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posted by chromas on Wednesday May 23 2018, @01:32PM   Printer-friendly
from the he-terk-my-bird! dept.

Electric Scooter Charger Culture Is Out of Control (archive)

Bird is a scooter-sharing company that launched in 2017 and has been dubbed the "Uber of scooters." Its goal is to alleviate congestion and allow people an easy way to travel quickly for short distances of just a few miles. Riders can locate and unlock scooters using the company's smartphone app, and after paying the $1 unlocking fee are charged 15 cents per minute during use.

Birds are available in a growing number of American cities including Austin, Texas; Nashville, Tennessee; Los Angeles; San Francisco; Scottsdale, Arizona; Washington D.C.; and Atlanta. The scooters are all battery-powered and dockless, so they can be picked up or dropped off anywhere. But when night falls, what most riders don't realize is that the scooters themselves are charged by a contract workforce. These people are known as "Bird hunters" or "chargers," and they're growing exponentially in number.

[...] Hoarding in particular has become a problem in these crowded markets. Bird and other companies will pay a $20 reward for missing scooters, so some chargers simply keep the scooters in their garage until they're reported missing by riders or the bounty goes up to $20, then claim the finder's fees. Bird theoretically polices this behavior, and Brandon says he's gotten a warning call from the company for hoarding, but the bad behavior has become commonplace and punishment is unevenly enforced.

Each scooter can also only be captured by one charger. In saturated markets, the race to quickly grab as many scooters as possible is fierce. "One time I pulled up to pick up a scooter, I got there maybe 10 seconds before the other guy did," said one charger in San Diego. "He started yelling at me. He picked up a Bird scooter and started beating my car. I got the hell out of there."

[...] As the charging community grows, some Bird hunters have sought to reduce their competition in nefarious ways. Several Facebook groups for chargers in different cities have cropped up. For one of them, in order to join, you're asked to share a screenshot of your settings screen containing your login name, telephone number, and email. Rogue Bird hunters attempt to use this information to shut down your account or charge under your name with updated billing information.


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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday May 23 2018, @02:34PM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 23 2018, @02:34PM (#683117) Journal

    when the light rail is crowded everybody wants to disembowel all the cyclists.

    Scooters are much much smaller than bikes.

    Heh, electric scooters are sooo much better when the battery catches fire on a busy commute time. Nobody left to disembowel, very few left able to perform the act.

    (grin)

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