OMG yes this keeps biting me in the ass and is so absolutely infuriating, I feel scammed every time I fail to cancel it (probably needs a blood/urine sample, sent by post). There are no words for how much I hate Deutsche Bahn, Germany's 2nd biggest shame.
Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn
51–60 of 140 posts
Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn
#52I think 'ending up with an accidental BahnCard and losing a painful amount of money because of it' might be almost a rite of passage at this point.
Happened to me as well; I had a 'youth' card for people below the age of 27, even remembered that some cards auto-renew and checked online to see if mine would, because I wanted to make sure I wouldn't just get upgraded to the regular and much more expensive BahnCard... couldn't find a renewal date and thought I'd be fine. But apparently I didn't check thoroughly enough, and only got informed of now having 200€ less and a shiny new BahnCard by email. Also emailed support, also didn't get anywhere.
Later I mention this to a friend... and he says 'ah, yeah, same with me'.
Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn
#53So many subscription-based things in Germany are outright scams that would be criminal elsewhere. Mobile phone contracts, internet service contracts principally among them. Two year contracts that auto renew and can only be cancelled in small windows a long time before auto-renew.
Japan was like that with mobile contracts until about 5-10 years ago, when the government finally put an end to it.
Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn
#54Commenting from neighboring Poland: my sense is that the dark patterns are less a result of deliberate manipulation and more a result of crappy publicly funded tendered software development.
It's, like, when the designs are made in a perpetual bureaucratic Kafkaesque then the results are like this. They're only building to specification, there is no UX research.
You're not going to not take the train. Not like the ticket experience is going to make a big difference with another train provider.
Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn
#55>Deutsche Bahn, the fully state-owned railway company, is a well-liked (Trustpilot: 1.2/5) company running most major long-distance railways in Germany Very confusing, the irony/sarcasm of the second part is not clear: yes it is 100% owned but 1.2 is a really bad score, Germans hate DB. That sentence if even more confusing for a German, because in Germany 1 is a good score and 5 is a fail (at school at least).
Everyone hates db. They’re a laughing stock across Europe. Switzerland have started banning them from running trains due to the knock on affects. If your long distance twin is under 2 hours late that’s a good day.
The only people who thing db are good are idiotic Brits who go “privatisation is bad we should run our railway like Germany with twice the subsidise and half the reliability”.
Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn
#56Once, long ago, I ended up buying the wrong ticket from Deutsche Bahn. I no longer remember whether this was my fault or theirs, but I do remember that support was completely unhelpful. My credit card provider was considerably more helpful when I solved the problem with a chargeback.
I once bought the wrong ticket, got checked, and the staff told me I had to leave the train at the next station. The ticket I purchased was actually more expensive than the "SuperSparPreis" for the correct ticket. So, I ended up paying more and twice for this journey.
I bought the wrong ticket for a plane once and they wouldn’t even let me on until I spent an absolute fortune on a walk up fare.
Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn
#57I'm worried about the situation when Dark Patterns are not widely recognized enough as a malicious practice for users. Half a month ago I see someone on Twitter defending its own product design as "transparent and nothing hidden" - the "$0 now, then $15/month in 14 days" description where all text after "$0" are small and in grey. I don't think it maintains trust between the product and users, and thus it doesn't see…
> "transparent and nothing hidden"
That's the response I got on from quite a few people on german speeaking reddit, also calling me an idiot :)
Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn
#58Commenting from neighboring Poland: my sense is that the dark patterns are less a result of deliberate manipulation and more a result of crappy publicly funded tendered software development. It's, like, when the designs are made in a perpetual bureaucratic Kafkaesque then the results are like this. They're only building to specification, there is no UX research. You're not going to not take the train. Not like the ti…
> more a result of crappy publicly funded tendered software development.
I would be more willing to buy that, if their support response would be different, and if it hadn't been an issue for years, including fighting legal battles to keep conditions close to what they are now.
One has to assume they are fully aware and unwilling to improve.
Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn
#59>Deutsche Bahn, the fully state-owned railway company, is a well-liked (Trustpilot: 1.2/5) company running most major long-distance railways in Germany Very confusing, the irony/sarcasm of the second part is not clear: yes it is 100% owned but 1.2 is a really bad score, Germans hate DB. That sentence if even more confusing for a German, because in Germany 1 is a good score and 5 is a fail (at school at least).
[deleted]
Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn
#60“Deutsche Bahn, the fully state owned railway company, is a well liked company”. Eh, nope. It’s a horribly mismanaged entity with permanent delays, bad service and outrageous pricing…
Sorry, I have a hard time holding back my sarcasm when writing while being annoyed, I thought the link to the 1.2 trust pilot rating gave it away. As this was mostly written as anger management, the writing is pretty poor. :)
>I thought the link to the 1.2 trust pilot rating gave it away.
It did. Worry not.