Bird — Ride Electric

Bird is fine when you find one that works. I walk to work in DC from 17th and R NW in to L and 15th NW. this is a fairly major route for people walk to work in the AM, and home in the PM. There are never any Bird’s along this route, because of it being a major walking commuter route to downtown. And when there is a random Bird along that route, it is either out of juice or off-lime due to damage. I am sure it is a never ending struggle to keep repositioning Birds around a city. That said, it would be nice if there were more of them on 17th between U Street NW and Mass Ave NW at the other end for the morning commute. And those that are there are working / have juice to be operable. I keep looking at other people riding Birds and wonder to myself, where the hell did the fund theirs? And where did they find one that works. In closing, full disclosure: I did just rented one at about 7:45 pm, with no problem. Had a nice ride. However that is the exception in my experience, and not the norm.

I was not made aware of service areas and I rode to my destination well outside of the service area. The scooter never made me aware I was leaving the service area (they let you know when you’re in a restricted zone, why not leaving service area?), then charged me to get back to the service area. Then I had the pleasure of walking to my destination 30 minutes late. I contacted bird for a week, finally I got a response. I was directed to four different people who all sent me the same automated response saying I wasn’t getting a refund. I didn’t get a real response from a person acknowledging the fact that bird scammed me by allowing me to go far out of the service area and then charged me to go back in order to end my ride. How far was it going to let me ride? I would have never rode the bird had I known I couldn’t get to my destination. In the end an Uber in a car would have been significantly cheaper and quicker… Horrible customer service, scamming users by allowing them to go way out of service area on their dime to get back. Awful. Update: They responded to my review telling me to reply to an email address, I did that and got the same automated response. I’ve learned since my initial review that the scooters are supposed to slow down after you leave a service area, mine did not. Bird is unwilling to care if you’ve been ripped off by their equipment malfunctioning so beware.

I became a charger for this company and just completed my first release today. All was well, I released the Bird to the correct location, completed my task and went on my way. At 10 am I began receiving notification that my Bird was late to release. I went to check my tasks and nothing was there but I also noticed that my pay out was not listed either. I contacted support and was told that they did see the release completed so they “removed” it from my tasks (although it was never there). When I responded asking for my payout, I was asked to provide screenshots of my location on the Bird map, a screenshot of the error I received when releasing, and a picture of the location I was releasing. As it was now 6.5 hours since I released the Bird, it was impossible for me to provide this information. When I responded stating this information, I was essentially told “Too bad, so sad. Next time do all these things because you will have to request a pay out every time you release.” When I asked again for my payout, I given a link to an article in the FAQs as to the reason for my lack of payout due to faulty release, even though I was never told that there was actually an issue. By the time this was said and done, this company wasted more time and money creatively telling me no than it would have cost to just pay out the measly $3. I am throwing away my chargers and discouraging anyone I can from using or working for this company.

My experience using bird as a software for my business as a fleet manager was horrendous. The equipment they provided was expensive and over priced to the point that they are making money from selling equipment, parts and revenue from riders. As a fleet manager, I felt disrespected by Bird management and the software team for restricting my ability to release scooters in areas which led to not being able to profit. Aside from vandalism, FMs attacking other FMs scooters, bird did nothing to mitigate the situation I was innocently in and been marred with vandalism and theft. Bird holds no responsibility for all the total losses and damages incurred on the scooters. I had to pay out of my pocket for all the parts and the scooters that have been missing to bird when I returned all of the scooters back the them. They terminated my contract 2 weeks after I signed a new contract and told me that my contract was terminated from my old contract. I was distraught how it played out to the end because no one at bird would hear me out. Bird Shopify store had no parts for me to replace the scooters I had standing in my office for 3 months and that was what led to my contract getting terminated - bird did not provide parts. They do not give a f if you did not meet their numbers and it shows they put profits before people. Given that I have worked so hard for this company. I will officially file a complaint within BBB because their B2B was illegal.

The first time I wrote a bird was back in Santa Monica. I loved it! Unfortunately they have gone so far downhill. Currently, in Salt Lake City, you can’t even ride them downtown. They’re not anywhere near downtown. Recently, I tried to use one to get from my house to the airport. I was just planning on riding it from my house to the train, and then taking the train. What a mistake! Almost missed my flight. The scooter kept going fast and then slow. It kept telling me I was out of the service area. I will open the app and look at the map, but I was still in the service area according to the map. So I tried to move to the lighter colored section of the map, but it didn’t change anything. After 30 minutes of walking it to different locations, trying to make it work, I gave up. I kept trying to lock it but it wouldn’t lock no matter where I went, in the service area or out of it. Finally I found a number for customer service, so none of the options were that the ride wasn’t working. Period the customer service guy was very kind, and he did end up walking the ride for me and refunding me part of it. However, as this is the third time I’ve had issues with the app I’m totally done with them. Not to mention they are completely not helpful to me if I can’t use them downtown. I’ve never liked lime, but it looks as if I’ll have to use them from now on.

This is a review from a chargers perspective. If your downloading this app to become a charger you may want to hold off for the next few updates. Being a charger seems great until you find out how confusing and frustrating it is. You guys at bird need to hire more user experience IT guys because the app is seriously lacking on the charger side. You guys need to clear all of the red scooters off of the map. Its a terrible idea and makes things more confusing for the chargers. If you guys need help locating lost or damaged scooters you should hire a more dedicated team to do so. All these red scooters are cluttering the map! Most them should at least should drop off from the map after a few days of not being found. The same goes for the yellow scooters. You guys should aim to make charging as simple as possible! It shouldn’t be a scavenger hunt to find a scooter you want to charge. You guys are seriously wasting peoples time and gas by having these miscellaneous birds that are not even at the location. If someones says the bird is not there it needs to be removed from the map (period). Or hire a dedicated person to go around and check if the birds are really even there. Something seriously need to change if you want to see a better turn out for charging these scooter. Others wise you have people out here wasting precious time.

My girlfriend and I decided to ride the bird scooters. After we got done riding it, we brought it back to the original spot we rented it at. It kept giving us a warning saying we are inside the red parking zone and we can’t park the scooters there. But we saw at least 10 bird scooters parked where we were at. I was messing with the app and eventually it allowed me to park the scooter there. My girlfriend however wasn’t able to park there still. The outside area of the red parking zone on the app was just a block away so we decided to just take the scooter over to the next block to park it. When we got to the next block, the app now showed a different red parking zone which wasn’t there earlier. Now it showed the original spot we were at is no longer a red parking zone. We took it back to the original spot we were at again, and now the red parking zone has changed once again. We had to take it to different spots in order to check to see if the red parking zone changed or not. Eventually we took it to an area where we can finally park the scooter and end the ride. This already took time and money out of our account from us just trying to find a parking spot for the scooter. I’ve rode other scooter renting apps and it was way user friendly than this. I Wouldn’t recommend this until they fix this issue.

I have never wrote a review for anything, ever, but their customer service was so awful and unaccommodating that I must warn. I took a trip to LA from NY and thought I’d try it out. (NY doesn’t have e-scooters) the first screen said $6 for 30minutes. Ok, I rode for a few minutes and stopped at a convenient store, locked it on the app so no one takes it on my dime. So one would think I have 27 minutes left that I paid for. Got back on, rode a few more minutes, stopped again, locked, came back, rode again. I did this 4-5 times and they were charging me $6 each time I stopped and started. NO Where did it say you only get 30 CONTINUOUS minutes. It was displayed to me that I get 30 minutes and they should be accounting for the time like Lyft does. I disputed the $42 my bank account was charged for riding 1.5 miles total, and they played dumb and gave me the run around and never returned the money they stole. This is no way to treat a Future customer when NYC legalizes e-scooters. I run the bike lanes in the Upper East side, talking to all the bikers everyday. I’ll be sure to put the good word out for your company in my town so when you get here, we know how great Lyft e-scooters are. Im not even going to get into how the Bird scooter disconnected from the network mid street crossing (locks up and can’t move) almost killing me because the light had changed, and left me stranded far away from any other scooters.

Terrible experience with this company. Rented three scooters for 30 minutes each. During the last 15 minutes each scooter slowed down to a crawl. Making it take three times as long to get back to our original destination. I feel like this is some kind of scam to charge you more. We rode for right under 30 minutes and were charged $15 each!!! That’s $15 for one 30 minute scooter ride. This didn’t sound right to me so I emailed the company twice. They responded the first time but didn’t reply to any of my questions in my original email. So emailed them a second time and have not gotten a response back. I called their customer service department and spoke to somebody who’s English didn’t seem to be very good. Spent a long time just getting her to understand what my email address is which she needed to look at my account. When I finally asked for a supervisor after 20 minutes of that she suddenly said, oh the line sounds bad I can’t hear you. She could hear me just fine for the first 20 minutes but as soon as I asked for a supervisor she started saying she couldn’t hear me. Then when I said I know you can hear me you’re just saying that because you don’t want to get a supervisor she hung up on me. Don’t rent scooters from this company. You will regret it.

I really love BIRD’s viewpoint of getting cars off the road However, from a business stand point - and my personal experience as a BIRD Charger - I honestly believe it would benefit BIRD to invest in stronger and more timely tech support ( it could take up to 24 hours to get a reply) - rather than investing in expansion to other cities, states and countries. I feel like it is a House of Cards and I would hate to see such a great idea crumble... My first several weeks as a Charger were great. Even though I only had 3 charger cables, with the proper planning and the will to hustle, on a good day I was able to charge 14-18 scooters. Around the beginning of August - my BIRD app would no longer allow me to “capture” birds. The app would vibrate when I scanned an AVAILABLE bird - but the scanned bird would not show up in my ACTIVITY TASKS. On numerous occasions, I reached out for tech support. They suggested I update the app, delete my app, change my email address, etc. None of these simple suggestions worked. After 3 weeks, and hours and hours of trying to get the app back to working mode - I’m still unable to “capture”. Apparently no one is trained or qualified to help beyond the obvious. So, quickly the Bird App went from a viable form of income to a complete waste of time. So disappointing...

Update: Bird replied to my review with an email alias. I reached out and unsurprisingly did not receive a response 🙄 Firstly, Bird doesn't do maintenance on its equipment (at least in my city) so literally every Bird scooter I ride has some major defect that makes riding at best tedious and at worst unsafe. Last time the base was so broken that a loud *CRACK* was emitted any time I went over the slightest bit of uneven road and people on both sides of the street were staring at me. But the issues don't end there. In the middle of my last ride, the scooter stopped accelerating and the app told me my ride was canceled with no explanation. After looking at the map, I saw that the app somehow had transported me to the Gulf of Guinea just south of Nigeria. Why? Because if there's any amount of time where the app can't locate the scooter, it literally sends (0,0) - the geographic center of the earth - as the scooter's location. Bird didn't refund my money or even offer the opportunity to rate the ride. Upon looking through my email, I saw a pending support request from a previous ride, clicked on the link, and was told that my email address (same one the support request was sent to) is invalid. Truly awful on both the hardware and software sides.

They overcharge you for everything the 5 dollars you have to play to get them do not have a ay explanation to how much you have to play or the time you have on the scouters. They also make you save your car to get the time you ride they keep on charging you more money and more money as the time goes and when you lock it keeps on it thanking your money or if you get off and you don’t lock it it closes the scooter and you have to redo everything you did to get it. Also the customer support is really bad they do not explain things and they switch up things on you one time one person saying one thing and the other one staying another day supposedly refund you the money you’re supposed to have but they keep changing it so they get to refund you even less money. It is unacceptable that they do this they guy we were talking he did not know anything he kept saying things that did not make any sense. I’m and so mad and sad that they take advantage of people like this knowing they don’t have this clear. I am never going to get this ever and I do not recommend it it is better to walk or get a Other things to get transported though the city.

Finished a ride in Paris. Attempted to lock my scooter... and the lock procedure hung and did nothing. The scooter was still active so I couldn’t walk away. Attempted to contact Bird opened a chat with an auto-response that someone would be with me shortly, but nobody ever joined the chat. Finally got 4 notices in a row that my connection was bad and I should check both my internet and Bluetooth... but internet was working for my other apps (Lime and Voi both showed nearby scooters when I tested and my wife texted back when I msg that I would be late because of Bird). The app had completely hung in the lock procedure. I couldn’t stop it or restart it. Could only watch it think about maybe locking my scooter. After maybe 9 minutes, it finally gave up, told me to check my internet connection (again) and left my scooter open. I tried to lock again and this time it worked normally. Then the bill showed up saying they were charging me for the full usage time including the extra 10 minutes of non-use that it forced me to spend stand on a sidewalk. No customer service response whatsoever to my request for a 10 minute refund. Very dissatisfied with Bird at this point.

My fiancé and I both downloaded the app, added money to our accounts, linked a scooter, and the scooter would not unlock, we were standing there try to get the scooter to unlock and it simply wouldn’t. After 10 minutes of having our money taken from our account, while the scooter was STILL locked, we gave up. I contacted customer service immediately to try to figure out how to make this right and NO ONE got back to me with a reason to explain to me why we were being charged for NOT even having access to ride the scooter. If they had the proper technology, it would show that the scooter did not unlock, and the scooter didn’t move 1” while they charged us for 10 minutes standing there with no help. They also refused to refund my money, and refused to take the balance off of my account. Now I have $20 literally flushed down the drain because no one at this company knows anything about quality customer service. Extremely disappointed and would NEVER recommend BIRD scooters to anyone! I will purposefully go out of my way to let people know my experience on the street so they don’t make the same mistake we did.

Bird scooters are probably the best way for one to travel around town for pleasure, work or errands. It’s affordable, won’t wear you out, allows one to see observe more of their locale and provides timely travel. That being said there are 2.5 issues that should be addressed in the future to ensure an even more positive experience. (You’ll see what I mean by .5 in a moment) 1. The tires on the scooter are designed to last quite awhile, but because they are solid, the offer no suspension thus causing one to feel every crackle, pebble etc. this could be resolved with either a rubber solid tire or adding some form of spring suspension to the scooter frame and form. 2. An integrated clock on the display would be very nice as it would allow for one to see how much they are spending/how much time has elapsed since the lease began without having to stop and check periodically or risk injury by trying to check their phone while riding. 2.5 The scooters in my town are an eyesore primarily due to the damage and abuse inflicted on them by the local bum and Tweaker population. I realize this isn’t birds fault, this is a much greater issue with society and politics. Thus this is issue 2.5 as it’s not really something bird can help beyond requesting folks to report any abuse they see being done or creating a map of where the scooter receive the most abuse and abstaining from allowing them to be left in those areas.

Bird does more than rent customers scooters out, they help people out. Offer discount program for commuters. Customers service is over the standard reputable, they respond as fast as they can and that’s not an hour or so. It’s under 30 mins or less. Average for me it’s 3-7 minute they respond with concern, check to make sure I’m ok, offer what they can do for me. Beyond corporation metaphor image, they take humanity actions. They help out. Scooters always get maintained, spite of sour lime, I have almost gotten run over by cars and bus few times, almost crash into wall because lime is behind with maintenance. I am proud of their company spread across the world. But maintenance here in America....I don’t know. I never had problem with bird. I wonder why I love birds now? Sign up with bird. You won’t regret it. Make sure you got something in your pocket and they will provide you excellent service you need.

My wife and I decided to spend some time riding around town on scooters. Rode to the mall. Stop to do a little shopping eat and ride back. Supposed to be $0.38 (or so) per minute. We expected a $40-$50 charge. Ended up costing us more than $200. It would be nice if the cost was more straight forward. I understand business owners are greedy and just want more and more and more... For that price, I could’ve bought my own scooter. Maybe not the same range speed and quality, but I could’ve. As long as these keep being so damned expensive, you’re best to just save and buy your own. It’s not like they’re crazy expensive. Most of you reading this probably spent twice as much on your phone. That said, we had an incredibly fun time. My wife even went over a bump and crashed. Scraped up to arm real bad, nasty bruise. I was so scared for her. I’m just happy she was okay, but it could’ve been worse, wear your helmets kids! The point was, she still wants to ride them regardless . But I am considering a law suit. FYI, LIME, is far more affordable. Relatively similar trip cost us less than half what Bird charged us. Same experience... just saying.

The experience of riding a bird scooter is very fun but there are some things that the company is being very irresponsible about. Very recently they removed the feature allowing you to report bird scooters that are strewn into the sidewalks, bike paths, and even the streets. People who repeatedly do that should have their privileges temporarily revoked so that you are required to park them thoughtfully. Some people take issue with the fact that nobody actually wears a helmet, or the fact that you have to ride in the street even though on a scooter you can’t use hand turn signals, or the fact that kids are using them, or the fact that loads of people ride double. There’s other safety concerns that are harder to solve, but if bird is removing the ability to report bad parking, then they are not working to solve the nuisance that they’ve created with birds on sidewalks, or sticking out of medians into the street, or strewn across the busy bike paths. My neighbor uses a wheelchair and has to kick these fallen scooters out of her way just to use the side walk. Bird can do way better. That’s what tech is for right? solving problems. Bird should solve this problem.

I’m 40, live downtown and am a full time paramedic. I just wanted some extra $$ without being coughed on. I’m honest and I’ve never been reprimanded at a job. But I was fired from Bird as a charger on trumped up lies because after several weeks of charging I found I was only being partially paid for certain birds and flat out not being paid at all despite following all of their rules. I wrote a long letter with details and called out their practices as unacceptable. Two days later I was told I was terminated without appeal. I’m not eligible to ride even..took them weeks to pay, days to respond to queries..the app functioned great most f the time but when it didn’t it was a nightmare. If GPS is off a normal drop off of a couple minutes turns into 30..birds at my home that were properly scanned suddenly alarmed and I had to recapture them. Not once but twice other fellow chargers were on my doorstep looking for birds. They showed up on their maps as uncaptured but were sitting in my tasks. Company just doesn’t care and everyone I knows now knows my experience. It’s all kind of sad because when it worked it was great and the dream of it all is grand but it’s just..failing.

I used the Bird Escooters some days ago. They Requested me to put a payment Method wich I did, after I finished using the service they charged me to my card and then they Sent me back the money for no reason. I tried to pay by myself but it didn’t work. After a while they start spamming me with notifications about paying the service that I used, and Update my payment method. I checked on the app I updated it and They keep sending notifications about the same thing. It’s been some days since then. Today I tried to use the service and by Surprise I got banned from the app, but they keep spamming me with notifications about paying. I updated my payment method, try to pay by myself and nothing worked. They Keep spamming about it and HOW I CAN PAY OR TRY TO PAY IF I GOT BANNED and I tried so many times and it didn’t work, I tried to contact with costumer service and I got no response. It’s not my fault. The same thing happened to one of my friend. Please Fix all the problems, or stop offering the service. It just disgusting how I got banned for something that is no my problem.

I bought a $25 ride pass for 5 rides at $5 each, thinking I could use scooters for a day while vacationing. I had never used bird scooters (although I have used competitors). Buying the pass was really confusing: it was getting an error when I tried to pay, my friend’s ride pass price was different from mine ($17) and it isn’t clear that you have to pay an additional $5 to load your account in order to use the ride pass. Once I got on my scooter, it would stall periodically, saying that I was on the sidewalk (I wasn’t). Then, it completely stopped, saying I was outside the zone it could be used. I looked at the zone and it was limited to about 1.5 mi radius from where I picked it up! I had no use for the ride pass, since this would be my first and last ride. I contacted support and asked to a refund, minus the $5 I had paid for the one ride, and the denied me twice, not even trying to be nice about it, basically saying, “you bought a ride pass and we can’t refund it after it’s used. You should have contacted us before you used it.” 🤦🤦🤦 Worst experience ever 👎👎👎

To start off, everything on the app is very misleading. Very little to no important information you should know, that they don't tell you. I purchased a 24 hour pass with free rides. It says 30 minute rides so i thought, since it doesn't tell you, it would restart your ride and "start" another one of your rides automatically. Also, charging me for rides i don't take, or extra time after stopping the ride and snapping a picture, doesn't make much sense to me. My thoughts led me to contact customer service like any person with sense, right? I was mistaken. Customer service doesn't do anything to resolve your problem or take care of customers having trouble with their services. Very hard to understand how to use the app and customer service robots send the same automated messages no matter what you tell them. All I would like at this point is simply a refund and i'll go on my way. I've been overcharged, frustrated with dry and unhelpful customer service, and upset with all the trouble i've had trying to deal with everything to do with this.

I don’t enjoy the ride. Wherever it shows me there’s a scooter there isn’t. The app never works. My camera doesn’t work ONLY ON BIRD. I uninstalled the app and logged back in and still it doesn’t work. Wherever it shows there is a bird to charge, only 25% of the time it’s there. And I’m talking about the easy ones to find. Everything about this app is trash. Their customer service never replies and is just nonexistent. I spent 20 minutes walking in 120 degree heat and NOT ONE OF THE SIX locations that showed there was a scooter was actually there. Not even on the same block OR the next block. The map never gets updated. The navigation on the map is also garbage and backwards. I spent over two hours driving to every location where there is a Bird. After one hour I gave up on the hard one. And even the green ones that are 5 dollars aren’t where the map shows. Bird is the worst and most garbage app I’ve ever downloaded in my life. You lost a customer, Bird. I hate this app. It’s not worth the wasted time, gas money and frustration. Do yourselves a favor and save your effort and time. Don’t download this garbage app.

Used to be the best now is decidedly the worst. Every time I use bird they either take money out of my account even though it’s more than required AND even though I’ve adjusted the settings, the rides are slow half the time, restricted half the time, not to mention more expensive than the other brands. My most recent experience is my last straw - I never am one to write a scathing review but after multiple terrible experiences I have had it. The brakes were horrible - screeching, jerking, not sure if they’d even work, the front tire was rattling - and when I went to end my ride multiple times I wasn’t in one of their parking zones - which are always blocks away from anywhere anyone would actually need to go, pretty much defeating the purpose of using one of these anyway - I wasn’t able to end the ride. I contacted support yet my time just kept ticking. Finally I chose to ride the broken scooter to one of their stupid parking spots so I’d stop getting charged and hope for a refund but now I wait as they deduct more money out of my account. Terrible. I’d officially rather walk

The Bird scooters themselves work great and are easy to start and end given the service works and you park in designated areas. However, when a situation arises when the scooter malfunctions and you are unable to end your ride anywhere, you are suddenly waiting 30 minutes on an active scooter ride trying to find any customer support number inside the app or company website. This company makes it ridiculous to get a timely response on a time-sensitive issue (the scooters charge by the minute so I expect a speedy response when something isn’t right). The chat bots tell me I need to wait 2-4 hours through an email to end an actively running ride. There are no company numbers on the app or even the main website, and I had to resort to Google to find a phone number. When these scooters work properly, they are a great travel method, but customer service should absolutely be looked at and changed, because this is outrageous.

Hello, This was a first experience and a Mother’s Day plan to celebrate myself being a mother and celebrated with loved ones. Well we ended up walking the equipment more than riding and enjoying the $80 from 3 separate charges one $20 for 30 minutes, all day pass 10 rides 30 minutes 27 almost $28. Then $40 for a guest that we assumed was getting one of the rides from the 10 all day pass. I found no number to contact you on the app. I would like a refund or be credited with rides for the account you hijacked my account for! It was Mother’s Day and very upsetting to be able to finally be celebrated and a opportunity to spend time with loved ones for the equipment and charges was very disappointing and ruined Mother’s Day as I am disabled with a chance to overcome obstacles due to my disability. But to be able to enjoy such things might not be important or a big deal but to someone that doesn’t get a opportunity to enjoy their life due to a disability many times stopping progressing in your life. I look forward to hearing resolve from this matter. Thank you

So first off, I’ve had around 20 rides and loved all but one (the scooter was damaged but you can report things like that easily in the app). It’s FAST, FUN, and so convenient! Best of all? The price. Phenomenally low costs, I joy-rode around a park with my mother one day for over an hour, and we each paid less than $9. That system was put to the test today when I took an emergency Bird and made it to my meeting just in time—naturally, I forgot to lock it and presumably left the meter running so to speak. I realized this an hour later and checked the app ready to be disappointed, but it recognized that 40 of the minutes it had been unlocked were spent immobile and I was only charged for the time I actually used it. Incredible system!! It’s how things should be, but how they so rarely are; keep it up Bird, and don’t mind the bad press, you are loved.

This is a fun side gig, and I love riding the scooters. The app is fast on iOS 12 and it seems like this has really good potential! However: People are straight up stealing them. Just 2 days ago I saw a delivery kid with a U-lock on the bird he was using. People are hoarding them on private property and using them like personal scooters, which makes collecting them to charge really hard or almost impossible. Or, maybe they’re hoarding them to wait until they lose battery to get a higher price for charging them? Either way....I think you all should figure out a way to combat this. Maybe do what the grocery stores do and lock the wheels outside a certain radius or after a certain time. OR maybe impose fines for keeping a bird past a certain time once unlocked, or make the alarms a lot louder. This would make things a lot easier for you and us!

I go on a vacation and there are so many of these bird scooters so I thought it would be a good idea to take one and ride it for a while. well that was a big mistake! when you download the app they purposely make it confusing for you so you can't tell exactly what you're purchasing so then when you give them your card they know they got you. what I was doing was listed as $20, I got off the scooter and finished the ridding and they charged me another $20 that they sent you a receipt through email saying how much you spent, with start fees and anything else they can charge you with. Then when you look at your bank account every time that you pause your ride and resume it they charges you an extra $7.47 that doesn't show on the receipt or on the app, it tells you in the terms and conditions that they charge you but it doesn't say how much until you find out once you've been given all of these extra charges that you didn't know about.

First time rider, big time fan. Learning curve: you will be an expert in about 2 minutes. So much fun!!!! It’s ridiculous. BRING YOUR BIKE HELMET ⛑🚴‍♀️🚴🚴‍♂️. If you think this is not your cup of tea, chances are you are wrong. The scooters and electric bikes are a fun way to show off Richmond to visiting guests. Half the fun is finding one using the app. There is no central station. You just locate one, ride it to where you are going, and leave it at your destination. Be thoughtful and leave it where it can be seen by the next person. When you have arrived at your destination, be sure and hit “END RIDE” (it’s a light blue circle at the bottom of the screen) and then take a photo of it inside the app. This will notify BIRD that the scooter 🛴 is available for the next person. Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines and ride 🙂

Update: They did end up refunding the ride via credits entirely. I still haven’t had a great experience with the app but they are responding which is great. Tried getting 3 scooters to travel Nashville with friends and all of them in a group ride had issues starting. Only could get one at any time to actually accelerate and the entire time we got charged for trying to troubleshoot. Cost me $15 to go nowhere in 5 minutes and their technical support is just FAQ pages and a bad chat bot. They do have a support ticket service but it felt like they were trying to make it as hard as possible to get a refund. So I lost money to do nothing. They offered free ride credits as the only easy refund option but if the service isn’t working there is no point. I’m sure it works for a lot of people but when it doesn’t it’s an expensive nightmare with no ability to rectify easily. I have used other scooter services and it was not this frustrating.

Support only gives pre-written responses, no actual help. There isn't a way to mark Birds as damaged, and if i go pick up a bird and charge it all night and it doesn't collect a charge you won’t likely get paid and if you do it is days later. There should also be a way to claim even one Bird at a time, like the nests even if for a much shorter time period. This way it is actually economical for the charger to be able to know he will be able to get the bird. Instead of driving multiple miles for it to disappear right before you get there. They also don't crack down on people hoarding birds as much as they say. Which makes it difficult for the honest chargers to actually get the birds. It’s not fair that because their Birds don't work and i cant mark them damaged i do all the work and don’t get paid.

After riding birds for months suddenly my map shows NOTHING. No birds. The birds are there but not shown on the map. When you find one and try to ride it, no good. Scooter says not working, try again later? Later? I’m on foot! This entire company is barely able to create a service that works. Currently if you merely ride close to a “no ride zone” the bird beeps and stops. Even though your in the legal area, the GPS is so badly calculated that it actually doesn’t know where you are. And because you can’t ride on sidewalks, we’re left to ride in the street with cars! Wow really? Not on the beach we’re every conveyance known to man is used, no birds allowed. If you can’t ride on the bike trails at the beach then you don’t have a product or a company. I won’t ride birds again.. because I can’t find one on the map!!! Tech support tells me I have an old version of the app, even though the App Store says I have the most current. The blind leading the blind. Here we are on 4th of July weekend and I can’t ride a bird. Uh okay then. Hello e-bike sales.

Be careful of being overcharged! A friend and I took a leisure ride around the city. It was my first time and I put in all my information but didn’t notice that Bird was charging me more than double what they charged my friend even though our birds were side by side and we went the exact distance and there were lots of unused birds all over the place. I emailed and asked about the price discrimination and was told something to the effect of we understand your concern and we are in the process of improving our fleet. I emailed them back showing them I was being charged $.35 a minute while Lime was only charging me $.15 a minute at the same time and from the same location, and why should I be singled out to carry the weight of repairing their fleet. In my opinion it was not good customer service and I have not heard back from them. I regret my ride with Bird as it cost me $20+ which it took all the joy out of the ride. All that to say I plan off loading the app as soon as I use up my credit and going with lime who only shows the $.15 a min.

I am a 55 year old male, and today was my first ride ever on a motorized scooter. Wow!,…what can I say,… Riding the BIRD scooter today was the BOMB,…I believe this was the most fun I’ve had in 20 years. I’ve had many motorcycles in my life, the things that I enjoyed most about the bird scooter is that it is very safe, and has lots of power, and it is a very good method of transportation for short distances or long distances depending upon your needs. My grandson and I took turns riding the scooter and we did not want to quit, but we had other obligations so we only got to ride it for about 25 minutes, but during our time riding the scooter we both were really stoked, and shocked with the amount of power that this little scooter packs under the hood. I can’t wait until the next time I have the opportunity to ride a bird scooter, I’m really looking forward to it. I would like to own a BIRD scooter in the days ahead for personal use, and then I would have it all to myself, and then I could ride it anytime I wanted. I will be checking into this option in the near future; I am now a sold out bird rider, and I would definitely enjoy becoming a bird scooter owner. Thank you, Kelly

I have used all the other scooter companies in Portland without any problems, but not Bird. Bird has several problems that prevented me from using any of their scooters and they all stem from the fact that they require a driver’s license to be scanned into the app. Firstly, there is no option to do this before trying to rent a scooter, which means that you’re left standing on the sidewalk trying to scan your driver’s license into the app. The moment when renting a scooter is usually one where I’m short on time, so this also becomes very inconvenient. Secondly, the driver license scanner did not work - meaning I had to enter information manually. Thirdly, after entering the license information, I was not able to submit it on multiple occasions due to a “network” error, even though I had a good cell signal and unlimited data on my cell plan. Finally, none of the other companies require important personal information such as a driver’s license to be submitted to the app, which makes Bird seem to require additional info for no discernible reason.

Horrible just like everyone else said it lets you leave your area without telling you anything and then will shut off when you let go of the throttle then it locks it’s wheels and makes the carry back miserable. This could be a game ender for the older population trying to use these they weight a ton and are not easy to the slightest to push and it charges you the entire time. Talked to Someone on the bird help and she did absolutely nothing to help and just told me it was my fault basically which to a certain extent it is I should of just road with my phone in my hand the entire time to see where I’m allowed to ride… oh wait it’s against the terms to use a phone well riding. This is the biggest scam any city allows. Call a Uber even if it’s just for you it’ll be cheaper and less of a headache. Worse 25$ I’ve ever spent that’s a down payment to own my own electric scooter. If these people ever want to succeed they need to cut those prices in half then half again

The app is very bad and i would rate it 0 stars if i could. The ride pass benefits are very vague and are very misleading. The customer service is horrible and not helpful. An example of how the ride pass benefits are misleading is how it says you get 15 rides with the 24 hour ride pass but when i bought it and went to the ride pass tab in the menu on the app it said i only had 7, i also was charged extra for a ride because the benefits don't specify you will get charged if you ride over 30 minutes with the pass, i thought a ride counted as 30 minutes and then it would reset and count that as a ride. An example of the terrible customer service is how i payed $16 for the 24 hour ride pass and could not start a ride, so i went to customer service and they would not give me a refund and i still couldn't start a ride. I would not recommend their service to anyone for those reasons i listed in my review, will never use their service again either.

It’s a handy tool when you don’t have a bike . A little pricey. In Tempe there is to many normal roads that asu thinks they own so you can’t ride or your ride is slowed down , even though cars are blasting down same roads at well over the 18 mph you can do on a scooter. God forbid you go too fast around all the students and the food robots. Not mention all the skate boarders . There are a bunch of rides that need work , lose parts , bad or no brakes . And I think that they shut off the rides at bar time . Just when you need them . Oh I’m tipsy I’ll leave my car and use a scooter, oops they are turn off , back to the car . Seems dumb to me. Yes scooters are not toys and you have to have common sense to ride them , but not all folks who want to get some where at bar time have been drinking . All around a good bang for your $ 3.45 ….

Our experience: 1) Does not properly disclose pricing on app. Under payment screen it states...”$1 to start, $0.15 per minute plus tax”. Time charge is displayed. There is no disclosure of distance rate or price. Our final charges were $0.27 per minutes not $0.15 per minute, which I find deceiving. 2) when setting up app, it asks what dollar amount we want to start with. It fails to ask if we, as the customer, agree to the continual charges on card. Or it also fails to disclose to customers that credit card will continually be charged. Currently this option can be unselected under payment tab. 3) miles are not properly disclosed. There is either a glitch in the system or with the scooters. We were a group of 7 (phones/riders) who followed each other to the same destinations. App showed same destinations with different miles recorded. Again be a glitch or a way to charge customers more on distance. 4) The ride was enjoyably fun! Scooters had speed and the breaking system worked well. No complaints about scooters.

I see a lot of people are actually reviewing the service and not just the app. So, I will do the same. The app itself, is fine. I have no issues with it. It finds the scooters, unlocks or locks them.. payment can be a CC or Apple Pay, which is a big plus for me. The scooters are great. They are better than the Santa Monica or LA bikes. Cheaper and you don’t have to find a frigging docking station to leave them at. In Venice. / Santa Monica, the scooters go where I go. And find them where I am. The only criticism I might offer, is that that folks who are being paid to charge them ( you can make $5.00 per battery) leave the units active In their garage or even in their car. So using the app, I find myself standing in front of a locked garage or at Someone’s van with 3 or 4 scooters inside. I

I won’t ride a Bird again until the issue I just encountered is fixed in the app. I got onto a scooter that was broken (wouldn’t stop accelerating) and had to jump off of it to avoid a more serious crash. I escaped with just a bruised ankle, but my first thought was obviously that the next person to come along could be hurt even worse. Because the ride only lasted a few seconds, Bird “cancelled” it and didn’t charge me. That’s a great customer friendly feature, but I had no way to rate the ride and report the dangerous scooter. I called support and got no answer. So I sent them a message through the app, but that hasn’t been answered yet. In the time that’s passed, anyone could have come by and started a ride on the same scooter that I’d just been injured on. The app needs to provide an immediate way for riders to take broken or dangerous scooters offline, even when rides are too short to rate, or there is a risk of multiple riders being hurt. I imagine rides on broken scooters tend to be short, so this is a big oversight!

I used this in DC and I made sure to click the option that only cost $5. After that I went into the app before I started to use the scooter and turned off the option to recharge me after my time was. I was riding around waiting for it to turn off when the battery died. After parking it I went to look for a different one when I found out that I was charged almost $20 for this ride. Four times the amount I authorized. The app was recharging me and not letting me know about the recharge. During the ride I repeatedly checked to make sure the recharge option was turned off and each time it was. Despite this more money than I allowed was taken from me. When I emailed the company and explained this to them, I got an email back ignoring my issue with them recharging me without my knowledge and was given a small amount credit for the small amount of time I didn’t use as the scooter died. Would never use these scooters again and would not recommend.

As someone who rides around sometimes with a charger for this company, I suggest you guys implement fines for bad parking. I live in Atlanta and there are a bunch of scooters parked inside parking garages and in residential buildings. It becomes a nightmare to go around looking for birds when they are at someone’s apartment or inside a building because she doesn’t trespass so she wastes time and gas driving around to find herself looking at a building and contemplating why do people park inside. Add fee for bad parking, make people park in the streets. In that way, you don’t take the chance of losing the scooter, easier for chargers to pick it up and have it ready in the morning 100% charged and also report more damaged scooters so the customers don’t pay for damaged scooters. As a customer that I am, I’m very happy with Bird!!!

Tried to set up an account last night, only to be met with error message after error message telling me to “update my payment method”. Found a Lime Scooter nearby and set up an account and it worked in less than a minute. Unfortunately, there are very few Limes around me, or I would use them exclusively. I created multiple accounts, and have still been met with the same error message. Contacted customer support only to be treated like a child and asked questions like “do you have the latest version of the app” or “have you tried restarting”. The issue is very clearly with the app itself, but they refuse to listen or hear your side of the story and instead provide generic troubleshooting suggestions. An all around horrendous experience. I can’t even remove the card from my account in order to start over. So basically I’m just unable to ride bird scooters because their app/customer support team are not helpful at all.

I am a transfer student from Dubai and don’t have a personal mode of transport and resort to other means of transport. I found the system of electric scooters offered by Bird and other companies to be cost-effective and fun. And the fact that it helps me engage in conversation with people as I meet them on streets while asking for directions and enjoying the view is refreshing. Coming to the point: I took a 20 dollar package and was disappointed EVERY time I rode on of Bird’s scooters. Either the brake doesn’t work, the throttle is stuck or doesn’t retract or the scooter is noisy and squeaky (feels like it’s going to break any moment) or it is slow and sometimes I end up having to push the scooter myself. Not complaining about pushing the scooter, it is good exercise, but that’s not what I’m paying for. I unfortunately cannot use other company’s services until I finish the package I brought. Won’t be renewing the service package nor will be using this service again. Thoroughly disappointed.

The scooters are convenient when they’re close by, but in my experience I’ve gotten mad with these guys so many times I decided to just cut the cord. For starters, when you have a problem, you won’t be able to contact them because the only customer service option you have is a robot chat who only accepts certain problems. I spent 2 days trying to get ahold of any way to contact a real human. The scooters randomly turn off, and if you go on the edge of a “no drive zone” you get charged for all the time you spend trying to move it till it registers that it’s out. I get charged even when I turn my auto charge off, and then I get charged for it failing. My scooters turn off so frequently I just couldn’t take it any more. I’ve reported it probably a dozen of times, and nothing has changed, so I figured I would warn folks here. Great concept, horrible quality.

In the entire time that I have used an iPhone, there has never been an app that has angered and gaslit me quite like this app. Before anyone can say that I could use different app or form of transport, I can neither afford a car, nor are there any other types of scooters in my area. The amount of times that their scooters have either shown themselves as working but don’t even turn on, or even the amount of times that a scooter has said it can travel a certain distance and then dies quickly, could outnumber the amount of costume changes that occur in the MCU. The service from the ground up is horrendous, from the app that shows false active birds and fails at times to even connect with them at close distance, to the scooters whose brakes are often brakes in name only. I could tie a brick to a string and throw it off the scooter to get better stopping time. I hope that Bird can get there stuff together, because wherever it is, it’s not with their scooters.

I had an absolutely horrendous experience with the Bird scooter app. Not only did it fail to let me end my ride, but it also scammed me out of nearly 20 dollars. The app falsely claimed I was in a no-parking zone, despite being in a perfectly acceptable area. This resulted in unnecessary charges and a frustrating ordeal. To make matters worse, the customer service provided by Bird is beyond terrible. I reached out to them through multiple emails, seeking assistance and clarification, but have received absolutely no response. It's incredibly disappointing and unprofessional to be completely ignored when trying to resolve an issue caused by their own faulty app. I expected a seamless experience with Bird, but instead, I was left feeling ripped off and ignored. I strongly advise against using this app, as it not only misleads you with false claims but also lacks any form of reliable customer support. Save yourself the trouble and find a more trustworthy scooter app.

These scooters are definitely not worth the hassle ! On 2 occasions the app would attempt to forcefully make me try to use one of the ride reload options ! Then after selecting No they still charged my card constantly ! Until it was clean ! Thankfully it wasn’t much on there so I let them have that little $20 … next I try to attempt the rides again because my son really wanted to ride them . Same issue ! As I’m taking a photo of the barcode to select the scooter they automatically start charging my card $10 off the rip then continuously charging $12 until they couldn’t anymore ..now my card has all these attempted charges and the $10 they was actually able to take even though I was never able to ride the scooter ! It never activated !! So I write them because there no other way to contact them, and they sent me $3 of the money they wrongfully charged and didn’t even acknowledge the rest