Actually, I had a funny-bad experience in my first week living in Berlin. On that day, I just wanted to survey “how to reach HZB from apartment”. I was accompanied by my mom and dad. We bought single trip ABC ticket from Jungfernheide (near Charlottenburg) station since we hadn’t known yet about the zone. The outbound journey was fine, we took S41 then S7 to Wannsee and 318 bus. There was also a ticket checker but we passed it.
When we did the return journey, we got some problems. At first, the ticket machine couldn’t be changed into English version. Our phone were also no signal mode so we couldn’t translated it. With a little memory, I only clicked ABC zone then paid for three tickets. I knew that the price was cheaper than before but I didn’t take care so much. Thought maybe there was a different price for each station like in my country. Then, we took the S7 from Wannsee heading to Westkreuz.
Suddenly, there was a ticket checker but she was asking me a question in German. I didn’t really understand and just said “Sprechen du english? English bitte. I am not understand”. She pointed to the text near ABC zone “ermassigungstarif”. I was like “what? How can I understand that, I don’t know Germany so well”. Because both of us couldn’t communicate well, the other guy came to us. “You buy a wrong a ticket, this is reduction ticket. You should have the regular one. Your passport please”. Me and my family just looking each other, don’t know if there was regular and reduction ticket. “I’ve already put on your identity and please come to Berlin Ostbahnhof customer service tomorrow at 2 pm. You should pay the fine”. Fine? Oh God, in the script it was written 60 euro per person so 180 EURO FOR THREE OF US?!?!. Then I said to him “Oh please, we are only tourist and we don’t know anything here. The machine, where we bought that ticket, cannot be changed into English version. So I just clicked the ABC zone and paid without knowing it was a wrong choice”. And the guy “Just tell it to the customer service, he will decide how much you should pay the fine”.
On the next day, we went to the Ostbahnhof and hoping the fine wouldn’t be that much. Before telling all of the truth, the customer service quickly said, “You only pay 7 euro per person. Don’t worry”. Oh God! Alhamdulillah! It was really relief and our face suddenly changed very happy. Since that, I always do the double check my ticket before stepping into any public transportation. I don’t want to make a stupid mistake.
Hey Quinthar, excellent story. It was great working with you at the Institute for Solar Fuels, and I wish you the best of luck for the future and success in science.
Bdw thanks for the coffee!!
What a stressfull day for you and your parents. I think a AB-ticket would be even enough for Charlottenburg -Wannsee.
Happy to hear that the staff at the customer service understood how difficult it is for tourists to make the right choice at a ticket machine.