the little feat of getting out of a 40 euro ticket

To Whom it May Concern at the BVG:

I feel that I have been taken advantage of as a foreign visitor to Germany. The front tire of my girlfriend's bike had gone flat, so I decided to buy a ticket on the subway, therefore I had a ticket, however I did not have an extra ticket for my bike. I don't speak German very well, but from what I gathered, it is supposed to be obvious that I was to buy an extra ticket for my bike, however at the ticket machine, when I picked the option "single ticket" on the screen, I was not also given the option on that page of adding a bike. After your colleagues issued me their fine, I went to try an buy an extra bike ticket, and I had to look around for about 3 minutes to find where I could even buy one. Your company hides the option in an alternate menu instead of making it obvious, no wonder I had not bought a ticket! Your system is impractical and takes advantage of the guest's time. It can not be assumed that every foreign visitor to this city will know how to read the whole rule g
uide in german. It must be made clear VISUALLY ON THE TICKET MACHINE PAGE that bikes must be added to a single ride ticket. This is how it was in Vienna, New York, London, in any other functional capital city that I have been in. In conclusion, I am willing to pay the extra part of the ticket, the 1.50, which I did not pay earlier, however I will not pay 40 Euros for having bought a ticket. The point of giving out fines is to punish people who do not want to abide the by the rules of the system. I am not one of those people. I write this in English also because my German is not nearly good enough to have been able to read all of your rules, nor understand what was going on when your colleauges were accosting me. I am a visitor here and I really feel taken advantage of, and am disturbed by the lack of hospitality that I was greeted with by your colleagues and the system. I will be here for a little while longer and I am willing to pay a reduced fine to cover the costs of the
bike ticket, however I am not going to just hand over 40 euros to your company because it is too strong to say no to. To me, that is totalitarian, and unjust. I am sorry to have to share this experience with you, thank you very much for your time, I hope you can see my reasoning and will be willing to discuss things on a human level with me, it's the least I could ask for at this point. Thank you again.