ngl i wouldn't beat yourself up about paying by card, it's honestly the easiest way and you avoid the 7 euro processing fee they tack on if you pay cash at a center later. you can also just do it online at bvg's website within a week and it drops to 30 euro instead of 60, that's what most people do. the customer center at alexanderplatz is fine but the one at hermannplatz is less of a zoo if you're in kreuzberg. just keep the little paper they gave you, you'll need the number on it

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yeah that's correct, they can't take cash on the train or at the station anymore. been like that for a couple years now. you can pay cash at any BVG customer center though, the one at U Hauptbahnhof is usually less busy than alexanderplatz if you don't want to queue. also if you pay within a week online it's cheaper, like 30 euro instead of 60

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You're right to be suspicious. The controllers can't take cash themselves for the fine, that's been the rule for a while now. But you can absolutely still pay the fine in cash later at a BVG customer center, like the one at U-Bahn Alexanderplatz. So next time, just tell them you'll pay it online or at a center, they'll give you the form, and you don't have to hand over your card on the spot.

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Worth noting that Berlin street names have official umlaut and ß rules that trip people up, so a sign showing "Strasse" versus "Straße" is not actually a spelling error, just an older transcription. Same with "ue" versus "ü" (e.g. "Kantstrasse" vs "Kantstraße"), both are considered valid renderings and you'll see the ß version on the blue Schilder and the ss version on older plaques or in databases that predate Unicode. If the difference you're seeing is between those two forms, there's nothing to fix and both are technically correct.

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if the signs u mean are the old enamel ones on the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated. the binding version is whatever is in the Berliner Strassenverzeichnis plus the entry in the Liegenschaftskataster, so if u tell me the street i can point u to the right Bezirksamt Mitte or Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf page. tbh the merged district thing is real but the facade signs are a separate story, theyre basically museum pieces at this point

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honestly thats super common in Charlottenburg, the district offices were merged from older Bezirke and nobody ever fixed all the Schilder. if its a real street you can check the official strassenverzeichnis on berlin.de, that list is what the Burgeramt actually goes by. which street is it? some of the Kaiserdamm / Kantstrasse signs are notorious for this.

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