Update:

They gave me a refund. After the last email I sent (which you can read here), DB responded saying they would give me my money back. I can already see it as a pending payment in Revolut. Thank you for the help everyone.

Original post:

This is the second post I've made about this. To sum up the first post:

• On 14/06 I purchased two tickets from Frankfurt to Hamburg, with an agent on the Frankfurt HBF (so, not online)
• When on the train, on 15/06, the ticket inspector said that my ticket was invalid. He confirmed that I was on the right train, on the right date and time and that it seemed like a DB error.
• I (Portuguese, with a very poor German and on my second time ever in Germany) was given two options: 1- being fined and/or removed from the train on the middle of the night. Or 2- buying another ticket for €309,95, which was literally hand picked by the ticket inspector on my phone.
• I chose the latter, after the inspector said that I would get a refund from DB on my second ticket
• After arriving in Frankfurt, I talked to two different people at DB. I was instructed to fill out a form and send the evidence I had to DB, which I did.

Proof: Picture of the paper ticket. First ticket on the DB App. Picture inside the train. Second ticket I bought. Price of the first ticket.

 

Since the last post:

Now, I've gone back and forth with DB a few times. Essentially, they're refusing to give me a refund. DB now claims that my original ticket was scanned twice on the same ICE train that night. It indeed was, once before I bought the second ticket and once after. But both times the inspector got an error message on his phone, which he showed to me both times.

 

Next steps:

I feel like DB is not going to give me my money back. From the very helpful comments on the first post, here are the possibilities I have:

• Asking Revolut for my money back (which is a long shot, having used Revolut)
• Making a complain here: https://schlichtung-reise-und-verkehr.de as suggested by u/Zipferlake
• Contacting the "Federal Railway Authority‘s Passenger Rights Enforcement Body", as suggested by u/felix7483793173
• Looking for arbitration (Das Schlichtungsverfahren), from what I understood, as suggested by u/No_Associate_4528
• Contacting a local politician, specifically Tarek AL-Wazir, which was also suggested by u/No_Associate_4528
• Accept that I lost €309,95

 

Any advice is appreciated!

Update 1:

For those asking, I talked to two different DB employees over the phone. One of them had no idea what could be happening. She said it could be related to age, reservations, dates and more (none of which make any sense to me). At some point she said it could be related to not having an email linked to the purchase. Sounded like another guess at the time. Nothing useful came from this first phone call.

Second time talking to an employee and she quite quickly thought it could be related to the fact that the DB agent that purchased my ticket didn't associate my email to my ticket. She told me to fill out a form and send it over by email.

I did it. I also added pictures and screenshots of the tickets (first and second), the error screen on the inspector's phone and line I took. They quite quickly responded saying that they wouldn't give me a refund.

Clearly whoever got my email responded without reading it. I sent another email but I'm not too hopeful that DB is going to give me my money back. I'm not sure if there is anything else I can do to compel DB to refund the money they unfairly took from me.

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Original post:

I bought a ticket at a train station. Horrible time but cheap ticket.

Later, on the train, when the ticket guy came to see it he said that it was invalid. I paid for with with an international card.

I then had to buy another ticket for 309 euros to not get kicked out of the train or fined.

Has this happened to anyone? What should I do? How to I get my money back?

Edit:

The ticket absolutely is the right one. The ticket guy double checked and said so himself. When he scanned it, it was marked as invalid.

Edit 2:

Here's all the info I can think of:

I booked seats for myself and my father. We bought them at the DB station. Paid by card. We have a receipt. The transaction is shown in my bank history.

We are on the right seats. Second class tickets. When the ticket guy came to scan our tickets he said that it was invalid. Not the wrong train or type of ticket. Not the wrong class or seats. Just "invalid". As if it didn't exist on his end.

I went ahead with the check-in procedure on the DB app with my ticket after the ticket guy came here and it worked as it should. It's now on my DB app and I can see the details of the train I'm on.

But like I said, I have already bought a new ticket, for 307 euros. So I bought two tickets for absolutely no reason.

Edit 3:

Images. Ticket price. Ticket in the DB App. Picture inside the train. Picture of the paper ticket.