Beryl レビュー 

Oh Beryl, what a fickle mistress you are. The idea of renting e-bikes at convenient locations is great for many reasons - environmental, ease of commute, a fun form of exercise and so on. Beryl have managed to take this fantastic concept and have ruined it, creating instead a service that is not fit for purpose.

Let’s get into why Beryl is so awful;

First of all, it’s not cheap. This is forgivable when you consider the cost of good quality e-bikes and the associated structure of maintaining their service. But the cost quite quickly becomes a barrier when you don’t actually receive the service you’re paying for. In order for biking to be the preferred choice, the cost needs to be competitive against other options such as driving or the bus and it simply isn’t. Bear in mind that you preload your minutes. So you could spend say £15 on 100 minutes and then not be able to actually ride a bike because of technical problems, well then they have your £15 which may mean you now don’t have money for an alternative solution.

Secondly the quality of the bikes can be questionable at best. I understand that technicians go to the bikes for charging and maintenance but at least where I live in Devon it feels like the bikes are constantly in a state of disrepair or are simply straight-up broken. Last night one of the bikes had the charming word ‘r*pe’ spray-painted onto it - I know that’s not Beryl’s fault, but better maintenance is needed. Often, the bikes can’t or won’t lock or unlock and herein lies many of the problems. It’s the functionality of the bikes that makes this company truly awful because not only do you have the frustration of dealing with a broken product, you then have to deal with their totally incompetent customer service.

Which leads me to point three - their laughable attempt at customer care. They have an in-app chat function that in theory is on hand to deal with issues. Of course sometimes problems are going to occur especially with a product that lives outside, is mechanical in nature and is also at the mercy and whim of the general public. It’s to be expected that sometimes the bikes won’t work - I think that’s pretty obvious. But Beryl don’t seem to actually realise this. For example, the way it works is you unlock the bike digitally with their app on your phone. You then must manually unlock the bike with the physical lock on the bike itself - which you cannot do until you have unlocked it digitally first. That all makes sense. The issue is, you can achieve one of these steps and then fall foul of the other. Last night for example I was with my family and we all wanted to enjoy a bike ride. So we located a bay with enough bikes for us all (not an easy feat to find 4 bikes in one place but that’s another issue), and one-by-one we unlocked our bikes. I unlocked mine digitally, but then the physical lock wouldn’t budge. The app of course provides help for this - which is essentially ‘if your bike won’t unlock, it’s because you’re doing it wrong so just try again’. I’m sure user error is definitely something that happens and it’s fair to suggest retrying, however once you’ve established that it’s definitely not user error and it’s simply that the bike itself is physically broken, you’re now stuck. Because the limit of the support you’re given is ‘just try again’. When trying again doesn’t work - what happens then? Well, what happens is you can’t end your ride because they have prevented you from digitally relocking the bike until you have physically relocked it. Except you can’t lock it because it’s already locked. So your app just keeps ticking away, charging you for a bike that you can’t use. The best part of this is because you can only have one active ride at any one time, you then can’t even get another bike. So, for my family last night, they all spent minutes not riding bikes whilst I tried to unlock my bike, for over 15 minutes. We all paid lots of money to *not* ride any bikes. The real frustration here is that capable support should be able to override the digital issue - I know they can’t fix the broken bike there and then but they should surely have the facilities to reset the digital method so users can at least try a different bike?

I’d love to say that last night was the only issue I’ve had but I have used Beryl bikes for a year now and I’d say my success rate is about 50%. Half the time there is some awful and irritating problem. I’ve been stranded alone at night before with no transport because I’ve not been able to lock or unlock a bike or because the app thinks I’m riding when I’m not. Beryl’s response to me was that they don’t guarantee their service. Basically, it’s there and you might be able to use or or you might not, you shouldn’t rely on it. The fact their customer support is only during the day too is unbelievable when they offer a 24 hour service.

Simply terrible.

Nothing short of awful

Bikes do not unlock half of the time. Today when commuting the bike would not unlock. Only second did. Coming back, by the station 4 out of 9 bikes would not unlock.Then one was unlocked after last attempt. Get on the bike and the chain is jumping, the gears wont change.

Get to the bay to park it, the bike says its out of the bay even when its clearly within the bay. I attempt to end my ride - "Something went wrong". After trying everything and giving up I contact support only ofcourse for it tobe 5 mins out of hours... So I took the pictures of the bike locked clearly in bay without being able to end my ride. The ride is still ticking...

I have given up on Beryl , have tried it in multiple places and each time its some kind of a hassle, from brakes not working to unlocking/locking issues. Today curiosity prompted me to give it a try again and I regret it. Deleting this app forever, closing my account and forgetting it ever existed

The bikes in Leeds are in a poor state of repair - dangerous faults such as failed brakes and flat tyres, and faults that make them unrideable such as broken electric assist. The locking and unlocking is constantly broken, and the app is awful - it will frequently claim that you're out of bay, or that "something went wrong" when locking the bike.

The customer service used to be excellent, and would always refund when there was a failure, but presumably because every other ride is now ending in failure and they are issuing too many refunds, they are charging "out of bay" fees for people who have had to abandon rides due to failed bikes.

I've had to close my account - I hope a better operator like Lime comes into Leeds at some point and ends the monopoly of the rubbish Beryl Bikes.

I use and rely on this service every day for my commute into London. The customer service team is always friendly and prompt with their response, and are happy to reimburse lost minutes due to technical difficulties

Have been using Beryl for years. In the last year or so the prices have gone up but the service has gone massively downhill. Poorly maintained bikes have led to dangerous situations where breaks or gears fail mid journey. You are lucky if you find a half functioning one or have to change rides multiple times just to find something useable. Wont be relying on them anymore.

Ana helped me with a refund on an accidental purchase, it was very hassle free and quick, I really appreciate the help. So rare for companies/representatives to do this nowadays!

The issue got resolved with no hassle and delays

Very kind and quick highly recommend and solved issue

Really fast resolution of an issue I had on the billing front. Excellent customer service.

Ending ride problem on a newer type electric bike without manual locking. Couldn’t end the ride myself, but the help desk ended the ride for me.

Very happy to be able to leave the bike, thanks for your help.

Usually very reliable, one time the bike wasn't locking, they refunded me the time that I spent trying to lock the bike and ended my ride for me, fast and helpful customer service

Superb. Fast resolution

I had an issue with a e-bike this morning whereby the electric assistance did not work. I immediately complained when I finished riding and Berly were very quick to reply and refund me. Great customer service.

Quick and easy and understood what had happened and rectified mistake.

Was easy to unlock the bikes and if ai had a problem they get back quickly to help out :)

Beryl bikes are a great idea
We have seen it well executed with the boris bikes in London, now here you have the perfect example of the opposite
Bikes are broken 60% of the time, often unusable, this is only if you’re able to unlock one which is rare considering failed locking mechanisms are an every visit occurrence, ending your ride may also provide you with some pains, then the largest issue the lack of bikes, in the Leeds catchment area I’ve known there to be days when the app is showing no bikes at all in the vicinity. But don’t trust the app because it’s also temperamental and garbage. I plead that the bikes app and stations be upgraded, multiplied and finely tuned, otherwise don’t waste your bloody time, they are frustrating and frankly the worst company/ service I’ve ever had the good pleasure of dealing with

Scooters rarely let u down occasional ones may be slower, but if any problems with your trip u can query it in straight away and it will be looked at and if there’s a problem with vehicle or payment they will rectify the issue very quickly and refund u for your journey customer service very excellent and understanding too

I’ve been using Beryl bikes regularly for over a year, but I’ve been having ongoing issues with parking when using the newer bikes. Quite often when I end my ride, the app says the bike is not on the map, even though I’ve parked it correctly. Because of this, I’m repeatedly being charged an extra £10 on top of the normal fare. While I do usually receive a refund after reporting it, this keeps happening and is becoming frustrating. I’d appreciate it if this issue could be looked into and resolved.

Customer service excellent . Bike not working

Really excellent quick response