▲ 7 r/NYCbike
Whizz repossessed my Monster e-bike that was NEVER stolen — entered my home, took the bike AND my personal property, billed me a "recovery fee," and didn't even bother taking the battery
I use AI to translate since English isn't my native language — otherwise none of you would understand what I'm saying.
Posting the whole thing because I still can't believe it happened.
Background: I rent a Monster e-bike from Whizz. My payments are current, my rental term isn't over, and the bike was at the home address I registered with them.
Here's the message that started all of it. I asked their support one simple question:
"What should I do if my bicycle has been stolen?"
Read it carefully — that is a hypothetical. I was asking what the procedure would be IF my bike ever got stolen. There's been a lot of theft in my area lately and I wanted to know the process ahead of time. Any English speaker understands "what should I do if X happens" is not the same as "X happened."
But their support agent apparently just saw the words bicycle and stolen and read it as "my bike HAS been stolen." They never once replied "wait — was your bike actually stolen?" They just treated my question as a theft report and ran with it. Nineteen minutes went by with no reply, so I sent a "?" — then figured their live chat had probably just gone offline for the day, and didn't think anything more of it.
What they did next — this is the part that should genuinely worry you:
When I rented the bike, I provided my address exactly as required by the company. Yet they still inexplicably initiated a recovery process and used their own GPS to track the bike. The result? The bike was exactly where it was supposed to be — at the registered address.
A vehicle that was supposedly "stolen" was sitting right at the owner's residence, at the very address already listed in their records. Anyone with even a second of common sense would have realized at that point that the whole matter should have ended there.
Instead, they came into my home — without my permission, without notice, without my consent — and took the bike. A bike that was never stolen, never overdue, with zero missed payments. They entered my home to "recover" a bike from the exact place their own records said it was supposed to be.
Unlawfully entering my home is a completely separate problem from the bike itself.
And while they were at it, when they took the bike they also took my own personal property. Even if they somehow believed they had a right to the bike, they have no right to keep property that belongs to me.
Then this showed up. A $163.31 invoice, labeled "Repossession: Company recovery of E-Bike."
So let me lay out the full sequence:
I asked what to do IF my bike got stolen → they decided it WAS stolen → used their GPS to find it sitting at my house → entered my home to take it → took my personal property → and then billed me $163 to "recover" my own bike from my own home.
And here's the part that tells you exactly what kind of operation this is:
They took the bike… but didn't even bother with the battery. Didn't ask for it, didn't take it, didn't mention it. The single most valuable component of the entire e-bike, and their "recovery specialists" just walked off with the frame and left it behind. If their own crew can't even remember the battery, you can imagine how much thought went into deciding my bike was "stolen" in the first place.
The support experience, for the record:
I sent a formal written dispute asking them to explain how a hypothetical question became a theft report, and how a bike at my registered address became "stolen property requiring recovery." The reply I got: "I'll be transferring you to our legal team." I asked a theft-PREVENTION question and got escalated straight to legal. Then their legal/collections rep emailed back with a "This communication is from a debt collector" disclaimer attached — even though I owe nothing, my term isn't up, and THEY are the ones who took the bike.
Where I'm at now:
I have NOT paid the $163, and I refused it in writing. Per Whizz's own contract, a repossession fee requires either user default or an actually-stolen bike. I am neither. They didn't even follow the terms of their own agreement.
I've disputed this month's rent with my bank — I paid for a full month and the bike was pulled mid-term, which is plainly services not rendered.
I'm still demanding the return of my personal property.
And I'm looking hard into the fact that they entered my home without authorization — that's the part I'm most concerned about, far more than the money
To be clear — nobody broke into a room inside the house. The bike was in my private yard, fully fenced on all sides with a remote-controlled gate. It wasn't inside a locked bedroom. And honestly? I still don't know how they got past the gate — I was asleep and didn't witness it. That's the part that unsettles me: it's a closed, fenced, gated private yard, and somehow they got in and took the bike.
I'm not claiming some elite heist. I'm saying they accessed closed private property I never gave them access to, took a bike I never reported stolen — from the address they had on file — and then billed me for "recovering" it.
Update Details
Quick clarification since this is getting attention:
Nobody broke into my house (meaning forcing the door and going inside the house — I think the translation mangled my original language, where I just meant they got into the backyard). The bike was parked in my fenced backyard with the gate closed. At some point I'm not even aware of, they GPS-located it and took it — no heads-up, no consent. The earlier "stolen" / "entered my home" wording was a translation slip.
About the translation: I know the AI version reads a bit weird, but old-school machine translation is worse — it doesn't understand context, it just swaps word for word. For a long post like this, the result leaves the other side completely lost. I've been getting by on translation apps in NYC for three or four years, and I've personally hit countless cases where the translation goes off the rails and spits out total nonsense — especially if you take that translated English and run it back into my native language.
Anyway — believe it or not, doesn't change what happened. They took the bike, so the rental is effectively over, period. If they're not renting to me anymore, then they refund the month I already paid and return my personal belongings that were on the bike. It's that simple. 🤷
u/NoHedgehog7421 — 13 days ago
Why is the Dasher navigation so difficult to use in New York City?
The route planning in Dasher's built-in navigation is actually pretty good, but it's very hard to use in New York City because restaurants are so densely packed.
I usually determine whether I've arrived by looking at the destination marker, the entrance marker, and my own position on the map. The problem with the built-in navigation is that it will say "Arrived" even though you haven't actually reached the restaurant yet. For example, the restaurant could be on the left side of the street while you're still on the right side, or you could still be about 10 seconds away. As a result, you still have to look around to find where the restaurant actually is.
Google Maps doesn't have this issue. When it says you've arrived, it precisely shows the entrance location and your current location, so you can slowly move toward it and end up right at the restaurant entrance. I deliver on a motorcycle, not in a car, so I'm used to pulling up exactly to the front door.
That's why I use Google Maps. However, when Dasher sends the destination to Google Maps, it sends latitude and longitude coordinates instead of a street address. What is this, launching missiles in World War III using coordinates? In New York City, why not just use the street address?
Because of that, when I arrive, I have to switch back to the Dasher app to see what the actual address number is. On top of that, it's very common for the coordinates to lead to a location where the actual street address isn't even there. Then I have to manually enter the specific address into Google Maps. This happens all the time and makes the whole process unnecessarily complicated.
u/NoHedgehog7421 — 22 days ago
Restaurants never package drinks properly.
Context: Unlike the rest of the USA where deliveries are done by car, here in NYC it's either motorcycles or e-bikes. There are some cars too, but very few — traffic jams, no parking, tickets, you name it. The nature of these vehicles combined with NYC's beat-up potholed streets means the cargo box is constantly vibrating non-stop.
Restaurants seem to have absolutely no clue how to package drinks for e-bike and motorcycle delivery. They constantly just shove drinks into paper bags with the food, and then on NYC's beat-up potholed streets, the drinks 100% spill all over the inside of the delivery box.
The simplest solution: get one of those hooks — only costs about $1 in China — and hang the drinks separately in a plastic bag from it.
Today I had an order where the restaurant literally stuffed the drink and the taco into the same paper bag right in front of me. No need to guess — that drink was 100% going to spill, and the customer would've ended up eating Coke-flavored tacos. So I asked the restaurant to bag the drink separately in its own plastic bag. That way, zero chance of spilling.
u/NoHedgehog7421 — 1 month ago
▲ 11 r/doordash_drivers
Why do restaurants keep putting drinks in PAPER BAGS??
I do DoorDash and I swear these restaurants never package drinks and soups properly.
u/NoHedgehog7421 — 2 months ago