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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

TFL charging me £94 per day to rent a bike despite advertising £2 a DAY aibu

77 replies

jobbinggogger · 18/09/2019 14:49

So TFL state you can hire a bike for £2 for 24 hours. I've read their T and C and seen nothing to state anything other than this. I took out a bike last week, returned it within hours and was shocked to see a completely unexpected £76 charge on my account. When I called, they explained that the £2 is for access and that cyclists are then charged £2 every half hour thereafter unless they return the bike to the docking area every half hour. So a cyclist would have to stay awake all night and travel back and forth to the docking area in order to get the bike for £2. The terms and conditions are extremely waffly and difficult to understand.

Soo AIBU that £96 for 24 hours of bike hire is A)daylight robbery
and that B) very different to the advertised rate of £2 per day!!!

TFL also do not care and are not sorry. The blame is solely on the customer for not understanding their contradictory and at time batshit rules. Am I the only person to be horrified and much poorer?

OP posts:
violetswordfish · 18/09/2019 15:59

With Ofo, for example, you could just leave the bike in the street outside your house.

Yeah because that's an undocked system. When it's outside you're house, someone else can potentially still take it and pay to use it. The tfl bikes are a docked system, if it's at your house and not in a dock you're not letting anyone else use it, therefore you pay for the time it's at your house. There are all kinds of bike schemes in London but tfl bikes were first and are the most common, it isn't difficult to understand the system...

MockersthefeMANist · 18/09/2019 16:04

Some confusion perhaps with these schemes.

You do not hire "a bike." You join a bike-sharing subscription service. The model is entirely based on the assumption that when you are not riding the bike you put it back for someone else, then when you need a bike, you pick up another one someone else has parked.

fascicle · 18/09/2019 16:07

Did you read the ts & cs before you hired the bike, or when you saw the charge on your account?

I think the rules are pretty clear and I am surprised you thought the scheme could be used for medium term/take the bike home hire (for just £2).

Outedsochanged · 18/09/2019 16:07

Just to make it clear, it's not £2 per half hour. It's £2 to be able to take a bike out for as many half hour trips as you want in a 24 hour period. If any of those trips last more than half hour you will be charged extra (a lot extra)

wibbletooth · 18/09/2019 16:08

I would maybe try one more time, and rather than asking them for any refund, ask them (or tweet them to ask) that they ensure that the signs are made clearer about the half hourly charge in addition to the access charge for people picking the bikes up at night and not familiar with the scheme.

The fact that both charges are £2 means that if you are not familiar with the terminology you might easily misinterpret it, particularly if you are familiar with other bike schemes where you don't need to dock the bike and only get charged while it is in use. They could change it so that the access charge was £2.50/day and the first half hour was charged at £1.50 to balance out for a lot of people. If you saw different prices it would set your spider senses tingling that there was more than one type of charge as a starter!

bluegirlgreen · 18/09/2019 16:10

@jobbinggogger

Looks like it IS right, but that is a shocking amount.

And they want people to be healthier and walk and cycle more?!

What a piss-take.

MrsFezziwig · 18/09/2019 16:14

returned it within hours

You mean you kept it overnight, presumably. Hmm The point of the scheme is for people to use bikes to make short journeys. If you want to hire a bike by the day/night, a bike rental shop is the place to go. They won’t charge £2 a day but it would be considerably less than £76.

MotherWol · 18/09/2019 16:15

It should be very clear at the point of sale what the costs are, if it wasn't for any reason then I feel you have a reasonable case

It is clear - you don't even have to scour the T&C's for it, it's on the terminal in big letters, right above the screen! £2 for daily access, 30 minute rides are free, chargeable for rides over 30 minutes.

TFL charging me £94 per day to rent a bike despite advertising £2 a DAY aibu
GreatBigNoise · 18/09/2019 16:17

Ahh it's me then. OK I will take the YABU on the chin. Never using them again though!!!

Fair play OP, but I would still phone and ask if they can refund some of the money. They may well have some discretion. I would be polite and explain that it was a genuine mistake.
There is no harm in trying.

katewhinesalot · 18/09/2019 16:18

Knowing nothing about how this theme works then I too may have made the same mistake and I agree the wording could be a lot better.

MrsFezziwig · 18/09/2019 16:26

The scheme is actually aimed at London dwellers who probably could afford a bike but don’t have anywhere to store it, so those saying “just buy yourself a bike” are missing the point a bit.

PirateSaysArrr · 18/09/2019 16:31

if you read this there are loads and loads and loads and loads of people who make this mistake

www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g186338-d2151262-Reviews-Santander_Cycles-London_England.html#REVIEWS

I live in london so know how it works but i have to say, I am not sure it is as blindingly obvious as it should be, especially to those who don't have English as a first language!

Tonnerre · 18/09/2019 16:45

As I understand it, you don't have to return it to the docking bay, but to a docking bay. In effect, rather than keep the bike with you, you just park it in the nearest docking bay and then take another out when you need it.

Outedsochanged · 18/09/2019 17:21

Exactly, they monitor use and where they are used so can move bikes around to where they are needed at different times each day. For example they make sure the racks at mainline train stations are full first thing.

MrsFezziwig · 18/09/2019 21:14

I don’t live in London, but despite this I managed to read the instructions and use the bikes successfully.
Basically the OP was in a hurry and was being harassed by her teen, so didn’t take time to read the instructions properly. Fair play to her for admitting she was in the wrong, but I don’t know why people are sticking up for her when she isn’t even sticking up for herself!
I like the system and I wouldn’t want people to be put off using them because posters on here are contending that you need to have a Master’s degree to use them... oh, wait a minute...

Bluntness100 · 18/09/2019 21:16

The scheme is actually aimed at London dwellers who probably could afford a bike but don’t have anywhere to store it

No it's not, I think you need to Spend a couple of mins reading up on it, before posting.

CilantroChili · 18/09/2019 21:29

Answer: get a Brompton (also supporting a British industry)

AnxietyDream · 18/09/2019 21:31

So a cyclist would have to stay awake all night and travel back and forth to the docking area

??? Why would you keep checking the bike out if you are trying to sleep? You dock it once then sleep.... You do know the difference between a bicycle and a pillow!

Also love that someone did the maths to prove your 'few hours' underexaggeration was a very long time to be cycling!

MsMightyTitanAndHerTroubadours · 18/09/2019 21:36

just for reference, when your teen says all their friends stay out all night and drink vodka, that's probably not true either.

there also was change from the £20 you handed over for them to buy chips too. :o

and no that bag is not full of pot pourri.

AnxietyDream · 18/09/2019 21:36

They could change it so that the access charge was £2.50/day and the first half hour was charged at £1.50 to balance out for a lot of people.

That would make it much more expensive as currently it's £2 access and free for first half hour.

GreatBigNoise · 19/09/2019 07:42

Just had a read of the tripadvisor reviews that a PP linked too. There are LOADS of people who were also mistaken about the charges. If so many people are making the same mistake then it does seem like the way the bikes are advertised isn't clear enough.

Amanduh · 19/09/2019 07:56

It’s absolutely clear as day. If you read it, it tells you in quite simple terms what the charges are.

Hire starts at £2. If your journey is less than 30 minutes, you won't pay more. If it's longer than 30 minutes, you pay £2 for every 30 minutes.

How can that be clearer??

If you don’t read it properly, then it is your fault! It doesn’t matter if you’re used to a different scheme or anything else! Let’s stop making excuses and actually take bloody responsibility for just READING THE CLEAR INSTRUCTIONS. The op has accepted she was bu!

dowehaveastalker · 19/09/2019 08:06

Look for the fine print next time. Take it as lesson learned.

Tonnerre · 19/09/2019 08:13

I find it really bizarre that OP (or anyone else) thinks this charge requires the hirer to go back to the docking station every half hour. T It's clearly explained that you're charged if your journey is over half an hour - self-evidently if it's in a docking station you aren't on a journey.

If there are really lots of people on Trip Advisor who can't read the instructions and work this out, literacy standards are worryingly low. Perhaps the exam boards should use this as a sample text for the next set of English GCSEs..

IsobelRae23 · 19/09/2019 08:32

How much clearer does it have to be? Someone actually stood there telling people and then double checking they understood?
I just showed ds14 and asked him what it meant, he understood it straight away and that was glancing at it on his way out. It’s clear. People just don't read things properly.

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