Forest Reviews 334

Two attempts with Forest bikes. The first time I couldn’t find bike that was listed on map. The bike right in front of me wasn’t showing at all. Second time I managed to get on the bike for a short ride, then spent 10 minutes trying to end the ride, photo wouldn’t pick up. Really frustrating. It’s too expensive

Very small and confusing parking map.
Doesn't let me park in a dedicated parking place.
The picture is distorted when taking photo.

Managed to resolve the issue, though the map has restricted places that ARE not marked red!

Absolute rubbish!!! First ten minutes free but they charge you a £5 holding fee everytime and then £1.90 for a 8/9 minute ride!!! So it’s hardly 10 minutes free. Most bikes are falling apart or don’t work at all. Parking areas keeps changing daily, even though I park at the same spot, sometimes it’s a no parking zone and sometimes it’s a parking zone, changes every day!! They blame it on the council, so they say, think it’s more like their tracking systems that’s shite!!

What a rip-off! If you don’t use the minutes within the allotted time, you lose them. The app crashes all the time. On top of that, I’ve had trouble finding parking near work, so I park far away.

I pay £30 pound per month for 400 minutes over 30 days yet on every week of the year forest take £5 per ride and place it on hold from my bank .... I currently have £60 on hold it takes it for every ride even if you fail to use the bike... you get no free minutes despite what it says on the bike. How do you hold £60 for unlocking/ security when you have my bank card on record and I pay in advance..... if you have read this I dare say you will see a bog standard reply from forest being it's the banks fault it has nothing to do with the bank it's forest and their app !!

Maybe Agustin Guilisasti is proud of his company that transports people around this fabulous city, and he could be proud of it, if only he also dealt with the problems these bikes cause to innocent pedestrians. Time and time again I return home with forest bikes blocking our communal entrance. Elderly people cannot navigate paths littered with these heavy bikes, many left on there sides obstructing pavements, entrance ways and my garden gate.
I have complained numerous times with nothing being taken seriously by any response, it’s like it’s all a joke to them. I recently pointed out the dangers to my elderly mother and residents, only to get an insulting and flippant email in return from Martine, thinking that a wave emoji is the right way to address a distressed person and adding to the insult, she’s misses all of my points regarding safety and my elderly mother. This week their phone lines have not been working, so I’ve had to use email contact, which is utterly hopeless. Gareth responded in an equally flippant manor, and refuses to let me have a mangers contact or speak to a senior person. What kind of business runs like this! Their service comes across as friendly but their responses are also rude, arrogant and disrespectful. It’s a shame that they ruin the good work they could be doing in Lambeth by hiring incapable customer relations staff. This is far from the end of this story, so until it’s resolved I will be looking at all the ways I can to get my personal opinion out there and be heard. Please use Lime bikes instead in a respectful and thoughtful way.

I was excited to try Forest bikes, believing they would save me both time, money and the frustration of packed Tube rides during rush hour. Despite some initial hiccups with the app and less-than-perfect bike conditions, I enjoyed my first few rides and decided to commit to a month-long bundle. Unfortunately, this turned out to be a waste of money and an even bigger source of frustration.

For context, I live in NW London near the red zone, with most of my activities concentrated around the red zone and WC area. My experience with Forest bikes has been disappointing for several reasons:

1. Availability near home: Finding a Forest bike near my house is a challenge. I often have to walk 5–8 minutes to a parking spot, only to find a bike that’s damaged or impossible to adjust. Being 5’2”, I need to lower the seat fully, but the clip is often stuck. This wasted time sometimes even made me late for work.

2 Availability near work: The struggle doesn’t end at home. At my workplace, I’ve encountered stations with multiple bikes, yet none were usable—some were unavailable, some had fallen and were too heavy for me to lift, and others lacked electric power or missing phone holder. On one occasion, I had to walk to another location, only to find another fallen bike blocked by other fallen bikes.

3. The red zone issue: Living near the red zone means I can’t truly benefit from the service. The long walk to and from parking spots at both ends of my journey significantly reduces the convenience I expected.

4. Safety concerns: Even with the seat adjusted to its lowest setting, stopping safely can be difficult. I hadn’t fully realised the danger until I encountered steep roads, idle cars blocking the pavement I could have used for support, other vehicle approaching at high speed from my blind spot, and heavy traffic ahead without pavement to lean on—situations where stability is crucial. These moments made riding Forest bikes genuinely nerve-wracking.

On a positive side, they have responsive customer service. I reported every instance of damage I encountered and was given minute vouchers as compensation—a gesture I appreciate. Unfortunately, the vouchers expire at the same time as my bundle package and I still have plenty of minutes left so they don’t really solve my issues.

Overall, while I loved the idea behind Forest bikes, my experiences with them haven’t been the best. I believe the service has potential, but until improvements are made in bike availability, maintenance, and safety, I’m unlikely to use it again. I hope the Forest team takes these concerns on board to enhance the overall experience for users.

Forest birthday deal - another fake deal ! 100 free minutes but wait “it’s not free” - it’s a trick and they still charge you for other fees so actually it’s just another scammer trying to take your data and make money off you. avoid like the plague - asked the company not to behave like this and they said “oh well we didn’t tell you we wouldn’t charge you for other things” - what a birthday gift! In my opinion, another fraudulent scam!!!

What is wrong with your company to put dropping points for your bikes in middle residential areas where people will drop their bikes (2 to 15 bikes) in front of your garage. Do you ever consider people living in the area???

Happy to share pictures! Have a lots of them.

Because of the super buggy app Forest are trying to charge me £15 for parking in a red zone. I tried multiple times to park outside the red zone but the app consistently said I was in one. I was standing right next to multiple forest bikes when doing this. I had to move at least 100 metres further into the parking zone before it worked.
I was then charged £15 for parking in a red zone when I had obviously not parked there.

This used to be good but with higher charges, a terrible and buggy app, and refusal to pay customers back for their mistakes, essentially defrauding customers, I’ll be using Lime bikes from now on.

Edit: Forest have refunded me (thank you). However I still won't be using the app any more as it is too buggy.

Easy and cheap to use however some of the bikes with yellow adjustment don’t go down full way and are way too high! I’ve average woman height (5.4’) and I can barely touch the floor. Very unsafe for riding on roads. The bikes also need to be serviced more frequently as often rattle or make a loud noise when breaking

I had a concerning experience with this ride service. I took the same route four times — three rides correctly showed as 4 minutes, but today morning ride was inexplicably charged as 11 minutes despite no delays or connection issues.

When I contacted support, they blamed it on having an older app version (9.4.0 vs 9.4.4). However, I had just installed the app two days prior, and no updates were available in the app or Play Store. When I pointed this out, they shifted to suggesting I delete and reinstall the app.

They eventually offered a refund for the extra minutes, but this raises serious concerns. How many other customers are being overcharged without realising it? The inconsistent explanations and inability to verify their claims suggest potential systematic issues.

While I appreciate the refund, this experience has damaged my trust in the service. I will stop using the service and I urge other customers to monitor their ride durations and charges closely.

It's weird that this business has so many bad reviews. Regardless, I want to score it 4 stars out of 5 because (1) bikes overall are very good (brakes/gears/battery), (2) customer service is amazing, and rarely you find this in ANY other place, (3) renting these bikes is CHEAP!

I want to finish by saying the interface of the app itself has to improve; apart from that, keep it going!!

I so want to love Forest! They are challenging the awful Lime hegemony and their bikes are pretty good. However...

(1) The app is HORRIBLE. Often a crucial button is hidden under my phone's keyboard, so I have to force-quit the app and start over. In several cases you can navigate to an option (like buying minute bundles) and you end up stranded there with no obvious way back to the main map. The little tree icon that tells you where you are is cute - but it's also the same colour as all the bikes and it's very difficult to tell which way it is pointing. Can a tree point? Some probably can, but not this one. I hate using the app, but I have stuck with Forest anyway.

(2) There are constant ads. The app is terrible at letting you use a bike, but amazing at shoving ads in your face. Ads when you are trying to rent a bike, ads when you are trying to park, ads when you haven't opened the app for ages.

(3) The "10 minutes free" a day is bollocks. You don't get any free minutes. The government is finally coming after Forest for misleading advertising, but it's a well-known scam for everyone else. It is cheaper and better than Lime - why lie to everyone on top of that?

(4) It IS cheaper than Lime but you are definitely going to know that. The whole experience of dealing with Forest is cheap and clunky. It always feels like a scam. I am certain they are somehow selling my personal information to the dark web, or that if they haven't done that already, they soon will. It is obviously run by crooks. But I am addicted to cheap bikes so I'll probably still use it.

UPDATE (29 Jan 2025):
Thank you Gareth for your reply. I have sent screenshots of problems with the app to Forest in the past, but I have never had a response. It's very good that you are replying here on Trustpilot, and I will try your suggestions. Forest could be really great and I hope these problems will be ironed out soon.

Sick of their bikes being left by the company blocking regular bike locks. Had enough of having to move them out the way

The issue is the area you can park are very small, meaning the whole point of cycling from A to B is pointless. The bikes always have issues with them. I'd avoid.

Please have a read of Phil’s review from December 6th, every word is spot on.
I came here to say the same:
- prices are constantly going up
- their recent first in first out minute policy is a disaster. It means you NEVER, or rarely, get to use the ‘free’ 10 minutes. It borders on the misleading advertising as you either have to purchase a bundle, or pay £1.90 to even access the 10 minutes, so not free at all
- their free ad minutes used to have a 5 day expiry period. Now you need to use them within 24 hours. Pathetic and stingy. I’d really like to know why they changed this policy
- their app is buggy
- their bike condition still leaves a lot to be desired. I’m probably reporting about 50% of my rides for damage (flat tyres, those really annoying twisty mechanisms to raise the seat that are too stiff so you can’t get a comfortable rise, or wonky pedals)
- their availability in my area of south west London is a bit poor. They also won’t negotiate a deal with Richmond council, despite Richmond council having asked them to

It’s a shame because I enjoyed them a few years ago, but they’ve just gone downhill with their pricing especially.

I’m either going to start using the competition or buy my own electric bike on cycle to work.

In the interest of balance, the one good thing about them is the responsiveness of their customer service (even if they’re powerless to do anything about the pricing feedback)

Subject: Request for Refund of £40.77

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to request a refund of £40.77, which was unexpectedly charged to my account. This amount is unusually high and has disrupted my budget, impacting my ability to cover essential living expenses for the month.

I suspect there may have been an error or miscalculation regarding this transaction, which was made using my debit card. I have attached the relevant invoice for your review and would appreciate it if you could investigate the matter.

If this charge was made in error, I kindly ask for a prompt refund to alleviate the financial strain this has caused. Should you require additional information, please?

Thank you for your attention to this matter, and I look forward to your response.

Yours faithfully,
Muneer Ahmed Hussein Al-Haimi
Phone: 07 49 533 63 50

I have raised an issue about one of your bikes without any success. I notified you every day for 11 days before I had to dispose of the bike myself. I asked that my complaint be escalated and did not get a response. Just rude. I now have another bike dumped on my road which is pedestrianised so we should not ever have any bikes left there.

I have been using Forest Bike for a while to avoid buses and other means of transportation. Overall, I have been quite happy with the service until yesterday.
In the morning, I purchased a bundle, which worked well. I rented a bike, and everything went smoothly. However, in the afternoon, I encountered issues unlocking a bicycle. I tried three different bikes, but each time an error message appeared saying "Conflict," and the bicycles disappeared from the map, showing as no longer available.
I contacted customer support to explain the issue and requested a refund for my bundle, as I only intended to use the bicycle twice during the 24-hour period. The representative informed me that the issue was with my card provider and suggested I contact them to resolve it. They also refused to refund the bundle, claiming that I had already used 4 minutes of a 30-minute bundle.
I found this response very disappointing. The lack of effort to resolve my issue reflects poorly on your customer service. It’s no surprise your ratings are low if you fail to ensure customer satisfaction.

Answer: The error is not the card being declined and you all know it. When it gives that error the bicycle stays available and the error message is different than the one displaying.