Forest Omdömen 

Very often, the gold bikes (£1 for 30 mins) suspiciously disappear or don’t work after you’ve walked 10-15 minutes to an out of the way area to reach one! Is this a way to force people to use the expensive ones? Many times a bike unlock won’t work but it won’t even give you an error message until you’ve tried many times, making you think you’ve done something wrong yourself.

The estimated walk time to a bike is very inaccurate and it can be half the true time. I also don’t think it’s made clear enough that the free minutes from referrals and ads expire quickly.

That being said, if you are fortunate enough to actually hire a £1 for 30 mins bike, it’s a good deal. Only (try to) use Forest if you have loads of spare time as it’s not at all reliable. And of course, like the other private e-bikes, it's extremely expensive on normal pay as you go.

You better off taking the bus . Only kids who use their parents allowance without a clear understanding of costs continue to use these bike not caring if they are charged £ 4.99 for a 9minutes ride while public transport with a fast bus lane is more than half the price this company charges

Took £5 out my account without clear communication.
Then paid £1 for first 30mins offer and bike died after 200 yards, with alarm going off. tries to phone for help and main line out of order that day ... call did acknowledge this and apologised for any inconvenience caused by this. Tried on line chat but pretty useless with limited options. No option but to leave bike and impossible to take bike anywhere suitable with being so heavy at my age and alarm going off all the time. Waste of time and money unfortunately, which is a shame as a good idea.
Secondly my wife took a bike out and turned out had a very flat tyre. Have photographs to prove the
above.

Bloody joke. 20 minutes 1 mile, first try cost me nearly £8. Brand new car with all servicing cost probably are cheaper.

I come from the airport at 3am and outside Blackfriars train station there where more than 10 forest bikes. No one of this bicycle had enough battery to let me unlock, very frustrating... Then I walked for a long while trying to unlock more forest bikes and I had the same problem and some more they where broken enough not to be able to cycle.
I have been asking to give me back the money I spend to buy the 24 h price. Ignored.
I didn't need to cycle the next day so for me was useless to pay for the 24h as my use of the bike would have been at deep night to go home from the airport.
Forest bikes? Never more !!! I think they should take them off the road.

Absolutely horrible service. App never works properly. Then it does not allow you to end ride. Other people use your bike and I end up paying for a whole day. Atrocious service, no support, no help, not even a reply to the endless emails and messages regarding the app glitch they had during 7 October, 2026. Get your own bike because these are crap.

⭐ 1/5 – £28 for a 26-minute bike ride. Absolutely outrageous.

I recently used a Forest e-bike in London to cycle to my local tennis club and ended up being charged £28 for a journey lasting approximately 26 minutes. That is an absolutely scandalous amount to pay for a short bike ride.

The app is far from user-friendly, particularly when it comes to understanding where you can and cannot park. The restrictions and boundaries are not communicated clearly enough, and I was shocked to discover that my local tennis club was apparently outside the permitted area.

How is a customer supposed to confidently use a bike service when the parking zones are so confusing and the financial penalties are so excessive?

A service that should make getting around London affordable, convenient and environmentally friendly has instead turned into an expensive and frustrating experience.

I have no objection to reasonable rules, but the charges need to be proportionate, transparent and clearly communicated before customers are penalised.

£28 for a short cycle across London is completely unacceptable in my view.

My advice to anyone considering Forest: be extremely careful about where you park and check the map thoroughly before starting your journey. You could end up paying far more than you anticipated.

1 star as it seems they hide information on purpose. Before somebody registers, and before they get “free ride” the information that the £1 unlock is still applied should be included. A company needs to be transparent

Terrible terrible terrible. All the bikes seem to be broken. Can never end the ride or submit the photo and I get OVERCHARGED every time because their app doesnt work. PLEASE BRING BACK LIME BIKES TO RICHMOND BOROUGH

They are scams and fraud!!! They have charged us about 2 months ago on a free ride, and after several calls which no one answers and 14 emails, they never got back to us to refund or even respond!!! They are for sure a disgrace!

Absolutely terrible app and bikes, how this company is still afloat is astonishing. Currently co-ordinating a large group who will be petitioning to Richmond council to return to Lime Bikes.

Unfortunately, Forest has changed from one of the best e-bike companies into the worst. The bikes themselves are good. The App and its backend are constantly glitchy, as others have said. Earlier this year, it took ages to end rides, burning through your minutes. Now it randomly shows or not shows bike locations. Often shows bikes available that turn out to be non-functional, which can be frustrating when one has walked some distance to get to them. Now, yesterday, "Service Interruption", which occurred apparently AFTER I had started the ride, but would not let me stop the ride. Finally, managed to stop the fake ride after 75 mins causing a £18 fake charge and ate up my 20+ minutes I'd previously paid for. They need a better automatic way of responding to service interruptions - how about a message, "sorry we're rubbish, we've reinstated your minutes and repaid your erroneous charge". Never mind what has been going on during the interruption. This is all bad enough, but Customer Support is completely inadequate. After the interruption last night, live chat was switched off by the company. Now, live chat (apparently) is back but Forest have switched off their phone lines. Have you ever heard of a company removing their support facilities in this way? How about employing more customer support people? Or having an agency on standby for this kind of problem? No response to email for this most recent incident. Further, I had a similar situation a few months ago, no response from support, no refund, nothing. Just took the money basically. They have also seemingly stopped sending out email confirmations when you've submitted a form with a complaint.

Shambles of an app topped off by even more shambolic customer service.

Sent am email twice about being overcharged randomly - it’s been more than 3 weeks - not heard a peep. Horrendous support. App glitches regularly. Such a shame as their bikes (when they do work) feel better than Lime bikes to ride.

Don’t bother. If you want to rent an e-bike go with Lime, as they know how to run a business! They make you get packages and offer an extreme poor service. Not only, somehow my bike managed to be booked by someone else while I was riding and paying for it, 90% of the bike don’t work and barely any around.

This app is so glitchy and does not connect or end properly.

App typically runs on or overcharges me every couple of weeks.

Utter, joke app.

I was charged £4.30 for a less than 10 min bike ride.

I've emailed and left 3 live chat messages over the last week, and not a single reply.

I am very disappointed.

It's advertised everywhere 30 mins for £1, so why was I charged £4.30 for less than 10 mins?

Bike blocking pavement — still there the next day

Yesterday I reported a Forest bike blocking the pavement and sent photographs. This morning it’s still there, so I tried phoning the company. I got a recorded message apologising, saying they were experiencing problems and that the phone line has very limited opening hours.

This isn’t just an inconvenience. Bikes blocking pavements are a real accessibility problem, especially for people in wheelchairs or mobility scooters, as well as parents with buggies and people with impaired vision.

And this is hardly an isolated incident. Dockless bikes obstructing London’s pavements have become a common hazard. Operators like Forest need to take responsibility and respond promptly when an obstruction is reported.

It is definitely time for the Government to act.

Yep just read the other reviews. App is absolutely useless and it will do anything to charge you more. Half the time you can’t end the ride, half the bikes are ‘down for maintainence’ and I’m the only fool to buy the subscription where I’m charged additional amounts each time and can rarely get a bike. Have asked for a refund and pretty gutted they have replaced like lime bikes in Richmond when they don’t work

Multiple time the apps broken so I can't lock my bike up, then I get charged a fortune. I sometimes get my money back, but it's always a hassle. When it does work, it doesn't work well... it always takes an additional 5minutes to load, charging me more and delaying me. Voi is just better

My wife and I hired 2 bikes for 46 minutes. I was charged £26.08 while my wife was charged £16.18. would have been cheaper to ride in a chauffeur driven Bentley!

Complaint via Live Chat and/or email appears to go into a black hole.