Horrible
Worst app ever bikes are not working and they charge you
Scam
It’s advertised as 1 pound for 30 minutes, after less than 20 minutes they charged me £8
Worst user interface I've ever experienced
Made it impossible to get home when I needed to
Bugs
Wasn’t able to rent bike after purchasing a pass. ‘Rent’ button didn’t work and helpline / text wasn’t available
Often wastes more time than it saves
Hello, Forest team and other readers.
Quite often I enjoy the ride and would love for the forest to become better. However my average experience is quite poor.
Try lease a bike, the app does something for 30 seconds, bike light blinks then goes dark. Try again - same result.
Try the other bike - it works, but the brakes are super loose.
Lease a bike - the speedometer shows 30 while standing still and wont move at all. Go back, cancel lease, try another bike and hope it works
And problems like this are far too often.
The other thing is app. Leasing and cancelling the lease is way too slow. 30-60 seconds and sometimes it hangs completely.
The third thing that is a constant problem for me is ending the ride. In my specific location you can only park in a designated area, however gps in the same area is not good enough to get my position, so i end up another minute or two trying to find a space where the app will allow me to end the ride. Not only I am wasting my time, I also pay for the time.
Two lesser issues is that after 9 am and 7pm there are no bikes in my area, so even though I bought a minutes packet I can’t use it.
No way to book a ride contributes to the problem - I see a bike on the map, I go towards it. By the time I arrive the bike is already taken
Quite often I enjoy the ride and would love for the forest to become better. However my average experience is quite poor.
Try lease a bike, the app does something for 30 seconds, bike light blinks then goes dark. Try again - same result.
Try the other bike - it works, but the brakes are super loose.
Lease a bike - the speedometer shows 30 while standing still and wont move at all. Go back, cancel lease, try another bike and hope it works
And problems like this are far too often.
The other thing is app. Leasing and cancelling the lease is way too slow. 30-60 seconds and sometimes it hangs completely.
The third thing that is a constant problem for me is ending the ride. In my specific location you can only park in a designated area, however gps in the same area is not good enough to get my position, so i end up another minute or two trying to find a space where the app will allow me to end the ride. Not only I am wasting my time, I also pay for the time.
Two lesser issues is that after 9 am and 7pm there are no bikes in my area, so even though I bought a minutes packet I can’t use it.
No way to book a ride contributes to the problem - I see a bike on the map, I go towards it. By the time I arrive the bike is already taken
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Bikes
Bikes never work they’ve either got technical issues or no battery. Fleet poorly serviced. App super clunky.
Technical Issues
Service disruption preventing users from using forest bikes and contacting them but of course they will still take payments for passes that won’t work. Useless..
Great service
Forest is overall excellent - very convenient, good bikes, and the new £7 per month for £1.70 30 min rides brings pricing in line with Santander Cycles. The app has a couple of inane design decisions suggesting the developers don’t use the bikes though: around 20% of bikes have an issue you discover 2 mins into a ride.
1. There’s no way to report an issue immediately when finishing, you have to wait for the payment screen to finished before scanning the bike again to report. That takes too long so almost nobody does.
2. There’s no way to see other available bikes on the map when you have one active. That means you stop at a bike and have to end your ride before discovering that one is dead or otherwise unavailable.
Both are needlessly complicated solved by trivial changes - I hope to see them implemented!
1. There’s no way to report an issue immediately when finishing, you have to wait for the payment screen to finished before scanning the bike again to report. That takes too long so almost nobody does.
2. There’s no way to see other available bikes on the map when you have one active. That means you stop at a bike and have to end your ride before discovering that one is dead or otherwise unavailable.
Both are needlessly complicated solved by trivial changes - I hope to see them implemented!
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Awful
Can’t do a double ride or if you can it’s not obvious how to do it
Response from developer
Currently, our system only allows for the unlocking of one eBike at a time per Forest account. Each rider will need to download the Forest app on their own phone and create an individual account.
Made up charges
Terrible! Just charged me £13 out the blue because their bike was broken then wouldn’t start, left the bike running for an hour when I wasn’t on it, now won’t give me a refund
Map
Wrong locations for parked bikes. Plus when I buy minutes, bikes are nowhere to be found so my minutes bundle expires without using them. This is a robbery from Human Forest. Will remove this review when they fix this.
Works across London but will send you lots of advertising push messages!
Way too many advertisement push.
App and bikes have deteriorated hugely
Used to like forest but recent rides have been awful - I could have walked faster and with less effort. Impossible to end ride even when in bike parking zone. I’d advise you avoid until and unless they fix this.
Does this app really exist?
I see Forest bikes on the road, but when I try to sign up the SMS verification page hangs, and there are no bikes showing in the map, even though the app says bikes are nearby.
This after I already have to agree to have my phone crawled and trackers installed. 😕
This after I already have to agree to have my phone crawled and trackers installed. 😕
Expensive waste of time and money
Took £5 off me for no reason before i even got on the bike
Locations services are rubbish to a point of a con
Doesn’t allow you to end ride standing in location, I know it’s done on purpose to change you more
Hasan Ozturk
It charged me 3£ instead of 1 £ for a 5 min ride. Theft…
Wow
Superior comfort and safety of bikes, best compared to all competitors in London. Perfect. Only issue is availability and one bike I rode was faulty I want my minutes bike. And the regular prices are quite high compared to santanders. The app is also slow and laggy, took 1 whole minute to unlock, was loading and charger me for a minute. But in terms of bike and comfort and feeling in control great cycles just wow I love it.
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Scammers
There have been multiple occasions where I have been charged 20 pounds because their app didn’t recognize me ending my ride FFS. And it’s incredibly difficult to get them to reverse it. This is not a case of parking incorrectly - it’s within designated parking zones - just for whatever reason after ending ride it doesn’t recognize sometimes.
Scammers
Scammers
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Avoid Avoid Avoid
Terrible App
This has to be the biggest con ever.
The app never lets you stop your ride on time. Always runs two or three minutes over so they can charge you. Telling you your not in a cycle park area when you are.
Every time I parked my forest bike in the cycle parking at Clapham Junction station there’s always between 3and 5 people there with the forest app failing to stop their ride.
I’ve only had the app a month and deleting and cancelling my subscription now as customer support don’t want to help me with my several messages about above complaints. AVOID FOREST BIKES. TERRIBLE COMPANY.
This has to be the biggest con ever.
The app never lets you stop your ride on time. Always runs two or three minutes over so they can charge you. Telling you your not in a cycle park area when you are.
Every time I parked my forest bike in the cycle parking at Clapham Junction station there’s always between 3and 5 people there with the forest app failing to stop their ride.
I’ve only had the app a month and deleting and cancelling my subscription now as customer support don’t want to help me with my several messages about above complaints. AVOID FOREST BIKES. TERRIBLE COMPANY.
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