and in third place Possible fees related to the purchase of flight tickets. – This idea has 23 percent. responders. This shows that in the minds of people who use passenger services, driving without a ticket is one way to save money – notes Rączkowski.

Driving without a ticket and then not paying the fine is basically a practice of 35-44 years – almost 32 thousand. With 99 thousand debtors free ride. Among people who do not pay fines for travel without a ticket – 78 percent. It’s men.

According to experts, savings may be questionable. For example, in Krakow, the basic additional fare for travel without a valid ticket is PLN 240, and in the case of a reduced fare, the penalty fee is PLN 160. If the free rider does not pay the fine within 30 days of the specified deadline, the carrier may enter it into the debtors register. The condition is minute arrears. PLN 200 and send a request for payment with information about the planned entry into the list of large debtors.

There are free runners. Krakow is losing patience

There are more and more cities in which civil transport decides to inform debtors of the registration of people who travel without a ticket and fail to pay the fines issued for this reason.

“On behalf of ZTM Warszawa, in December, BIG InfoMonitor sent requests for payment to 25,000 free runners in Warsaw. Thanks to the investment of 61,000 PLN in letters, it was possible to recover more than 600,000 PLN in two months before the cases were published in the debtors’ “database” – As Rączkowski says, ZTP Kraków has also lost patience with free riders, who are awaiting PLN 41 million in unpaid fines and as of March people who don’t check tickets enter the debtors register.

Rączkowski noted that the announcement that information about debt had been added to the registry caused some of them to commit immediately upon receipt of the summons. – They do not want to be entered, because such information, which is publicly available, reduces the credibility of its payer and may eliminate the opportunity to receive credits, loans or purchases – he explained.

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