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Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn

ketzu.net

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Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn

#101

Post by sunaookami »

netsharc wrote: post #77
lifestyleguru wrote: post #36

My favorite trick by various German service providers is impossibility to cancel. Like literally it's impossible. You cancel, you show deregistration from current address but they say "rejected, you can still use our service at the new address". Got fuck yourself and rot in hell.

I wonder if they'll accept registration forms foreign countries, e.g. of "Herr Muller is now a resident of Timbuktu"... Or apparently it's possible to deregister moving to a foreign country with "address unknown", but I guess it'd have to be plausible when you claim "Oh I'm going to cycle around the world for 5 years"...

Speaking of experience from a friend that moved from Germany to another country and wanted to cancel his phone provider: No, this doesn't work, you can't cancel prematurely and you must pay the full amount. I think it was Congstar (subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom).

Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn

#102

Post by 1718627440 »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #92
ketzu wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not sure what your definition of "privatized" is Maybe this is a language barrier issue. Companies organized as AG, GmbH etc. under private law, in opposition to branches of the government or special institutions of public law. This is commonly called "Bahnprivatisierung" in Germany. The Deutsche Bahn was "privatized" in the sense that it was moved from public law to private law based organization.

Yes, that's exactly what I explained in term of legal status, but that's not what "privatized" means.

"Bahnprivatisierung" is the official term for what happened to the German railway in the 90s. I think this it what the term means.

Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn

#103

Post by 1718627440 »

Philipp2398 wrote: post #25
juliangmp wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, the folks here that have made experience with the state operated railway (Deutsche Bundesbahn) back when it existed (until 1993) say mostly positive things, especially compared to today. The modern German railway is a combination of both the state and a private company. So we get a for-profit monopoly that's ripping you off but also gets subsidized by the state. The worst of both worlds. This model of kin…

I think it has less to do with the corporate structure and more to do with the cumulative effects of decades of neglected investments

Which happened due to the corporate structure.

Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn

#104

Post by 1718627440 »

sneak wrote: post #20
ketzu wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. :)

It wasn’t you, the sarcasm was obvious. Germans generally don’t understand sarcasm, written or spoken.

Most times the issue is that Germans do never break out from being sarcastic.

Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn

#105

Post by 1718627440 »

Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote: post #23
Hackbraten wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was fixed just a couple of years ago. (Not the delays, but at least the refund process was streamlined.)

Does a worker now hand out envelopes filled with cash?

Now they are not allowed to accept the refund and you can only mail it to their bureaucracy.

Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn

#106

Post by 1718627440 »

My personal two cents: They refused to send my an invoice, so I didn't payed after their auto-removal on time. I did pay later. Then they send me to some random collections company AFTER they received my payment, according to their own data. Now they refuse to hand out a ticket to me that I payed for. I needed to travel and had already bought a ticket that relied on the Bahncard. Therefore I bought a second Bahncard, because provisional Bahncards can be handed out by the staff directly, but it's not valid for the whole direction I bought it. I expect them to still refuse to hand me my ticket and they also didn't confirm that I canceled my first Bahncard.

Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn

#107

Post by 1718627440 »

throwawayqqq11 wrote: post #86
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...

Its still a private company, well 245 of them, billing each other while trying to cooperate. This company structure was the result of the neoliberal thinking of having as much free market as possible, with the beneficial side effect of creating many highly payed board chairs for former politicians. Today, the problems, mainly caused by cutting cost on maintenance, are so close to the surface, that even the most head-…

> The former ceo Mehdorn [...] is, [...] still well regarded.

Citation needed.

Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn

#108

Post by usr1106 »

lxgr wrote: post #94
ketzu wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can always get one for the current month and (except for maybe the last day) immediately cancel it with some sellers.

D-Ticket is a subscription only sold for calendar months. The basic terms are set by law, but some sellers have more generous terms, that is allowed. You need to cancel before the 10th of the current month in order not having to pay for the next month. If you buy after the 10th you are charged for 2 months right away. Most sellers require a German bank account, but e.g. HVV supports Paypal (worked for me) and in theory credit cards (did not work for me). I don't know any seller that accepts cancellations after the 10th, but I have heard a couple should exist.

Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn

#109

Post by lxgr »

usr1106 wrote: post #108
lxgr wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can always get one for the current month and (except for maybe the last day) immediately cancel it with some sellers.

D-Ticket is a subscription only sold for calendar months. The basic terms are set by law, but some sellers have more generous terms, that is allowed. You need to cancel before the 10th of the current month in order not having to pay for the next month. If you buy after the 10th you are charged for 2 months right away. Most sellers require a German bank account, but e.g. HVV supports Paypal (worked for me) and in theo…

That's not the case with [1], for example. They allow pausing (and then canceling) the subscription any time before the last day of the month. It works as advertised in my experience.

[2] seems to be offering the same, but I haven't tried it myself. [3] looks interesting too.

[1] https://www.ticket-plus.app/en/

[2] https://www.mopla.solutions/de/tickets/deutschlandticket

[3] https://deutschland-ticket.store/autobus-oberbayern?lang=en

Re: Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn

#110

Post by zelphirkalt »

ketzu wrote: post #57
outloudvi wrote: post #48

I'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 :)

Don't let reddit idiots gaslight you. There are aot seriously deranged people running around on reddit, who are eating up mainstream corporate propaganda and lies without any questioning at all. I some subreddits they are the majority and paying attention to what those clowns thing can only be a negative for your own health.
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