Hacker News Reader

Comment by NickBusey | Hacker News Reader

Off topic, but I deleted the Lyft app last month after I rode one of their scooters home. Apparently, they have a geofenced area around downtown, and any ending of the ride outside of that area is considered "bad parking" and they will charge you a $50 fee. They put the fee on my receipt, along with a $50 credit, as a warning I guess.

The issue I have with this is that there are many "no go" areas downtown, like the pedestrian mall, and the scooter will simply stop working if you go into those areas. You have to manually push the scooter back out of the area before it will start working again. Great, perfect, fine, good, so then why did you let me drive it outside of the valid downtown area to begin with?

View on HN

I ran into something very similar in DC. They let me unlock a scooter that was in a 'no-go' zone and began billing me, however it wouldn't operate because I was in that zone. I ended up having to walk it over a mile to get it to function, while it was billing me the whole time.

So frustrating they even would let you unlock these in the first place. I'll never use it again.

Probably because the "no go zone" is time based? Here in Germany, cities are experimenting with all sorts of policies to try and combat the various issues (drunk partygoers, people throwing escooters into rivers or into bushes, ...).

Unless the OP logged on within <1 minute of the zone switching designation, then this is still an unethical business practice. They have the code to make the scooter not run. They just didn't apply that code so that the sale can't go through.

Where I live there is a high-speed road (45 mph speed limit, no sidewalks) going through a park. Lyft and Bird have both designated the entire park as a prohibited zone except for the road. The city has also designated the road a "cycling route" despite it not having bike lanes.

I found this out while trying to ride a scooter through the park. Google Maps directed me to take the road, which I was not thrilled about but seemed like a better idea than carrying the scooter through the prohibited zone. But then the fuzzy geofencing on the scooter thought I was in the park anyway and kept intermittently cutting off the scooter.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com