Contact Shell Recharge Support

Despite network, app and stations promising and claiming 24 hr support, this is completely false. Instead you only have CS reps who can’t do anything more than remotely restarting stations, and giving absurd terrible advice like calling tow trucks via electric car roadside assistance! Electric car got held hostage by a bad faulty station that did not release current to allow the lock to disengage; since it was just after business hours on a Friday, repeated calls were useless since they could not get an actual technician to respond and they talked about waiting until Monday! Only after telling them that the broken trickle charge could trigger a battery explosion if left for that many days did finally someone get dispatched— though they didn’t even know nor had contact with the person since they claimed it was only going to be fixed hours later at the end of day but traveling back to my abandoned car showed someone did reset and manually shut down the power sometime earlier after I reached out to Seattle City Light directly (which Greenlots refused to provide). Complained to Seattle City Light about this experience and Greenlots lies already.

Let alone the poor usability of the app (in 2022!), the system is just … broken. Follow the prompts on the console? Well no, that just leads to frustration: plug in, then use the app to pay. Download the app, finally set it up, then: charger is offline - except the console shows the opposite, and has locked the hose to the car. Manage to reboot the console (secure! gives one great confidence, no?), unlock the hose and remove it. Go to app, select the location (again), but oh, there’s no payment. Mind you, no option to enter payment, you need to go to settings and find it, and then enter completely manually. No option to use apple or Google pay or Paypal - and with the crappy security in the app, I don’t feel any confidence that my credit card details are safe. Go and search for the charging station again (because why would the app remember this, after all, it was the previous action…), select the location and put through payment. Nothing shows on the app. Plug the hose in anyway. Restart the app, search again blah blah blah, retry and your payment is in there. Try to initiate charging, can’t do it. Start the whole fricken process from scratch, and finally you can start charging. 12 minutes. 12 MINUTES. That’s how long it took. Using Chargepoint or any of the others, even including app download and setup, you’re charging within 5 (max).

I stopped at a location that showed up as “active” on the map, but when I pulled up and plugged my car in it kept showing a “failed charged attempt”. I called the customer service number on the machine, the lady helping me was very sweet, and after multiple attempts it still wouldn’t work. She said that there must be a connectivity issue or the terminal isn’t working… Well, then don’t mark it as active?! Luckily, I was still at 50% but the freezing weather will eat that battery life up in a pinch. Thankfully, I found a ChargePoint station 20 minutes away. They never fail to accept a charge at their stations and will continue to get my support. Please fix you bum machine before someone is seriously stranded at one of your terminals and all they will from your support line is a “I’m sorry - I can’t help you… Have a great day!”. Unbelievable.