Bird — Ride Electric Reviews

by Mrs.Ruffcorn

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.

by Mhperez175

My fiancé and I both downloaded BirdRideElectric , 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.

by Pop Smokes Glasses

To start off, everything on BirdRideElectric 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 BirdRideElectric 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.

by Olwangadang

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..BirdRideElectric 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.

by Tjdp01

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.

by Shadow1627993

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.

by Dread2U

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). BirdRideElectric 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.

by Camacho.m

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.

by Deaf Facebooker

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.

by Ke6nG

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 BirdRideElectric told me my ride was canceled with no explanation. After looking at the map, I saw that BirdRideElectric somehow had transported me to the Gulf of Guinea just south of Nigeria. Why? Because if there's any amount of time where BirdRideElectric 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.

by Kismetqueen

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. BirdRideElectric 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 BirdRideElectric , 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 BirdRideElectric 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...

by Donthereal

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 BirdRideElectric 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.

by Kou_Loonies

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 BirdRideElectric 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 BirdRideElectric 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, BirdRideElectric 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.

by Hgtdsahbbbbbb

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 BirdRideElectric 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 BirdRideElectric 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.

by Angelmetal

I don’t enjoy the ride. Wherever it shows me there’s a scooter there isn’t. BirdRideElectric never works. My camera doesn’t work ONLY ON BIRD. I uninstalled BirdRideElectric 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 BirdRideElectric 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 BirdRideElectric. 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.

by Magne333

This is a review from a chargers perspective. If your downloading BirdRideElectric 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 BirdRideElectric 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.

by Pookie327

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.

by Vulpas

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 BirdRideElectric ). 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 BirdRideElectric 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.

by Absuwjwsush

This is a fun side gig, and I love riding the scooters. BirdRideElectric 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!

by Listen To This, Trust Me.

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.

by Of Monsters And Cats

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 BirdRideElectric . 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 BirdRideElectric . 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 BirdRideElectric , which makes Bird seem to require additional info for no discernible reason.

by Z2m3^4

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 BirdRideElectric as soon as I use up my credit and going with lime who only shows the $.15 a min.

by The-calm-soul

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 BirdRideElectric 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.

by Truths96

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.

by HarpMeister

I see a lot of people are actually reviewing the service and not just BirdRideElectric . So, I will do the same. BirdRideElectric 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 BirdRideElectric , I find myself standing in front of a locked garage or at
Someone’s van with 3 or 4 scooters inside. I