My Friend Nancy was taking the train from Frankfurt to Passau.
While she was buying a ticket on the train station; a ticket agent offered her
a discount card which he called Deutsche BahnCard. Since Nancy is looking for a
good deal and she thought that this was an opportunity to at least avail of the
discounted fare. She then decided to buy the BahnCard for $221 and signed a
booklet with all the terms and conditions for its subscription.
As a traveller
who is anxiously waiting for her train, she didn’t really read those terms and
conditions. Little does she know that her signature seals the deal, and is now
binding her to a yearly subscription service that automatically renews without any
further notice from DB. In fact, if you entered into a contract with them like
buying the BahnCard subscription service, then they will bill you endlessly
even if you haven’t fully understood that particular contract. They doesn't
really care about their customers, all they care about is siphoning money from
them.
Just this April, Nancy received a letter from a
collection agency in the Netherlands informing her that Deutsche Bahncard has
now turned her account to them, because she repeatedly refuse or failed to pay
the automatic renewal fee. She was stunned when she read the letter, because
she has excellent credit and she always pays her bills on time. She NEVER expected
that the application she signed at the train station which is all written in
GERMAN was subscription contract that renews every year.
Nancy told me that she confronted the company (DB) to
hear their side of the story, but all they said to her was that she failed to
send them a cancellation letter 6 weeks before the said renewal, and that triggered
the renewal fee. They also gave her an ultimatum: Pay the fine or ignore it.
This is clearly harassment and should not be tolerated!
Nancy has learn a valuable lesson – no matter how absurd it is, it’s essential
to READ FIRST before signing any document.
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