Forest Reviews 341

Wish i'd read the reviews - terrible app kept crashing when trying to end ride. When not crashing it claimed i was in a no parking zone, when their own map said otherwise. 'Help' is a chatbot sending you round in circles. Went from 10 mins early to 10 mins late for an appointment, and i'm still being charged (meter still running). Was first time trying Forest - have never had a problem with Lime, so won't use Forest again

Horrendous experience. App crashes on you when you're trying to finish the ride. You end up arriving late and stressed everywhere and being charged all the extra time (15 in my case) while the app gets back to life. Today I thought I would give forest bikes a last chance... well...
No one to talk to either nor a functioning chatbot.

I’ve found Forest bikes to be generally very useful. I have a designated parking bay near my office and another near my mainline station, which is extremely convenient and fits well with my commute.

Unfortunately, there are several recurring issues that detract from the overall experience. I’m often notified that I’m “not parked correctly,” even when I’ve used a designated bay. The app’s location function is inconsistent and sometimes fails to register that I’m within an approved parking zone.

The bikes themselves are hit and miss. They’re often poorly maintained—seats frequently don’t stay in position, so it’s essential to check them before riding. The brakes can also be unreliable and don’t always work as effectively as they should.

The biggest frustration by far is the app. Logging in is frequently a struggle, and I usually have to force close and relaunch it several times before it responds. Recently, I haven’t been able to access the app at all. Even after deleting and reinstalling it, the issue persisted. I only found out via live chat that there was a system outage—something that should have been communicated more clearly.

Overall, while the service has a lot of potential, the technical and maintenance issues make it unreliable at times. I hope these problems are addressed, as the concept itself is excellent.

I used to subscribe to the 2000 minutes a month bundle for £60. The. They bumped the price up by £10 and now they’ve taken off 1000 minutes so it’s £70 for 1000 minutes.
This is just daylight robbery at this point.

You will lose a lot of customers.

Forest owes its loyal customers an explanation for why it is no longer “sustainable”.

This is scandalous and outrageous.

I've spent hundreds of £ on this app, now I'm deleting it. I accidentally canceled my subscription for 2,000 minutes which they don't offer anymore. They refused to reinstate it. I would have spent hundreds more but now I'm swapping to lime out of principle. Bye.

Bikes are generally fine, but it’s getting to the point whereby the no-parking zones mean you can't get near a mainline station!
London Bridge is now a no-go area, might as well get the bus

Use most days, great service. Worth noting that it's normally cheaper to do a bundle than pay as you go - I usually do a 24 or 3 day bundle for short trips to and from the gym, works perfectly for me. Just make sure you're travelling in areas that are allowed before you start.

The photo parking checker doesn't work very well, it always says "good but could be better" and asks you to try again - but you can just resubmit the same photo and it accepts it the second time so this isn't an issue. I'm assuming this flags it to be manually checked which is fine as long as you aren't parking badly.

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!!