SBB CFF FFS Reviews 

I was travelling with sbb from Zurich. My net was not working properly and I was unsure of the direction, so I asked one of trains customer personal (kundenbegleiter),I told him about net coverage problem, he refused to help and said its not my problem.

sbb crew is should be professional and helpful but the gained experience was telling other story.

Very expensive (despite lots of sponsorship from confederation)

Not reliable (time arrival are random, departure lane not properly announced or changed at last minutes making you running in ZRH train station like an idiot)

Ive missed important professional meetings thanks to train issues in the middle of nowhere, and its certainly not the high speed of the train that caused the issue ( shall i also mention these trains runs as fast as my ebike : almost 4 hours from Lausanne to Arth...) im sure they can do more!

One last word: tou buy a ticket in the fantastic SBB app and gets fine : this is Switzerland!!! Because the ticket you take is only for special train ( even though you are on the same destination and the other ticket is exactly the same price)

Two days ago in the evening I wanted to buy a ticket from Binn to Zürich HB for departure the next morning. I tried to purchase with three different credit cards, and for each attempt has past the two factor approval on my cards. However, none of the attempts were successful from SBB side. After that the system was down two hours (until Midnight) due to maintenance.
Next morning it was possible to purchase the ticket in first attempt, however the monopoly price had risen by approx 40%.
I am aware that CBB will say I can just buy a 50% reduction card, however for a tourist that is not relevant.
It is really a smart way for CBB to earn more money by ensuring the customers cannot purchase tickets online when they are still available at reduced price!!!

SBB for a national railroad company is full of scams!!

If you buy a ticket, pray that they do not cancel the train on you, because they will not replace the ticket value. They will force you pay for a replacement ticket, likely at a higher cost as they did with our Lyria train cancellation, and then refuse to reimburse you. This is worse than any airline company. Avoid, especially if you travelling internationally!

There are always delays and no solution is provided when they happen which causes me to miss my connection train and arrive late to work. The trains are always incredibly dirty and there are never available seats innthe morning and afternoon. Not to mention that every year they raise the prices by so much that it's literally became a luxury to go by train. I take the train twice a day and it's becoming such an unpleasant part of my day...

I thought that I bought the right ticket for a one way trip, but I didn’t. I was traveling one way and thought buying the half trip was the right ticket. I was told it was not correct and had nothing to do with one way or two way tickets. I was in the country for 24 hours and was given a 75 Franc fine. There was zero understanding or empathy for an honest mistake. Then all three ZVV people played the, my English is not good card. I offered to get off the train and get the right type of ticket, but again was met with no understanding. Lousy experience with inflexible people who have no forgiveness in their so called, perfect little world. Pretty place but this is what I will remember about the transportation employees. It is also hard to find help on what type of ticket to buy. Live and Learn I guess? Signed, Tourist

How can the CEO of the SBB Vincent Ducrot earn a million franc total salary yet his company deliver such a terrible product. I can 100% believe all the 1-star reviews posted here. 

My 13-year old daughter got a Fr.104 fine today for travelling without a valid ticket. It was a simple oversight, her GA had expired and I didn't know. The train conductor could have been decent about it, but instead he acted like a complete jerk. If my daughter had written down his name it would be posted here. 

I/we only found out about the expiry this morning, when she got checked on the bus. The bus conductor was super cool about it, said don't worry (my daughter was upset, of course, she called my wife, and my wife then spoke to the bus conductor). He said just go to the ticket office in the afternoon and renew it. So it's now the afternoon, my daughter is arriving in 5 mins and I am about to meet her at the local ticket office, then I get another call. My daughter has been checked on the return train. Again she is upset, so I asked to speak to the train conductor, and explained the whole situation to him. I was expecting he would understand. His responses: 'no ticket, so we must issue a fine', 'the bus company is separate', 'I am just doing my job', 'I don't know how the IT system works', 'you can call this number to complain'. 

So here we have it, the SBB's idea of 'good business practice'. And Mr Ducrot's answer: fine my daughter Fr.104! Is this really a good way to treat your customers? Are you serious? Grow up. Run the SBB like the great organisation it ought to be. And show some bloody respect to your customers! 

And now if I want to complain I have to pay money to call their customer help line and then sit in a phone queue until they decide to take my call. 
Unfortunately this is not an isolated encounter with the SBB. I have been screwed over several times by the SBB. It used to be a 'decent' organisation; now they seem focused on milking money from travellers any way they can. A particularly memorable one was when I had 3 friends coming to stay towards the end of Covid. At the last minute they couldn't fly and had already bought SBB tickets. I asked if they could be used at a later date and they refused. Of course they refused, in hindsight. It's an easy way for them to make Fr.600 without doing anything.

These days, I try to use my car whenever possible. For me it's faster and cheaper. I will only use the SBB when I know traffic will be bad. The trains were better 20 years ago. Today they are dirty, rubbish isn't cleaned up and the carriages don't look deep cleaned. People put their dirty feet on the seats, eat smelly food, talk loudly on their cell phones and play music that disturbs others. It's usually not possible to find a seat, so I have to stand in the crowded entry way. So the service levels are dropping yet they regularly hike up the prices. Really? That's your business model now, Mr Ducrot?   

Unfortunately my daughter is stuck. She needs the GA to get to school. So she will be a customer of the SBB for at least another 5 years. 

Other reviewers call the SBB a scam. I thought this was wrong, but the more I think about it, they are correct, the SBB are scammers. They have two rules: 1. Impose as many fines as possible (regardless of circumstances) and, 2. Never issue refunds or credit (ever).

It's pure fraud what they do.
Inadequate prices. I got a 100 chf fine for having an expired 24 h ticket for 1 stop in their bus that WAS AS ALWAYS LATE. Like you know, you get a bus with a random schedule, that appears whenever it wants, and you're supposed to get a new ticket every time.
But according to them, it is obviously my fault.
I'm not even mentioning that they have the most inadequate prices for transport across the world overall.

There is no enough room for luggage in the cabins.The little space available in each cabin hardly fits 3-4 bags. Given lot of tourists across the world visiting various places in Switzerland, there must be enough room for all the traveller baggage.

SBB is not a train operating agency. It is a criminal organization preying on the vulnerable and uninformed visitors from abroad. Shame on Switzerland for allowing this racketeering operation to continue to rip people off while offering substandard and unreliable service in exchange!!!

My wife and I spent £160 CHF for a 2hr & 50min ride to get from Basel to Geneva!!! This is absolutely CRIMINAL considering that CBB will try to lure you with lower fares only to inform you that the lower priced tickets are already sold out!!! On top of that, there is no recourse or accommodation for people who may have encountered technical issues during an earlier booking process or for people with disabilities. Basically, the entire experience is a complete schit show.

dirty, smelly, crowded, lack of seats, swiss(high) prices. Trains services of other countries are either better or cheaper. Don't fall for switzerland, it has a certain reputation but in the end it's a truly overrated country on many aspects.

Took train from Basil to Amsterdam on 13.8.2024. My husband and I were placed in separate rooms. Eventually we found out that my husbands room was completely empty apart from him. Thai or asian man we dealt with the entire time. Ignores me when asking questions. I asked for a blanket at 0510 he rudely says one moment please doesnt imply that he wil actually help me. He then finally handed me the blanket.

It felt like I was discriminated against for being female. The asian man I noticed ignored the females.

I bought a train ticket via SBB app. I got into a random check and showed my ticket. The person checking my ticket said my ticket wasn't valid as it was for the train 30mins later. There's no price difference between the two trains, I bought a single fare so there was no way I could have abused the ticket. I relied on the SBB app to show me the right ticket and bought the first one that the app indicated to be valid for my journey. SBB scammed me for CHF 125.- for no reason even though I had a valid ticket for my fare class.
SBB is resorting to fine guests with a valid ticket, what an embarrassing and desperate act. No Swiss values whatsoever, pure corporate greed on the expense of the general public. Disgusting.

Very unreliable service in general. More than 1 occasion of train arriving late ruining our plans. Grindelwald to interlaken ost train has just one job. To reach interlaken on time. Its just one service every 30 mins. And our train made us change at zweitlutschinen and the new train was 7 mins late to interlaken making us delayed for our boat. The new train didnt even try to make up for lost time and conveniently displayed a 7 min delay. Absolutely bs service by swiss public transport.

Dear SBB customers,

Please be informed about a scam ran by SBB. This year SBB increased again the yearly cost of the GA. This was communicated only via email (unlike invoices which are sent via post), which can easily end up in your spam folder. In case you have automatic payments, the difference in payments will trigger payment reminder fees. I paid the difference between the old the new monthly fees, but they kept sending reminder payments each month. I have called the support center (CHF 0.08/min, only way of contacting them). They acknowledged that there was a problem in their system, but they didn't agree to fix the problem and requested me to pay all full amounts of their wrongly issued reminder costs and hung up the phone on me - twice. Main reason being is that they don't know how to fix the problem.
Besides paying all the unfairly issued fees, this month I received again a reminder cost.

This is it. It's a 34k employees company and nobody cares about solving their own issues.
As a longstanding customer of SBB, I'm appalled.
Even though they have a monopoly, they should not be allowed to mistreat their clients this way.

Today I sent my cancellation of the contract and will start travelling by car.

Don't hesitate to contact me in case you have questions or are dealing with similar issues.

By the way, if you try to write a complaint on their website, you will receive an error message saying that "you are not allowed to do it". If you write your problem there, they will tell you to contact the support center. They don't have an email address.
Hopeless.

Kind regards,
Faisel

I was robbed by SBB railway (SBB CFF FFS)

I was travelling with a valid ticket (Interrail Pass) on 14 June 2024 from St. Gallen to Zurich. I presented my valid ticket with its QR code when a heavy female conductress came to check my ticket. After, the female conductress and a male conductor unjustly issued me a penalty fine of CHF 55.00 for so-called processing charge and time surcharge. They fine passengers at their will. The SBB fine like this is indeed a kind of robbery which is unjustified and unlawful, and should be denounced.

Dr. Shiwei Li

No one answering after two times and 83 minutes in waiting line - guess (we) Swiss people can just afford to dont deliver .... because "normaly...".

Just terrible. I paid 1st class ticket but no seats are available. All seats are full. So, I have stood for 1 hour with 1st class price.

Sad ending to a great holiday. We travelled from India to the UK, France and Switzerland. Perfect experience in the UK and France, but a very sad experience in Switzerland. We bought a swiss pass paying so much money and the experience was really bad. We were followed by some goons from Interlaken to Luzern and were alone in the first class. Fortunately, we were joined by a British family and the TT collector, so we got saved. While travelling from Luzern to Zurich we were robbed of our personal belongings to the tune of almost 5500 francs, that also from our backpack which was placed on the luggage rack above us inside the train. We filed a police complaint, but they couldn't trace the culprit since there is no CCTV coverage. BTW, all the trains in the UK and France were under CCTV surveillance, but not SBB. So guys , please be double careful while travelling in Switzerland, not a safe place for tourists, especially travelling by train.

Very unreliable service, train are cancelled last minute, no replacement is provided, connections almost never guaranteed