Bike Angels Community AMA 2023
UPDATE: This is thread is closed for new AMA questions. Feel free to add kudos to any unanswered questions! We’ll continue to monitor this thread, and of course the community is always open for membe...
Forum Discussion
Following up on the posts by RickyDee and Timmy re dead stations, a related issue I just encountered is when a station is not releasing bikes but it does somehow release one bike, but that bike doesn’t show up in the ride history, is not registered as being ridden. And then I waste an hour or so with customer service trying to get the points for that ride, even in this case proving that the bike had moved between stations. (Customer service saw the bike still at the pick-up station even though it was docked at the new drop off station. I even undocked and immediately redocked the bike at the new station, resulting in the bike registering that activity at the new station.)
I understand how that can happen technically, but I have recently found customer service (particularly in the chat) to be unresponsive with such issues when the problem originates with Citibike and I have to pay (or lose something) for what is not my doing.
Thank you.
If l find a station that is ‘acting up’ as you describe, I do the following:
If, as you say, bikes don’t release but then one all of a sudden does, I’ll wait, as the app will say, for 15 to 30 seconds, ‘Unlocking Bike…’
I’ll stay at the station until the app says, either:
‘Ride In Progress’ in which case l leave for a drop off station, or
’Bike Unavailable’ in which case the ride doesn’t register and I’ll just re-dock the bike and try to check it out again. That way you won’t waste time on a ride that the system thinks never started.
I’ll only put in the extra time and effort if the point value is large, which it often is with wonky stations.
YES! AND...you can no longer contact the 800 number through Skype, so I spent an hour and a half on the phone yesterday after my Visa card was charged more than $85 because when I notice (after an unrecorded 18 point ride) that the station at 47th and 10th was not registering rides. I released the bike and then immediately redocked it. I spent a substantial amount of time contacting customer service to end that ride. Then the station connected briefly again, and the ride ended. I continued to move bikes from that station. Two days later I noticed that I was charged for not returning that bike. They also have been using reward points without informing me...and at the same time, charging my Visa card despite three years worth of remaining reward points. I do not even bother to ask for the missing points anymore because it is too time consuming. The individuals on the 800 number are in some other country. They are very polite, but do not listen and keep repeating themselves. Plus, they claim they are seeing no points in my account or that they have expired...even though there is no expiration date and I had points awarded in May and June that are still available.
Also...I was in CVS a day or two after that after completing 13 rides when suddenly my points reverted from the 3X screen back to single points. The csr in the chat said I had not docked properly, but there were no open rides. When I took a new ride to earn back the 3X points, it did award me the 3X (9 points), so there is a bug in the system. There has also been a bug for several months where 3 points and 6 points switch when you enlarge or reduce the screen size to view street addresses, so you have to specifically choose a station to determine what it really represents. This bug appeared after they made a change with the 3X renewal period several months ago (midnight versus 24 hours).
