Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn

ketzu.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 140 posts

Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn

#61

Post by winged »

thesimon wrote: post #24
sneak wrote: post #19

So 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.

> and can only be cancelled in small windows a long time before auto-renew any examples?

Parship used to do this (not sure about their current practices, this was years ago): I once had a six-month subscription that would automatically extend by a year if you didn't cancel at least three months in advance (by letter or fax!). Especially dodgy in that line of business, because if you get lucky shortly before subscription runs out, you're literally giving away a year's worth of subscription that you're not going to use at all.

Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn

#62

Post by hagbard_c »

slybot wrote: post #39

Couple of years back, I made a mistake on trusting Deutsche Bahn. I took a regional train from Düsseldorf, hoping to get at some connection hub (never reached and don't remember, possibly Cologne), I have to ICE to reach Brussels. It was evening and at some point the train stopped in the middle of nowhere and an announcement followed 20 minutes later, saying the train went through the wrong tracks and it cannot retur…

I use DB a few dozen times per year for international trips and as such have quite a bit of experience with the problems of train travel in the former wirtschaftswunder. Yes, ICE trains are more often than not delayed and time tables are better treated as wish lists than accurate depictions of when you'll get where. Having said this I do not agree with the depiction of the restitution process, probably because I ignore the typically German paper/stamp/copy/snail-mail/triplicate_authorised_stamped_and_approved bureaucratic route and use the DB Navigator app or the bahn.de site for restitution requests for all my (many) restitution requests. Thus far I have had no problems in getting restitution for hotels, alternative transport options and the 25% (> 1 hour delay)/50% (> 2 hour delayed, all to frequent on my longer international trips) ticket price restitutions.

DB is far from perfect and the backlog in rail and rolling stock maintenance seems to drag them down more and more but they are a godsend when it comes to booking and managing international train travel. It is both far easier and generally far less expensive to book an international trip through DB than it is through e.g. the Dutch, Danish or Swedish railway operators or one of the middle-man sites like omio.se etc.

Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn

#63

Post by xp84 »

ketzu wrote: post #12
brummm wrote: post #8

It's not fully state owned, it's semi-privatized. You get the worst of both worlds, so to speak.

It is privatized, but it is fully state owned. The country of germany owns 100% of the stock. > Sie [DB AG] befindet sich zu 100 Prozent im Eigentum des Bundes https://www.bundesfinanzministerium.de/Content/DE/Standardar...

Non-German here. What’s the point of this setup? I guess in some ways this isn’t too different than USPS, which is self-sufficient and doesn’t face tax dollars nor give its profits to the Treasury, but in our case they didn’t bother going as far to separate it as it sounds like DB did.

Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn

#64

Post by ketzu »

xp84 wrote: post #63
ketzu wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is privatized, but it is fully state owned. The country of germany owns 100% of the stock. > Sie [DB AG] befindet sich zu 100 Prozent im Eigentum des Bundes https://www.bundesfinanzministerium.de/Content/DE/Standardar...

Non-German here. What’s the point of this setup? I guess in some ways this isn’t too different than USPS, which is self-sufficient and doesn’t face tax dollars nor give its profits to the Treasury, but in our case they didn’t bother going as far to separate it as it sounds like DB did.

After reunification there were two railway companies, and they got reorganized into an AG. At least later, when they restructured the company into a holding and subsidaries, they planned to privatize them completely and disolve the parent company. They never did go through with that however.

Why they went with an AG in 1993, I don't know.

Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn

#65

Post by ketzu »

hagbard_c wrote: post #62
slybot wrote: post #39

Couple of years back, I made a mistake on trusting Deutsche Bahn. I took a regional train from Düsseldorf, hoping to get at some connection hub (never reached and don't remember, possibly Cologne), I have to ICE to reach Brussels. It was evening and at some point the train stopped in the middle of nowhere and an announcement followed 20 minutes later, saying the train went through the wrong tracks and it cannot retur…

I use DB a few dozen times per year for international trips and as such have quite a bit of experience with the problems of train travel in the former wirtschaftswunder . Yes, ICE trains are more often than not delayed and time tables are better treated as wish lists than accurate depictions of when you'll get where. Having said this I do not agree with the depiction of the restitution process, probably because I ign…

> Having said this I do not agree with the depiction of the restitution process [...] and use the DB Navigator app

Iirc they only started this possibility in june 2021. So anyone, especially foreigners, that experiences this system before then, will still know the paper only version. And 2021 is quite late to implement a digital version of that.

Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn

#66

Post by 47282847 »

I recently decided to upgrade to BC50 again after some years of less travel and a subscription of a BC25. I went to the DB site, logged in, manually provided my BC25 card number in the order process even though it’s right there in my profile. And ended up with a second subscription: I now own both a BC25 and BC50 in parallel, which makes no sense as you can of course only use one of the two.

…

Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn

#67

Post by hagbard_c »

ketzu wrote: post #65
hagbard_c wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use DB a few dozen times per year for international trips and as such have quite a bit of experience with the problems of train travel in the former wirtschaftswunder . Yes, ICE trains are more often than not delayed and time tables are better treated as wish lists than accurate depictions of when you'll get where. Having said this I do not agree with the depiction of the restitution process, probably because I ign…

> Having said this I do not agree with the depiction of the restitution process [...] and use the DB Navigator app Iirc they only started this possibility in june 2021. So anyone, especially foreigners, that experiences this system before then, will still know the paper only version. And 2021 is quite late to implement a digital version of that.

That is possible, I started taking the train for these trips during the SARS2 unpleasantness so I have no information on how things worked before that time. I am 'a foreigner' (Dutchman living in Sweden) and I suspect that factor only makes it more likely for customers to use online claim requests since it is customary for international customers to interact with DB through the 'net instead of through physical locations where they keep stacks of those grey claim envelopes with forms at the ready.

Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn

#70

Post by ketzu »

stockresearcher wrote: post #69

I was going to be in the Munich area next month and was planning on using the DB Bavarian regional day ticket quite a bit. Is this a bad idea?

No not necessarily. But it might be more cost effective to get the deutschland ticket if you can still get one for this month. (You don't have to get it from DB, some allow cancellation much later.)

Ticket sales are generally quite straight forward with DB online and the area tickets are usually a good value compared to local tickets.

Post reply on HN