René Rebe

Since the beginning of this year I use the “Flinkster” car sharing of the German Railway company (Deutsche Bahn, DB Rent). So far this worked out pretty well, and the pilot run of all-electric vehicles in the region Berlin / Potsdam is a welcome bonus. If one happens to have to fuel, the cars come with a DKV petrol card, so one does not have to directly pay the gas, which is already accounted for by a per kilometer (think mile) charge.

So far this was not a problem, until yesterday. I did not even had to gas up. But as there was a gas station on the way, I thought it is nice for the next customer not to need to detour just to find a station in the middle of Berlin. Although it was a “big” Aral station I better asked if they take the DKV card, and was surprised to find they do not. Puzzled and thinking whether I ever refilled a Flinkster car at Aral, I continued my way, and there was a Shell station just on the next corner anyway. As I knew Shell worked earlier this year I just filled up the car, and was likewise surprised to find that this Shell station did not take DKV cards either, … Ieeek!

The employee told me every leaseholder of each individual station can decide whether they take those DKV cards, or not! And usually only the very big ones do, … While I find this pretty irritating, and annoying, the lesson learned is that one really has to check on each and every gas station if a DKV sign is in sight, and if in doubt: better ask. Thinking that the market dominating oligopolies accept the DKV or other petrol cards is unfortunately not enough, …

As I already fueled I had to pay myself, and and sent in the receipt to the car sharer. Hopefully paying back works out as smooth as they promise, …

This entry was posted on Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 11:27 and is filed under Life, Services. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.