Beryl Avis 

Great communication and got my problem sorted quick

Always helpful in resolving issues and will often apply refunds where these can be justified. Fast, efficient and friendly service. If in doubt, reach out!

Brilliant, quick and friendly

Very helpful customer service, I had made a mistake with identifying parking stations and had been charged a fee for parking in the wrong spot, quick and easy customer service and delivered a genuine reply accustomed to my problem/mistake, informing me for next time and also issuing a refund which I found to be an upmost kind gesture. Really good service and reasonably fabulous.

Bikes in Manchester are basically unusable. Rarely unlock, lots of errors re locking and minimal customer service response.

Six of us went to Weymouth specifically to use these. Two in the party had technical issues, so two had to walk. Then a third rider got booted out 1 mile in. Leaving them to push their bike to the nearest bay. A nice idea, but not ready yet.

I’m really disappointed with my experience using Beryl Bikes.

The bike I used was clearly faulty – it seemed stuck in a very low gear, which made the ride slow and unnecessarily difficult. What should have been a quick and easy journey turned into a struggle and took far longer than expected.

On top of that, the closest station to my location has been removed, making the whole service less convenient than it used to be.

The biggest issue, though, is the app. It did not show my running cost during the ride, so I had no way of knowing how much I was being charged in real time. Because of that, I couldn’t make an informed decision to stop early.

I only found out afterwards that I had been charged £30 for a 6 km ride (28 minutes), which is completely unreasonable. For that price, I could have taken multiple taxi journeys in comfort.

It’s frustrating because I chose this as a more sustainable transport option, but instead I feel like I’ve been penalised for it.

Until they fix their bike maintenance and make pricing fully transparent in the app, I wouldn’t recommend using this service.

Communication was prompt and clear, from a clearly knowledgeable customer support. Very fair.

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