Comment by lachiflippi
5 days ago
Lack of centralization is one part of it (see also: communal digital services), yes, but the complete lack of standards and guidelines is also a massive issue. I tried buying a Deutschlandticket from the DB Navigator app a while back, and immediately ran into some issues:
- they only take credit card, probably because of the massive SEPA fraud they've had happen
- they require id verification with a third party(!), which then only supports the e-perso(!!) or video ident(!!!), which they could've just used the actual PostIdent service for, which would've provided an alternative for non-smartphone-havers / people who'd rather not have their ID and face recorded by some Eastern European company until the end of time
- their entire authentication system was down when it came to actually purchasing
buying from my local Verkehrsverbund was a single tap in their app instead, with no id verification whatsoever. If DB's offering were the only option it would be an absolute travesty.
> they only take credit card, probably because of the massive SEPA fraud they've had happen
Does Germany not have a free state-run e-payment system such as Austria's EPS? If not, it wouldn't be too hard to implement if there is political will to stop this fraud.
Hetzner does this invasive ID flow for credit cards now. Fortunately they don't bother with PayPal.
Airbnb wanted access to my bank account transaction details (via Plaid) a while ago, "to verify my credit card". Hotels have never looked so appealing.
At some point booking.com decided it doesn't want to accept my money because I'm a fraud, apparently, so I use it to search and then book directly at the hotel, and booking.com doesn't get their commission.
Isn’t that one of the problems mentioned in the video? Being able to buy and get the ticket before the payment is fully validated?
(Or did your local Verkehrsverbund require you to use another payment for the initial purchase other than bank transfer?)
Or foreigners that don't have German e-persos, because 99% of the time we don't need them.
If you've come to Germany as a foreigner recently you might have it automatically, newer ID cards have it activated
I lived here half on my life, and even though Portuguese ID cards are also electronic, they aren't accepted in such workflows.
I would need to pay 70 euros for one at a Burgerbûro just for that purpose.