I don't think it's fair to say it's highly likely they were pulling a fast one. What exactly did you expect them to do? I've travelled around Europe a lot and validating your train ticket is fairly common in lots of countries, even though many of them don't make that clear at the station. It's your responsibility as a passenger to make sure you have a VALID ticket, not just a ticket. These things are fairly easy to find out by googling that stuff before you arrive in the country. If the inspector was to let you guys away with it, it would only encourage tourists/foreigners to think "I don't have to validate this, I'll just play the dumb tourist and they'll let me off".