Forest Bewertungen 

I've given Forest SO many chances over the years but recently went over to Lime after I finally gave up. I took a ride, ended the ride, received the receipt for the ride I took... But they took a payment for a completely different amount. And yes, it was more. I've emailed multiple times, received no response beyond the automated email saying a ticket had been created and its been over 2 months. What started as an awesome company has gone to absolute thieving rubbish.

On 15th of July i had 10 minute ride with 77 minutes on my account. Upon arriving to the parking spot, i locked the bike via app but noticed it did not get deactivated. There were people around complaining about IT outage - I thought i got lucky. Nevertheless i took a picture as a proof. Well, surprise surprise, next morning I found out not only my 77 minutes were gone, I was charged £238.92 for like 12 hours of "riding" which I of course didnt do. I tried live chat, phone and even email - no response... Avoid this company, they scam the money straight out of your bank account and there is no possibility of contacting them... Horrible experience, horrible customer service. I intend to initiate chargeback on my card and submit a complaint to Westminster council. Suggest everyone else do so too so this horrible company lose their license and other people dont have to experience this..

Left a bad review initially but they reached out and helped me with my problem. Thanks Hollie.

Good customer service (when you can get through) and the bikes are good as well.

Literally the worst hire bike scheme. Everytime I have used them they have over charged, last two rides were £25 and £35 respectively. They won't answer calls, don't respond to emails and you have to go around the houses on chat via other options as they refuse to discuss billing.

Each time they immediately refund as they know the charges are dodgy. Not worth the hassle - use other services over these guys.

I have requested a refund for an incorrect double charge. I’ve reached out once via email and 3 times via live chat. I’ve still had no response in over 2 weeks

Absolutely shocking experience. App is glitchy, you cant escape the ads even after the allotted time and then you stand around like a lemon waiting for the bike to beep and the ride to end. On wednesday 15th July they charged me £85 and claimed i didnt end the ride which i absolutely did... they charged me for a 234 minute ride! Absolutely outrageous behaviour. i have not even had an acknowledgment of my complaint email to customer service.

I have an active Cycle to Work subscription with Forest. Despite paying £70/month, the app is making me pay for every ride the unlock fee + minutes. I still have over 1700 minutes left for this month on my subscription, but I keep paying every minute I use.
I sent 5+ emails to the customer service along with uncountable calls and live chat enquires, but they had the brilliant idea of replacing all agents with AI, which is unable to solve the problem. In 3 days, I was unable to connect with anyone. Totally unacceptable.
Forest used to be a good app, now they have massively increased the prices and reduced the quality. Don’t use this app unless you want to be scammed, I’d suggest using Voi or Lime that offer a much better service

On the 15th of July the App wasn't able to stop my bike. It usually stops the bikes after 10min if not used, but it was still running hrs later. It ended up charging me 103£ but thankfully the charge didn't go through. They have used all my remaining minutes that I didn't use and now chasing me to pay that amount! I'm trying to chat with someone but their chat box is not working. Phone number is also out of service.
I've emailed but no one is replying.
I'm locked in the App. I could not use the bike for the past 2 days. How do I reach them to fix my wrong charges and given back the minutes I didn't use?? Never had this problems with Lime.

Just terrible!!! Took photo, was in proper bike area and got charged£34 as the ride didn’t close! Can’t get in touch with anyone! This company needs to get reported!

Phone support unavailable
Chat full and only AI
Huge delays on emails

Inaccurate bike unlocking and map full of bugs, waste of time and money

**★☆☆☆☆**

I'm extremely disappointed with my experience and, more importantly, with the lack of customer support when something goes seriously wrong.

On the evening of **15 July**, I tried to end my Forest bike ride, but the app failed with a **DioException / HTTP 429 ("Too Many Requests")** server error. Because the app couldn't process the end-of-ride request, the timer continued running in the background all night through no fault of my own.

The next morning, I woke up to a ride summary showing **more than 15 hours** and an attempted charge of **£312.85**. My account has since been blocked because of this incorrect balance, even though it was caused by a technical failure in Forest's own system.

What has been even more frustrating is trying to get help. I've emailed customer support with **timestamped screenshots** showing the server error, the continuously running timer, and the incorrect bill, but the issue remains unresolved. I also tried calling support, only to find the phone line unavailable, and the live chat was unavailable as well, leaving me with no way to get urgent assistance.

I'm simply asking for this obvious billing error to be reviewed manually, the incorrect charge removed, and my account restored. I hope someone at Forest escalates this quickly because no customer should be left responsible for charges caused by a system failure.

Forest Bike is a disgrace of a company. Their eco-friendly brand is fake, all they care about is making money. They hold their customers in complete contempt, ignoring legitimate complaints; my experience reflects the 80% of reviewers giving them 1 star on Trustpilot. Here's one more.

When trying to close a ride the app was inaccessible. Chat inaccessible. Calls unavailable. I was left no choice but to park the bike, in the same approved e-cycle bay I always use and get my train being charged all the while, with no recourse. I tried accessing the app continuously for 20 minutes and finally ended my ride after 40 minutes, submitting a photo from on my train. Miles from where I parked the bike.

The Forest Bikes system wasn't entirely down, as I received notification by email of my ride being put 'parking mode' and then notification that my trip had been 'ended automatically'. So this suggests that the customer-facing systems failed, yet Forest Bike continue to track and charge you in the background.

Without irony, one of email states that 'if you fail to end your ride, you may be fined.' So what happens when Forest Bike fail to maintain their app and offer any customer service ? The answer is simple - nothing. They just charge you and ignore complaints. What happened to their cuddly eco brand? Just fluff. They are just greedy.

Given they ignore all complaints - I emailed twice when trying to end my ride, then the following day submitted a ticket for incorrect charging and tried live chat/phone on multiple occasions, always out of service - I think users should be aware of other avenues.

TFL have been given powers to regulate e-bike companies and is now going through consultation, so I'll be emailing them about my woeful experience and encourage others to do the same. And if Forest Bikes refuses to treat their customers fairly, I think the companies that advertise on their app should be made aware of the toxic nature of the brand they are associating with.

Avoid Forest Bike at all costs. If something goes wrong with their app, which it will, you will get charged and they will ignore all of your concerns, while actively making it impossible to reach them.

In principle, e-biking is a great concept, but in London right now it is just the Wild West, and Forest Bike are the worst kind of Cowboys.

EDIT: As can be seen, the day this review was published Forest replied. Four days after that they refunded the full charge for the ride and the Bundle used to cover the ride, with 60mins of ride time as good will gesture. I'll leave it for other Forest users to decide whether this would have happened had I not shared my experience for others to see.

Booked a Forest bike and had an issue ending my ride due to an app malfunction. The app kept giving an error message when I tried to park in a valid area. I submitted a bug report with screenshots at the time and was charged an incorrect £26.

I have been told twice now, on 15 July and 16 July, that I would be connected to a human colleague to resolve this. Both times I only received automated replies and no human ever followed up. I sent a third firm email on 17 July and again got the same automated response.

I have now had to raise a chargeback with my bank because Forest support has not resolved this after multiple attempts. I would be happy to update this review if someone actually looks into my case and processes the refund.

Horrendous customer service. I was massively overcharged for a ride owing to an app glitch and have not been able to get hold of anyone or receive a refund.

Go for a 5 min ride and their app breaks doesn’t let you end the ride, charges you £100 and then doesn’t refund you with only AI responding to customer service.

I have used Forest bikes to commute 15 minutes to work for months. They only rolled out new bikes a couple months ago which was very much needed but many of the bikes are still broken and unsafe. They make noises, have flat tires and the seats will fall/twist unexpectedly while riding.

The customer service is probably the worst aspect. You can never get a hold of a human via the chat bot. Every time I have called they have an automatically message saying their call support is not operating. When you email you get slow responses.

The app is super glitchy. If you need to end a ride and the app doesn’t work it is your financial loss because the time keeps ticking and support explicitly says they do not promise reimbursement. They have outages semi frequently which means the app just won’t work. The location of bikes on the map is semi accurate.

My main issues are the customer service and the issues with the app.

I would give 1 star but the rolling out of new bikes was slightly redeeming and when you have no issues it is an enjoyable experience.

Update: after posting this review they got in touch and have issued a refund. There was definitely a bug with the app but otherwise the bikes themselves are much nicer than lime. I will try to use them again next time, hopefully with more success.

Original:
The app map broke leaving me stranded with no way to know where to park and terrible customer service.

First time using Forest and at first I was impressed with the app and how quick it was compared to lime. But as soon as they had my credit card I was ripped off and scammed.

I planned a ride I normally use with lime bikes. When I tried to park it said I couldn't park even though there were 50 other bikes there. Every time I moved to a new place, the app said I couldn't park there.

In the app the ride only cost £1.00, but my credit card has been charged 20x that amount. I was riding with my girlfriend and we both experienced the same issue. It would have been cheaper to get an Uber.

I'm furious and incredibly disappointed that at no point did the forest bike make it clear that we were leaving the service area. Then the app refused to direct me to a place I could park, even though there were 50 other bikes parked in the same spot. The app completely broke leaving me stranded with a price increasing.
The app made no mention of how much the 'charge' would be.

I phoned multiple times, tried live chat, and my partner has emailed. Every response was either automated or a generic request to email them again. Despite repeated attempts, no one has addressed the issue or provided a meaningful response.

I feel ripped off, scammed and disappointed.

ABSOLUTE WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE ON THE PLANET! PHONE LINES DEAD! NO CHAT AND NO EMAIL ANSWERS!!! I WAS CHARGED £25 for a RIDE. DO NOT USE!

Awful service! I left lime to try Forest bike, paid for the 500 minutes pack. After a bike issue the 500 minutes were taken and Forest Bike took another £80 from my bank account. I tried to call and the phones were turned off with an automatic message, the live chat says they are not receiving messages and I was ignored by email. Absolutely ridiculous and had to walk 8 miles to work due to this error!

App keep saying my account is blocked but i was never able to use the service….customer service is not working. Tel lines don’t work nor does the live chat. Definitely not a friendly new service in Richmond