Avoid Deutsche Bahn if you can
In February 2014 I was on a 7-day studytrip in Berlin. My study mates and I live in Denmark, and we had therefor ordered BahnCards in order to save some money. After finishing the order I received a confirmation email, which said that DB would withdraw the money from my bank account within a few months. After my return to Denmark I contacted DB and canceled all future BahnCards - and I then thought that to be the end of that.
But now, half a year later, I have been talking to one of my travel buddies, and she tells me, that she has found out, that DB never actually withdrew the money for her BahnCard, that DB have added several reminder fees (which she has never received), and that she now owes them a lot of money. I got worried and decided to check my own bank account, and sure enough, DB had not withdrawn the €25 for the BahnCard from MY account either. When I then contacted DB to ask WHY they had not withdrawn the money, all I was told was that they had "transferred their claim for the BahnCard to a collection agency" and that I should contact them instead. Jesus christ... I would GLADLY have paid the money, but DB just never withdrew them. And I was never given any other directions on how to pay them. Now I am just sitting here waiting to find out how much all these extra charges and fees will add up to....
When my travel buddies and I contacted DB in connection with the original order, we were told that we should order online and provide a German address. As we live in Denmark, we provided a friend's German address for the personal data and a Danish one for shipping. We did, however, never receive the BahnCards in the mail at neither the German nor the Danish address (so we actually had to go to Germany BEFORE our study trip and accquire temporary BahnCards), and likewise we never received any bills, billing information or reminder fee-letters via neither regular mail nor email. Furthermore we were never notified of the missing payments for the BahnCards or of the addition of reminder fees - in spite of DB having our email-addresses and phone numbers. That is simply unacceptable!
Also, aside from all this, in connection with the original BahnCard-order I phoned DB several times, and twice I experienced being hung up on when I asked whether it would be possible to speak to an English-speaking service attendant. I also wrote them several emails in English with questions, and here I experienced being answered in German - DB does not make it easy for international travelers.
I just cannot believe how bad their customer service is - or at least can be. I will certainly not be traveling with them again anytime soon. And I advice you to avoid them as well, if you can - for your own sake.
16 June 2014
Unprompted review