Corporate greed at its finest
The app does what it’s supposed to for the most part.
If you don’t keep moving while you have a bike it will end your ride and charge you $25. It doesn’t make any sense. I stop to take a phone call and while I’m standing next to the bike it locks itself and charges me $25 for “not properly ending my ride.” It’s a rental that is exclusively charged by the minute. What difference does it make whether I’m moving or not? Literally just keep charging me the per minute rate. If I actually failed to end the ride then you could just keep charging me until it’s out of battery and make way more than $25. But they don’t do that, because they don’t actually think you improperly ended your ride. It’s a nonsensical “gotcha” fee that they charge their paying customers whenever they get the chance.
I pay $100 per year for a membership and as far as I can tell, it’s literally impossible to get in touch with anyone at the company. Bike fails to unlock? You’re still paying the unlock fee. Take out an e-bike and the motor stops working while saying it has 20 miles of battery? Muscle your way to a dock with a 100 pound bike or pay a fee.
All the time I’ll reserve a bike only for the map marker to move somewhere completely different. The glitch is so consistent that I’ve learned not to reserve a bike without making sure I remember exactly where it is since I know I soon won’t be able to use the app to locate it.
They and Lime have a local duopoly so we’re stuck with them, but they don’t value you their customers at all and I can’t wait for another company to enter the market.
If you don’t keep moving while you have a bike it will end your ride and charge you $25. It doesn’t make any sense. I stop to take a phone call and while I’m standing next to the bike it locks itself and charges me $25 for “not properly ending my ride.” It’s a rental that is exclusively charged by the minute. What difference does it make whether I’m moving or not? Literally just keep charging me the per minute rate. If I actually failed to end the ride then you could just keep charging me until it’s out of battery and make way more than $25. But they don’t do that, because they don’t actually think you improperly ended your ride. It’s a nonsensical “gotcha” fee that they charge their paying customers whenever they get the chance.
I pay $100 per year for a membership and as far as I can tell, it’s literally impossible to get in touch with anyone at the company. Bike fails to unlock? You’re still paying the unlock fee. Take out an e-bike and the motor stops working while saying it has 20 miles of battery? Muscle your way to a dock with a 100 pound bike or pay a fee.
All the time I’ll reserve a bike only for the map marker to move somewhere completely different. The glitch is so consistent that I’ve learned not to reserve a bike without making sure I remember exactly where it is since I know I soon won’t be able to use the app to locate it.
They and Lime have a local duopoly so we’re stuck with them, but they don’t value you their customers at all and I can’t wait for another company to enter the market.
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So many broken bikes, broken locks
So many broken bikes, broken locks that keep on charging you long after you’ve returned the bikes. Seems like a scam.
RIDE WON’T END
Don’t be surprised when your trip/session doesn’t end once you lock it up at your destination. It’s happened three times to me already, frustrating and obviously maximizing profit from customers who deserve better. Please save yourself the time & stress and don’t use these bikes.
Awfully unfair
I find a bike in an area outside the green zone just on the sidewalk- as I scan I’m not warned that it will ACTIVELY fight me as I bike it back to a station. Essentially I returned an abandoned bike as it actively fought me AND IT CHARGES 17 dollars? ARE YOU INSANE? I’ll just uber next time. #### Lift and BIKETOWN
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Terrible customer support, lime resolved same issue with no lip service
Even though I prefer the functionality of Biketown scooters over Lime scooters, I will always choose Lime over Biketown because their customer support near-instantly resolved a problem Biketown would not fix.
Biketown support refused to end my ride or acknowledge that I was in a parking zone when my location in the app was inaccurate, even after sending a photo of the scooter locked in front of the biketown/lime parking sign. They kept telling me things like “move closer to the parking zone” when I couldn’t possibly get any closer, and the app showed me 20 feet over in the street. They said they couldn’t remotely end my ride and it’d automatically end after 25 hours. This was unacceptable because I was supposed to be leaving on a camping trip with no cell service. I had to ride the scooter about half a mile away to park it and walk back, turning a 10-minute ride into a 45-minute ordeal. I nearly missed the trip as a result.
A week later, I ran into the same issue with Lime, and after I messaged support my ride was ended near-instantly with zero back-and-forth.
Additionally, there is no simple way to report being unable to start a ride and I was charged to unlock a non-functioning scooter. Lime makes it easy to report this issue.
I was also forced to walk a mile at 1am after the app wouldn’t load scooter locations or scan scooters directly in front of me despite my internet working perfectly.
Biketown support refused to end my ride or acknowledge that I was in a parking zone when my location in the app was inaccurate, even after sending a photo of the scooter locked in front of the biketown/lime parking sign. They kept telling me things like “move closer to the parking zone” when I couldn’t possibly get any closer, and the app showed me 20 feet over in the street. They said they couldn’t remotely end my ride and it’d automatically end after 25 hours. This was unacceptable because I was supposed to be leaving on a camping trip with no cell service. I had to ride the scooter about half a mile away to park it and walk back, turning a 10-minute ride into a 45-minute ordeal. I nearly missed the trip as a result.
A week later, I ran into the same issue with Lime, and after I messaged support my ride was ended near-instantly with zero back-and-forth.
Additionally, there is no simple way to report being unable to start a ride and I was charged to unlock a non-functioning scooter. Lime makes it easy to report this issue.
I was also forced to walk a mile at 1am after the app wouldn’t load scooter locations or scan scooters directly in front of me despite my internet working perfectly.
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Not working two days, nor customer service
App not working, tried everything included reinstalling. Now disappeared from Home Screen. No help available. Had grown used to it now unusable.
Needs a lot more bike racks
I find it ridiculous they charge you for parking it on a public bike rack if it isn’t a BIKETOWN station. They don’t mention that part until you’ve already unlocked the bike. Either put in a lot more stations or get rid of this fee . I understand needing to keep people from ditching the bikes in random places but there are better ways to do it
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Charged for Errors A LOT
Sometimes when I hit the resume button on my app the app ends the ride instead, charging me for parking. This has happened several times including today, and customer service refuses to do anything about it. They just say sorry. Don’t waste your time getting sneakily charged.
This is a dangerous scooter
I love using e-scooters to get around. Lime was frustrating at first but ended up working great.
-You are charged for ALL the reservation time, even if you got to the scooter within the time limit.
- You can never not have a $1 parking fee, even if you park in their "designated" areas that are shown on the map.
-BIKETOWN uses all fees possible to try and get the most money from you while claiming to be 2¢ cheaper per minute.
- Rides are consistently $2-$2.50 more expensive than Lime rides for the same short route.
- The scooters are extremely wobbly and unstable. The handlebars are way too close to your torso, which causes unbalance.
-The forced braking when going down hills is straight up dangerous. If my scooter is going too fast the braking needs to be gentle. Not a hard stop going down a hill at who knows how fast.
All that said I will be going out of my way to not use this product.
-You are charged for ALL the reservation time, even if you got to the scooter within the time limit.
- You can never not have a $1 parking fee, even if you park in their "designated" areas that are shown on the map.
-BIKETOWN uses all fees possible to try and get the most money from you while claiming to be 2¢ cheaper per minute.
- Rides are consistently $2-$2.50 more expensive than Lime rides for the same short route.
- The scooters are extremely wobbly and unstable. The handlebars are way too close to your torso, which causes unbalance.
-The forced braking when going down hills is straight up dangerous. If my scooter is going too fast the braking needs to be gentle. Not a hard stop going down a hill at who knows how fast.
All that said I will be going out of my way to not use this product.
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Awful scooter experience
In a <1 mile ride, my scooter was fully stopped twice in the middle of the street due to bad geolocation placing me in a park that I wasn’t in. Then charged an extra $1 for out of station parking on a scooter. Why anyone would choose this over lime is beyond me, I certainly won’t again.
Completely unreliable, worst bikeshare
I’ve had a yearly membership and this will be my last year. 80% of the experience has been unlocking a bike that then runs out of batteries in 3 blocks, leaving you to either stop and try to find another station and another bike, or try to ride this monstrosity of a bike to your destination which is an insane amount of energy if you’ve ever tried to ride a dead e-bike. Then there is no place in the app to report that the bike battery is dead so you inevitably subject the next person to a dead bike battery too, and you’ve paid $5 for the luxury of being late to whatever you’re going to or arriving in a sweaty disgusting mess because you decided to ride a dead bike. It’s insane that they don’t disable bikes that are out or extremely low on battery and everyone I’ve talked to who has tried Biketown has had the same experience. Too bad!
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Ok
It’s adequate
Motor inconsistent
I used a BIKETOWN e-bike in Portland. The motor assist quit suddenly twice while climbing hills. And then it flipped on strong unexpectedly on a mild ascent. I did not feel safe based on these incidents. And when I tried to report it on the app, the only five options for naming the problem did not include motor malfunction. Very disappointed, especially because it’s an expensive rental at 30 cents a minute.
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Hidden fines
Horrible service. You can be charged $25 for parking ‘incorrectly’. Rude customer service. Many bikes are in poor condition and hardly roadworthy. Vandalised bikes are common. Not worth your time.
great service
App works very well. Would love to see HealthKit integration.
Not City Wide
I seen a bunch of these in Beaverton. Yet they are not showing on the app. Specifically at Millikan Max station stop.
icodyp
This app saved me from homelessness. I was able to get approved for the biketown for ALL program and I used the bike for door dash and made enough money to rent a car and take door dash to the next level and eventually I got into a room for rent after a couple of weeks. Seriously you guys at Lyft ARE THE GOOD GUYS. THANK YOU SO MUCH. I AM FOREVER GRATEFUL. Once I get my own car I’ll definitely be driving for Lyft again. #teamlyft💪🏼
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This is a scam! Keeps charging 25$ fines
Nice idea, but everytime you pause your ride, it locks your bike and then charges you a 25$ fine for “leaving it in the wrong place”!
Horrible UX!
Horrible UX!
There’s a glitch when looking at train and bus.
It won’t stay on the train and bus part of the app. It shows it for approximately 5 seconds and goes back to Nike bikes.
75%
When it works it’s great. That’s about 3 out of 4 times… with the 4th being after a five mile ride and then it won’t unlock.
