Wheels | Private Rentals Reviews

by Medranoash

I was excited to try this company just like many others. Unfortunately there’s not enough reviews when it comes to the customer service of this company. First off the battery on their bikes is terrible. The battery will last you about 1 hour if you’re lucky. They then want to charge you a fee to replace the bike for another one which is just as bad as the first one. My bike was unfortunately stolen and well this company doesn’t even have a phone number you can reach only email.... so be ready to get an answer after three days or more. I waited on the cops that night and they basically told me that I needed to get the value of the bike from the company in order for me to be able to make a police report. The company after responding 5 days later completely dismissed that. They instead sent me the location of where the bike was at and told me to go retrieve it. They wanted me to put my life at risk to get this rental back. The location was at a projects.... what was I suppose to do? Knock on every apartment till I found the bike? The company as a whole are callous towards their customers. I don’t want anyone else going through the experience I went through which is why I’m speaking up. Thank you for reading.

by Pastramiiii

I download WheelsPrivateRentals and starting riding one of the “bikes” in the border of Culver City and Santa Monica. It was not fun (slow and uncomfortable) but I needed to get somewhere in Santa Monica so I kept riding for maybe 2 or 3 miles. The battery of the thing died on the way so I decided to just park it with some Bird scooter nearby. EXCEPT on WheelsPrivateRentals it said I was in a “restricted area” and was not allowed to park in the area (Santa Monica). In order to end the ride and stop being charged and I had to drag the heavy thing for almost 2 miles back to Culver City (took me more than 30 minutes) and at the end I was charged for my “time” with the bike. One star is too many, don’t download, this it is not worth it and I’ll make sure to tell all my friends this is terrible and there are way better options out there

by Elizabethe00

I wish I could give this 0 stars. Please don’t end up like my boyfriend and I did, save your time and money. 1. WheelsPrivateRentals doesn’t tell you when you’re in a red zone, instead- it just casually shuts the bike down, causing you to have no other choice but to WALK IT, out of the red zone that continues to add more red zones as you walk out of it. OH and let me add, you HAVE to remove it from the zone in order to park it and IT CHARGES YOU THE WHOLE TIME. 2. THEY HAVE NO CUSTOMER SERVICE TEAM. I called the number on the wheels and they told me they would call me back 3 times I called and never did. I know it looks like fun, but please just use the electronic scooters available, save your money and don’t let this company scam you.

by Uniontraveller

I downloaded this to try to make a few bucks on the side picking up bikes and driving them to hubs. Of about 12 spots on the map I visited, only 2 had actual bikes I could find to pick up. The other 10 were either nowhere to be found, or likely in someone’s yard or garage. Not Wheels’ fault, but what was definitely their fault was that WheelsPrivateRentals WOULDNT PAY ME when it came time to drop off the bike. It said I was in the wrong place (I wasn’t) and that it couldn’t complete payout. Really??? AFTER I do the work for you, WheelsPrivateRentals breaks? Also I couldn’t upload more than one picture into my complaint. If this company’s model depends on the bikes being picked up and moved around by transporters, they’re gonna have to do a lot better.

by Mala Bhattacharya

I have attempted to use Wheels twice without success. Both times, there was something wrong with the bikes and I could not ride them. When I tried to end the rides, I was unable to because I was constantly getting a message that said I was in a no parking zone. Even if I moved the scooter to the correct zone, I still got this message. I finally let turned off the bike and left it. It ended up timing out my ride and charging me both times. I have yet to receive refunds. There is very little help when you are actually on a ride. Very hard to get in touch with anyone at the company. This is a sham and I have no doubt that they will go under, especially given the amount of competition they have. Please go away, Wheels!

by Porter W.

I have given wheels a fair shot I have had about 10 very terrible experiences in one day. First off some of the bikes did not work at all, so I was charged an activation fee for a vehicle that didn’t work, this happened more than once. Second off, I had great service and WheelsPrivateRentals would bug out like crazy everytime I tried to end it so I would spend 5+ minutes restarting WheelsPrivateRentals to try and end the ride. Third, the customer service did not make any attempt to help when contacted there was many excuses and long hold periods. Overall unreliable, shady, and poor quality aswell as service. As a person who uses many forms of public transport I recommend Lime, Link, or Spin but Wheels falls far below the standards of ride, app experience, and support.

by Status1515

Was ridding the bike for 5 minutes to get to my car and then spent 25 minutes trying to end my ride but WheelsPrivateRentals claimed it was a no parking zone, when I did move to another location it still didn’t end my ride because it said there was a no parking zone but it had all of West Hollywood highlighted as a no parking zone and that’s where I found the wheels. I have used wheels many times in this area and location and never had an issue until today. Got charged for a 31 minute ride. I called the 888 number while this was going on and got no response. There really needs to be a better way to contact for help and WheelsPrivateRentals needs to have more features so if things like this happen you can still end the ride and not continuously get charged just because it won’t end the ride.

by Cut It Out Ig

App is buggy. Takes forever to end a ride. And i got on one bike and it died out of no where before i could even take off. WheelsPrivateRentals wanted me to turn bike on but I couldn’t. So there was an option to click “cant ride bike” i clicked it and it ended the ride. When i went to get on another bike it tells me “unable to ride please end current ride” i was sitting out side in the dark for 30 mins trying to call customer service and it just ask me to leave a voice mail and email. The “Help” menu doesn’t help. I see why Lime and bird are so successful plus wheels charged me $3.29 just to ride for a few seconds because the bike wheels where messed up. This company is a joke

by Poiano92121

I would say that the customer service is horrendous but that would imply that they have customer service. They don’t. There is absolutely no way you can call when you have a problem and you have to wait for email exchanges from somebody if you’re lucky to get a response at all. When I went to the shop in San Diego to pick up the bike, there was no obvious storefront no door to knock on and despite having filled out the arrival form, no one showed up for about 20 minutes to greet me and hand me the bike. Of course I couldn’t call anybody to find out what was going on. Two days before my rental ended, they locked me out so I couldn’t use it anymore and sent a guy to come pick it up on the wrong day. The guy picked it up was nice enough. Don’t use this company for a monthly rental. You’ll be very sorry you did.

by PlayNpoop

Contact: “Better Business Bureau Scam Tracker”
Update: Customer service “Felicia” responds 2 days after I called for support while the bike was frozen and miles away! Great job of following up while customers are in need of help! WARNING - This is a Scam operation with a Fake customer service rep! DO NOT BE LEFT STRANDED — - - - - - - - - At first it was working but then all of a sudden it locked up and I couldn’t move it and I was dragging it until I could finally connect to their extremely rude “Answering service” who was so nasty and yelled at me saying there is “NO LOCATION FOR HONOLULU” yet I am using it in Honolulu and regret it. While I’m on the line with this rude person, I am being charged and they charged me multiple times then credited it then multiple times and credited it. But never responded or refunded the time that they scammed me while the bike was locked up and frozen inexplicably. Do Not Use because you could be miles away from where they will force you to park and you’ll have to drag it back while being charged! Pure scam

by Jakarai Ahmed

I Was ridding the bike for 7 minutes to get to my work and then spent 19 minutes trying to end my ride but WheelsPrivateRentals claimed it was a no parking zone, when I did move to another location it still didn't end my ride because it said there was a no parking zone but it had all of West Hollywood highlighted as a no parking zone and that's where I found the wheels. I have used wheels few times times in this area and location and all the time I had an issue to unlock and finish but today had different experience, Got charged for 26 minute ride. They really needs to be a better way to contact for help and WheelsPrivateRentals needs to have more features/improvement so if things like this happen you can still end the ride and not continuously get charged just because it won't end the ride. I am gonna uninstall WheelsPrivateRentals and strongly recommend to don’t use it.

by DarthMcChicken

Only works maybe once every 3 days. The rest of the time there are no bikes available in the city according to WheelsPrivateRentals . If you do find one and try to unlock it WheelsPrivateRentals will come back with something about the bike being offline. They also turn off all bikes after 10 pm as they are always offline, city wide, at 10 sharp. This is super inconvenient if you are just trying to get home fast after work. I have written customer service twice and only ever got the automated response. Fun idea if it worked. Update I have now been locked out of my account because WheelsPrivateRentals crashed during a ride and I was unable to to take a picture. I am not being charged a fee for this and unable to ride until I go through EVERY bike in Dallas track down this random one bike and take a picture. Even though it was their error that caused it. I have had to call my bank for new cards because of them. DO NOT DOWNLOAD

by Flash Gordon Nyc

I rented one of these things on a monthly basis and what they gave me was a piece of crap that had 2100 miles on it and has been beat to death…prior to my taking possession of this heap it had obviously been crashed, the brakes don’t work well…looks like it has been run over…the battery won’t hold a charge the wheels don't hold air…I’ve called customer service every single day since I took possession I have heard back from them that once I have written a review on their end of ride check out list and it has not been good at all not once… I’ve heard nothing back absolutely nothing…This has been a colossal waste of time and money it has been so frustrating that I wish that I could just throw the thing in the garbage but that can’t happen… What can happen is me going to the pick up location tomorrow and politely asking for a new on they can forget my renewing any contract whatsoever and that I will review them every single chance I get…oh and a report to the BBB…stay away from this company, it is awful…

by Neckname559

Not what I expected at all, first of you can’t even enjoy them properly at all. Secondly it keeps count of your minutes which makes it even worst , price wasn’t bad on the last attempt on a so called easy to use System. I had called the number from the bank statement which has changed recently, find it odd how they changed that most likely due to high volume complaints. WheelsPrivateRentals charged me a hidden fee of unlocking WheelsPrivateRentals plus the first two attempt it didn’t want to turn on, yet have heard back from them to take off the charge. Next time I’ll support a local bike shop instead of going this easy route .. sadly.

by Davisfromaustin

There were about ten bikes lined up down the block from my downtown Austin apartment. I figured they must all have just been charged and dropped off… wrong. We activated 5 or 6 bikes to find a second bike that had close to half a charge.
Even with two bars of battery, once you get going the charge drops way down. The bikes barely had enough power to make it over a gentle hill. After two blocks one of he bikes stoped working, so we found another. After a mile and a half, the replacement bike stopped working. That left my Partner on foot while I went looking for another replacement. None were to be found, so we decided to give up.
I parked my bike and swiped to end the ride, but WheelsPrivateRentals froze, it took me about three minutes to get WheelsPrivateRentals to end the ride.
WheelsPrivateRentals clocked 19 minutes and a distance of 3 plus miles for $8. In fact I had actually traveled 1.5, ridden under 10 minutes, and wasted 8 minutes on battery and software issues. I’ll stick with a scooter next time. Faster, more reliable, more fun and less frustration. Just my first and last experience with wheels.

by Miaacom

I wish that WheelsPrivateRentals has an option to have a group ride, so that we could all ride the bike, but it was very easy to start and bike and we didn’t have any troubles with it stopping or anything, but for a minute I couldn’t stop the ride so I had to close WheelsPrivateRentals and restart it, but when I didn’t that the ride was able to stop. But I suggest they add an option to have a group ride like lime scooters have.

by Snapel12345

Ok so WheelsPrivateRentals is great and the vehicle is great... but I must advise you that you really want to have safety cause the first time I fell off with out anything to protect me and scraped up my right knee and hands pretty bad soo you would want gloves, knee pads, and a helmet and you should anyways cause WheelsPrivateRentals gives you a ton of warnings I didn’t cause I live in Missouri and we don’t have any here plus I’m just here for vacation and I have no safety equipment. So if you don’t have any safety equipment you should ride one of the scooters but I you do I diffidently recommend it, it’s really fun

by RX60florida

A group of us took a trip to Venice for the weekend where we noticed the Wheels bikes everywhere we went.
Many people were riding the bikes around the area and it looked like they were having such a good time that we had to try it for ourselves.
After a little bit of shopping and eating around we decided to give them a try. We were all able to get signed in and begin riding within less than 20 seconds.
The experience was great and felt very safe. We rode the bikes through the Venice boardwalk which has a bike lane and the view was breathtaking in the evening which was made even more enjoyable by being able to ride Wheels.
For anyone looking to try these bikes I would highly recommend them. They feel very safe and are a lot of fun!

by Rick96744

We went to Seattle from Hawaii for a well deserved vacation! My hubby has a bad back so walking long distance was out of the question.. I was afraid that this vacation would be a bust but because your Wheels was there all around the down town area, it made it so much easier and a blast!! We had so much fun on them that my hubby is looking into purchasing two for us.. There were some that ran perfectly and done that needed some maintenance bug all and all our experience on Wheels was amazing!! Would really like to look into investing in this project..

by Kben9891

Was visiting family in SD and stumbled upon Wheels nearby my sisters place and decided to give it a try. Loved the speed and control I had throughout the ride! I even convinced my 62 year old mom to give it a shot and she had a blast. At one point I had the whole family of seven on them with our music playing through the bike! I can definitely see how these could be used to commute in a dense place like downtown SD.

Compared to the competition I can’t see how these won’t catch on (or already are! Saw so many people on them throughout the couple days I was in town). Can’t wait for them to be in my town

by BernieForever

Apps won’t allow you to delete your credit card information, so I added a card I am planning to cancel soon and opened a support case to delete my card I am keeping. Customer support came back and told me my account is retired. When I submitted screenshots proving that I actually was able to do 2 steps authentication and have 2 credit cards in their system they came back claiming that the newly added Credit Card is flagged as fraudulent and they cannot execute my request to delete the credit card I am trying to protect against such crappy apps as Wheels one is. Really scary:-( Stay away from this service!!!

by Petomacc

I work in downtown Cleveland and came outside of work tonight and there was a wheels bike parked outside of my office. Downloaded WheelsPrivateRentals added my card and had to ride 5 blocks over to meet my husband who was stuck in traffic. (Go Browns) I jump on it’s working great and I’m having fun. Within 1 minute it stopped working so I hit the power button on my app. Tells me I’m in a safety zone. Long story short it took me 15 minutes to kick push this bike to a safe place to park. I feel like I was totally ripped off. Make sure when u get on u are aware of the location or the bike will stop working in no drive zones. I paid five dollars to freeze in 36 degree weather to push the scooter like a skateboard for 15 minutes..... not happy at all...

by (: Kkkarchamzie.

We were honestly super excited about these new scooters..... Until my boyfriend and I were both overcharged for rides that we were unable to end because WheelsPrivateRentals was so glitchy. I was charged $8 for a ride I didn’t go on and my boyfriend was charged $53!! We reached out to the support team MULTIPLE TIMES via email with absolutely no response. We are continuously in loops of the auto responses and someone saying they’ll “forward it to their support team.” PLEASE give us our money back. It’s been almost a month and such a headache.

I understand it’s a start up and they probably have a small team but this should be top priority. You can’t just take people’s money with no support team or willingness to help.

by Et_hyphy

They had the free ride promotion and I tried to unlock a bike and it wouldn’t let me because apparently it said my card information is incorrect or not available it didn’t let me use the bike so I have an additional phone from the government hopefully they have another free ride promotion because free rides are the best especially when you use to riding the bike all the time and have no vehicle I can’t drive legally so this helps me feel relief that I don’t need my car to be happy 😊 I really would like to buy a electric bike or scooter in the future to zip on the sidewalk and it’s a lot safer than automobiles lol 😂 please keep it on when free rides I’ll change my review as soon as it works for me :)

by Scottlarox

At first it was fine I had no issue finding abandoned wheels at locations it showed but then I did not receive payment and I did at least 18-20 bikes dropped off at hubs . Then I was dipped from the employment so it seemed as though u when u make an actual grab and take to a hub u won’t get the amount said rather they kick u off WheelsPrivateRentals being unable to become a transporter . West Hollywood no longer allows this stupid company in there city cuz of certain reasons including this one . last but not least why in the world would the company clog the charger port which is beyond stupid because ppl use there phone to start riding so if a person has a phone about to die and wants to rent a wheels and can’t charge his or her phone then what other then losing a client because of the clogged charger truly stupid . I’m never going to use this bs again the company is crap the bikes are always damaged and they are littered everywhere . Good @&$?!#% Bye!!!!!

by Prof Burkz

Let me start off by saying I ride birds/limes/jumps/lyfts on a regular basis. I recently saw a friend riding these so was interested to try it out. I am extremely disappointed that these bikes have made it too the streets. Instead of having a lever as throttle, like they should the throttle is on the right handle bar. This makes using the back brake extremely dangerous as it’s incredibly challenging to grip the brake without accelerating more. This leaves many to use the left front brake. The fact that there is no necessity to push yourself a bit before throttling causes for occasional flipping over of the bike when waiting at a traffic light should your hand accidentally roll the grip, throttle. The throttle is extremely frustrating to use. If a rider wants to “cruise” it is extremely inconvenient to just twist the throttle from a regular parallel with the ground hand position. This leaves the rider with grabbing the throttle from a hand position that is tiled forward with further restricts the use of the back brake in a short notice situation. Additionally, the horn is a button which has a considerable delay which makes it much less useful than the traditional spring bell. None of the issues described and many more are seen with traditional upright scooters. Congratulations Wheels on creating satans cycle!

by TheCowOfNow

I recently too a wheels to ride to dinner to avoid my car today.

The bike it myself was fine for the most part , brakes were pretty worn down but in LA it’s not like you’re going 50.

The issue arose when I got to my destination and told that I was in a no parking zone

This is perfectly reasonable except that WheelsPrivateRentals doesn’t show you where any nearby parking zones are so instead of ending my ride within let’s say five minutes of me looking for a place to park it cost me another 15 minutes of wandering around hoping to find a parking zone and ultimately I had to uninstall WheelsPrivateRentals and I hope that I don’t get charged as the ride was never truly ended

I understand that a lot of parts of Los Angeles don’t allow these types of machines and that’s fine but as a casual user I don’t exactly know the hardlines where Beverly Hills starts and ends

The fact that WheelsPrivateRentals doesn’t point you in a direction to facilitate you ending it right it’s completely ridiculous

by JonnyAhron

Honestly, the dollar should be imposed on a minimum minute usage basis on the back-end. Think about it...if my bike runs out of juice or if my trip is longer than most, I have to pay that fee again and again!? What if your bike just freezes, I have to eat that fee!? And what, I’m gonna really chase you down for a single one dollar issue?! You guys are smart but let the people eat CAKE! !! CHARGE THE ONE DOLLAR SAUSAGE FEE ON THE BACK END IF CUSTOMERS DO NOT USE THE BIKES FOR A MINIMUM OF YOUR TOTAL COST @ ur BREAK EVEN POINT. just sayin...until then, 4-stars. I am deliberately trying to not pull off two stars for this issue. Ok. Enjoy. The bike is pretty darn fun guys and it’s much faster then those cheapie little scooters that break your hands from hitting Los Angeles potholes with concrete tires. You know what I’m talking about! And you guys want to level up with the cheapie scooter company’s and charge the EXACT SAME FEE FROM FRONT TO BACK!? Cmon be original!

by Pixellava

Just went from downtown San Diego to Liberty Station along the waterfront and my face hurts from smiling😆. Best $10 I’ve spent in a long time. The bike was clean, charged up and in excellent condition. I brought wet wipes to clean the grips but they weren’t needed (Birds always need wet wipes). It was super easy to unlock, felt very solid and safe and ... it was SO FUN to ride! Zipping silently along San Diego Bay in the warm sunshine with the breeze on my face and palm trees swaying, all I need is a margarita now! Freakin’ awesome. I want to buy one now. 🌈🚲✊🏼