Nextbike

I live in Berlin and have a year subscription to NextBike. I had been really enjoying this service and thought it was great until I had a bike that apparently didn't return itself. I feel like I'm pretty careful about making sure the green light is flashing before walking away from the bike. I suppose its possible this one time I got distracted and didn't confirm it had locked, but I doubt it.

Part of the problem is, I started getting text messages a day later. And they said bike number 12345 or whatever was never returned but I had used a lot of bikes that week so I just wrote back saying basically, "I don't have your bike, sorry." It turned out not be the last bike I had rented but one bike before the last bike I'd rented. And the woman was telling me the application said I hadn't returned the previous bike, but clearly the application was not telling me that, because, as we had just discussed, I had gone and made another trip.

In the end, I didn't have to pay anything. However, and I say this understanding this is a cultural thing, the call ended on "no one has been able to use this bike for two days" and "we won't charge you since its the first time this has happened." How in the hell is this my fault? I go and make a second trip on a bike and then get dropped some obtuse text message 24 hours later. If that bike wasn't available for 2 days, that's your fault. And why are you asking me where the bike is? It's a bike with a computer and a radio on the back, go ask the bike where it is.

Now I'm nervous about using NextBike. I'm going to continue using it. And if everything goes well, I'll come back and edit this review, but if it happens again, I'll probably drop the service.