Spin - Electric Scooters Reviews

It was ALOT of fun. The scooters were quicker than I thought they’d be. I also like the fact that they’re providing a service that helps give people easier and perhaps more accessible or efficient means of transportation. Whether it’s a daily commute to work across the city, getting to your next class across campus or just a fun cruise around the town with friends, this is a quick and budget friendly way to do so! It’s pretty straight forward to start your ride but if you run into an issue like I did midway through my ride. Which brings me to my conclusion this probably one of the worst customer service/help set ups I’ve ever came across. I happened to run into an issue on my first ride and I ended my ride early which prompted Spin to ask for a photo of where you parked it and thinking I had to reload my account with funds to ride longer I “parked” it in a non parking zone to quick reload and hop back on but ended up being locked off the scooter a mile and a half away from my vehicle. Also mind you that it states you can be charged a penalty fee if left outside of a designated parking zone and these things are locked and too heavy to just walk it to a parking zone. Their only means of support were sending and email and waiting for a reply or calling a number in which nobody picked up and it went to a generic voicemail to leave a message for a call back. I received a call two hours after the fact I and a email reply probably 4-5 hours later. Could be 4 stars?

I recently used the this app scooters in Orlando. Make sure you go over the options carefully in Spin especially if using Apple Pay( the 20$ is security deposit doesn’t mean it’s the day pass). We had a great ride and they are accessible scooters anywhere downtown. The scooters feel very safe and only allow you to go 10 mph. I had a few issues with understanding the costs when we finished and realized how much we ended up spending over the 3 hours.(we accidentally paid by the hour) Make sure you buy a day pass or hour pass so you’re not paying by the minute(my gf and I made that mistake). I was able to talk to a customer support rep , Lisa, and she couldn’t have been more understanding and helpful. I had no problem accepting the fact that we probably made a mistake, but Lisa showed genuine compassion and detailed how the system works and the best options going forward. She gave us both significant refunds and understood our mistakes. I only to want use this app electric scooter now because of her service skills and compassion. We have several different brands in Orlando and I’m so glad that I was able to talk someone who really understood the problem. I look forward to using this app in the future. I always applaud and recognize quality customer care! Thanks again Lisa!

I live in the heart of Downtown Memphis. As you know we are located right next to the mighty Mississippi. When it’s cold, it’s super cold. The wind off the River whips through the buildings and takes your breath away. When it’s hot, it’s not your typical hot, it’s Memphis Hot. I mean it’s muggy, you can’t walk outside with out breaking a sweat, and the mosquitos will carry you away. Saying all that.. it’s a nice to be able to hop on one of these amazing scooters and get to where your going a little faster. I hate being cold and most definitely HATE being hot. I do love the accessibility of these little whips. Almost forgot.. they are the best way to see Downtown! I recommend you definitely give them a try, have some fun, and see how beautiful Downtown Memphis really is!

#1 A cell phone holder would be great so that we can use google maps for route guidance while riding and not have to stop so much and pull out our phones, reopen the map app, wait for it to orient to our new location, etc.

#2 Design Flaw: I was riding along the sidewalk when I realized I was about to ride off the curb. I quickly jumped my feet off the board to bring myself to a stop, but my hands were still gripping the handle bars and therefore the throttle. You would probably think it’s easy to let go of the throttle, but when you are riding as fast as the scooter will go and then take your feet off in order to stop the thing, your grip becomes tighter because it is the only thing keeping the scooter to you. You are wanting to come to a quick and complete stop, not launch the scooter down the street or off the curb. Anyhow, this is how you see people stumble-running with a scooter. It’s because your body doesn’t let you release your grip (and throttle) and so the wheels keep spinning, so the scooter keeps going.

The Solution: there should be a weight sensor in the foot board so that as soon as there’s no more weight on the board the [motor] acceleration stops. Again, as soon as a person steps off of the foot board the motor cuts off. You don’t have to apply the brakes—stopping the motor’s acceleration should be enough help to prevent someone from crashing or stumbling when trying to quickly stop.

I really do enjoy the this app scooters, I do, however today I ran into an issue with the scooters which took me 40 minutes to solve. I was riding the scooter back from my university gym when I had to stop by a local grocery store to pick up something’s so I locked the scooter. Little did I know this was out of campus, which means I cannot park there. When I got back and tried to unlock the scooter, it did not allow me. I got a message telling me to move the scooter back to campus but every time I tried to move it, it made a ridiculous sound. I tried calling customer service but all the representatives were busy and I needed somebody to tell me what to do so the scooter would stop charging my bank account. There was nothing I could to unlock the scooter, which is a major flaw considering Spin keeps telling you to move the scooter into campus to unlock it. In the end I had to carry the scooter back into the campus grounds despite the awful sounds it made. This was probably the most annoying experience I’ve had with this app and I hope this is fixed. I understand that the mistake was mine however Spin charged me 5 dollars and didn’t even let me unlock my scooter. This is absolutely ridiculous. That’s 5 dollars down the drain for nothing! I was just standing there trying to figure out how to unlock the scooter and i got charged for it!
I always loved the this app scooters but this left me quite disappointed.

My family and I decided to go for a ride, but the scooters kept acting up. They deactivated in the place where we found them. At me point, my brother’s scooter stopped when he was cruising at max speed. He immediately fell off and onto his face in the cement. On one other occasion, everyone else in my party had their scooters deactivated when we reached the no-ride zone, but mine didn’t. Then, later, when we reached the reactivation zone, my scooter deactivated and I was left behind. All these things happened, but there were some other problems as well. One of the dividers between a no-ride and ride zone was literally a lamppost in the middle of a parking lot. A warning would also be nice before you get to a no-ride zone. My group was just cruising on our local bike path when we apparently reached the no-ride zone. By the time I realized that we had somehow crossed the line, I was at least 40 feet past it and had to drag my scooter back. Payment was another of many problems we encountered. My mother was paying for the rides, but couldn’t pay for all three of them. Instead, my brother and I had to download this clearly flawed app and enter the information ourselves (and you know how kids can be when they get their parents’ credit card info). All around OK, but you’ve clearly got a lot of bugs to work out.

Attempt #1) Pre-Original scooter ban circa mid-2018. I signed up, deposited $5 into my account, because unlike the other services in SF at the time, this app required a deposit. When I got to the point on the map where the this app a scooter was supposed to be, it was nowhere to be found. Fooled me once, shame on you.

Attempts 2 & 3) Twice in the past month, I have arrived at a this app scooter ready to hop on, only to discover that due to my owning an iPhone SE, the this app app literally would not allow me past the page where I have to check the boxes where users must attest to not riding on sidewalks and wearing helmets... the issue is that that page has one more checkbox attestations that must be completed than can fit in the screen of an iPhone SE (with its smaller screen) and yet, inexplicably, will not scroll to allow me to select the final necessary checkbox so I can submit and move on. Fooled me two and three times... shame on me.

Attempt #4) Upon hitting the “ride” button, the scooter never unlocked. Then when I went to end the ride, first Spin said it couldn’t lock the scooter (which never was unlocked to begin with) and there was a server error that prevented me from ending the ride, so I was incurring Billings long after I rented a Jump scooter instead so I could get to my train on time. Fooled me four times... we won’t get fooled again.

On my college campus these bikes are super convenient and fast, but only when everything goes right. It can be very difficult to locate a bike- more times than I can count, the bike doesn’t exist where the map says it is, which is a huge pain when I’m trying to find one to get to class on time. When I do actually find a bike, sometimes the bike doesn’t unlock but the timer begins- making it impossible to find another bike if you’re short on time. Using Bluetooth to lock or unlock a bike is also quite fickle when this happens. Sometimes Spin asks me for my payment information again, even though I already have money loaded on my account. I would say that about 75% of my rides have gone perfectly fine. They are not dependable at if you are in a rush to get somewhere, and oftentimes when something goes wrong, it can take longer to fix/look for another bike than if you had just walked to your destination in the first place.

I do have to commend the support team, who usually fix any problem quickly. One time I accidentally forgot to lock a bike after a perfectly fine ride, and they refunded the whole ride to me. The bikes have adjustable seats and the step-through style are really nice.

I rent scooters fairly often. Lime and bird are both good choices. Recently, this app has been very available in our city. Now I know why. Their parking and locking system is terrible. If you try to end your ride and happen to be in an area Spin thinks is inappropriate, the scooter will in fact lock, but not end the ride and you will continue to be charged. Parking zones are not shown on the in-app map. We rented three for an hour. We parked them exactly where we had unlocked them originally. Spin kept saying that we needed to find a new, approved zone. When we picked up the scooters to move them, they make a terrible alarm sound and tell you to unlock them before you move them. This is not possible as Spin is still charging you for the ride, but you cannot simply keep riding anywhere. It took us an extra 20 minutes if walking around our park, trying to find an acceptable parking zone with three scooters yelling the whole time. This ruined our night, was exhausting, and embarrassing. Spin also will not work unless you allow them to know your location even when Spin is closed. Both Bird and Lime allow location setting to be active only when Spin is active. This is the worst choice by far. I’ll never use this app again. Worst scooter service by far!!

What should have been a 5-minute travel turned into a 40-minute nightmare. First,
a scooter showed on the map that was available somewhat near my home. Not there. Reloaded Spin , still showed that the scooter was there and fully charged but I was standing in the location with no scooter. I made the 10-minute walk in the opposite direction to the next closest scooter. This scooter randomly shut off on me 3 times. I had to go through a process of ending the ride (can take a minute to do so) and rebooting the ride in order to get it to restart. After 20 minutes of this adventure, I was no closer to my destination and even further away from the bus to be able to change modes of travel. So I decide to walk. I park it in an eligible parking space. It does not end the ride and starts sounding an alarm at me. So I ride around, pushing it manually, (alarm still going) to park it near other scooters. Doesn’t stop. Finally after restarting Spin and trying to find support, I was able to get the scooter to successfully reboot with the power button and stop the alarm. I was extremely late for my commitment despite giving myself extra time to find a scooter. If it was just one glitchy scooter, that’s understandable, but with the second glitch of expecting to find a scooter some place and have it not exist is just enough for a 1-star

I’ll preface the only reason I chose this over Lime was the handle bars were lower and not as intimidatingly high. Of course unlocking is fast and they make you rate the parking beforehand 🙄.

Each of my 3 SHORT trips (less than 20 minutes) I’ve fussed around with trying to end the ride for several minutes adding onto the $0.27/min premium in PDX (which is on the more expensive side compared to other ones!!!) because Spin won’t register what I’m trying to do. Thus I have to restart Spin repeatedly before I even get the option again to end the ride! It freezes then FINALLY it registers while continuing to tick away. Just using up the initial balance as much as I can and abandoning the rest probably. This is honestly MORE EXPENSIVE than public transit when you factor in all the time wasters like the super glitchy app. Even toggling the menu it will freeze up. Now I’m in a slight negative balance. I attempted to submit a complaint but it did not go through.

Also there are a few different designs of the e-scooters out there... where you have the pull down throttle for stop/break or a manual hand one vs. foot one on the back. Is there a way to incorporate that into Spin ???

Spin will allow you to use Apple Pay which is cool at first, but when your balance runs low, they will automatically reload $5.00 into your account without notifying you (I didn’t know that was possible with Apple Pay). When I went to turn off this setting, the switch would always toggle back on... I recorded my screen when that happened. Super scummy. I asked for a refund of this amount so I’m waiting to hear back otherwise I’ll issue a chargeback with my CC. Lastly, even if you’ve funded your account, they’ll ask you for your CC number when you try to scan a bike! They say your card will be “secure” but I wouldn’t trust them with it given my current experience with them. It also defeats the purpose and security of using Apple Pay if you eventually have to give them your card number. UCSD students: STAY AWAY. I know the free $5 is super tempting but dealing with this company and it’s BS charges is a pain. There’s so many other options in San Diego (limebike, ofo, bird, etc).

UPDATE: this app reached out to me and told me that they cannot refund auto-reloaded balances (despite it being enabled by default and without notice). I will be contacting my CC to issue a chargeback.

This review is about the poor sales and onboarding experience and the hostile approach to customer feedback, not the scooter service which I haven’t tried yet. I just want to decide if I should sign up, and Spin and web site provide no help. There is no way to check the presence of scooters in another location. I want to get a feel for the presence and distribution of scooters in my desired location on the West coast where I am headed. But there is no way to check, except to try scrolling the zoomed in map across the entire country from the East coast, and then Spin crashes after I get to Kansas. When I tried to leave feedback for Spin , the Contact Support page allowed only feedback regarding the scooters, and does not accept any feedback about Spin or service (denied without a valid scooter ID number). This passive aggressive posture towards users is a bummer. I’m turned off about using this service and I haven’t even seen one of the scooters in person yet. Update: the feedback attempt generated an email response, but it came from a noreply address… passive aggressive once again.

App locked my scooter after i clicked end ride but timer didn’t stop and said could not end ride, contact customer support. Tried reaching out to them numerous times to find out it took and additional 30 minutes to end the ride and they charged me for the full time. No one rides scooters for that long the battery wouldn’t even last 30 minutes, not to mention they forgot to adjust the time. After the fact they sent me and email saying I parked in a “wrong zone” when I didnt even ride the scooter on a street and parked it next to other parked scooters. I was with my friend who parked his scooter next to mine and he did not receive the same email. the email also stated that normally it would be a 25$ recollection free but they would “let it slide”.app is a total fraud out for people’s money with horrible customer service and slow scooters. If you’re looking for an app like this I would highly recommend bird as they have no bs parking rules, good customer support, scooters that actually go fast, and a reliable app. I hope others that see this do not get Spin so they don’t have to deal with the fraud I did.

I had a good experience with the scooter and app, but when I parked and attempted to take a picture of my parking job as Spin instructed, it got stuck on a loading screen. I tried to go back to the previous screen, but Spin wigged out on me and ended up failing to load the picture and charged me $5 for not uploading the picture. I went to the FAQ/help section to submit a report, but Spin would not let me select a location! Every time I tapped an option in the drop down bar, it would close the menu and leave the spot blank. I tried to submit a report for roughly 15 minutes, restarting Spin several times.
I called the support number and was on hold for another 10 minutes or so. I was finally prompted to leave a voicemail, which I did. It has been two weeks and I have not heard back from them. I will be disputing the charge through my credit card company if this isn’t resolved soon.
It’s a shame, because it was working so well for me until then! I would still recommend this to people, as nobody else I’ve talked to has had this issue. I’m pretty sure it’s not a common problem.

Scooter was very raggedy and Wobbly also unstable shimmer with a lot of shimmy this app Scooter The scooter is a nice ride it’s self but The this app app has a Lotta flowers and flowers in it it overcharges you for your scooter it turns the scooter off in the middle of your rental I have been over charge each time I rent the scooter the scooter is supposed to be $10 to ride until the battery dies without turning it off once you turn it off and the battery is not dead you cannot ride rad off a bed saying $10 if you turn it off you have to re-rent the scooter which is fine with me but if it’s $10 to ride until the battery dies why am I being charged 1650+ a dollar and some change for the school 3×. Times I have been charged for the scooter at a rental price of 1650 and a dollar and some change has been taking out of my account for the rental of the scooter when it should’ve only been a flat $10 also when you call the customer service number it’s always a recording Bryce sell them you get lucky and are able to talk to a live customer service person

I’ll start by saying I fully support anything that gets more people riding. That being said, after using the service for a month I finally called it quits after all three bikes in different locations I tried to use today were either “currently on a trip” or “in need of repair”, according to Spin .

Before this app I used my own bike, but for bouncing between buildings at my university I figured this app might be more streamlined than locking and unlocking my own bike with a U lock. In practice, I’ve found the experience to be extremely buggy, having to force close and open Spin again almost half the time (I have an iPhone X, so not an old phone issue).

In addition, I’ve had 2-3 trips continue after locking and parking the bike (true to their word, I wasn’t charged, but still stressful). After a month, I would venture to say that at least half the bikes in my city are in disrepair. I’ve opened at least a dozen support tickets this month... support has been prompt and I appreciate that, but I can’t justify spending money anymore on this service.

I have no idea how Spin has a 4.5 star average.

I’ve never used Spin without issue. The screen freezes and Spin begins my ride without telling me. It has too many buttons to press and has 10+ second lag times for the prompts at the end of the ride. Currently, my app has been frozen for over 10 minutes on the screen where I took a photo of my parked scooter. In the past, I’ve simply not been able to submit photos at all because of the slow prompt issues and essentially not realizing that more prompts are coming. Then Spin tells me I will be penalized. Customer service response emails seem canned and robotic, and don’t address all issues.

On the other hand, the scooters themselves are pretty great. They’re placed in locations where Bird and Lime scooters are not, and they make a cute droid noise when they’re activated. Throttles are positioned a little too low to get a solid, steady push with my thumb, but I have that problem with all of the scooter brands. I like the handlebar height and base width too.

Nothing compared to the pure joy I experienced scooting through the night life of the city. The exhilaration of whipping past pedestrians was a feeling like no other. At max my scooter reached speeds of 16 MPH, I was Usain Bolt. I’m not kidding when I say this was one hour of nonstop, continuous, constant, unrelenting fun.
Unfortunately Spin was trash. Slow, hard to navigate and ultimately did not allow me to end my ride. My anxiety soared as the timing meter continued to tick higher and higher and higher. Will I be able to Uber home after this? Do I have enough for a bus ticket? I found myself in the trenches of customer service. The phone number was buried deep within the folds of the gruesome, dark pages of their website. Ultimately I was put on hold and no one ever picked up.
I resorted to sending emails- which they responded to in 20 minutes promising a refund of the time I spent trying to park and end my journey.
While email was the most effective tool for ending my ride and getting a refund there were other scooter options that have better apps.

Unable to do two rides on one phone with Spin , have to use work or student email, clock and money starts running as soon as you hit submit... not when you get on the scooter and turn the go switch. There is no navigation on Spin , which makes no sense considering the scooters can and are left anywhere. The scooters are not given an exact location on Spin , we are meant to be on the lookout for them as we are driving whilst we have put in the directions for the cross streets to find them in the first place. The battery percentage is made clear on Spin before arrival which is nice, but if the scooters aren’t solar powered and can be left anywhere and there isn’t anyone policing them up on a daily and recharging them, then 🤷‍♀️. Also to have this many mis-steps for a company that is so established, the pricing at $1.00 to activate and then $0.29 a minute isn’t going to work...AT ALL!!!! Good concept...needs more work, also absolutely no advertising. Wouldn’t have known about this unless I happened to see a few people scooting by on a whim.

I get out of the metro station and I was looking to find a scooter to ride home never found any of Lyft and lime around so I found only Skip, I downloaded Spin and I tried to use it, the scooter started with the problem on Spin and I rode the scooter and was very slowly 5-7 mph, the battery was flashing then I arrived to home and Spin was messed up and the scooter never turned off, I parked in front of my house, so no one can steal it, and I am sure there is someone took it or steal it.
Btw you should buy the balance $5 to start riding the Skip Scooter, others Scooter providers are free signing up fees!!!
I will give them one another chance and I will edit this review after or I will keep it the same its depending on the service I get.
Sami