Joyride on ‘borrowed’ escooter stings original rider with almost $50 fee

An impromptu joyride on a “borrowed” escooter has ended up costing a Wellington commuter big bucks after the company refused to refund him.

Comedian Daniel Boerman said he was heading via Beam e-scooter to a friend’s stand-up show on Friday, May 19 when the Beam scooter app he was using malfunctioned, not allowing him to properly start or end his trip.

After leaving the scooter on Dixon St and contacting Beam, Boerman said he was told to send an email explaining the issue.

Two weeks later he was contacted by a Beam employee. That was when the comedian said he learnt someone had grabbed the e-scooter after he had left it, taking it an hour-long ride through Thorndon and into the suburb of Karori.

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Boerman said he was told the ride only ended when the scooter’s battery ran out, saving the comedian’s wallet any further harm but sticking him with a $44.85 bill.

“Maybe they were doing a bit of UberEATS on my scooter until it died,” Boerman joked.

A Beam employee contacted Stuff from an Australian number and said Boerman had left his scooter in a “no-park” zone which is why the trip had not ended, which he had already done twice before.

The employee said Boerman had not included their full response to his query on their social media post, which had been “unfair” to the company.

He said he would send Stuff Beam’s response to Boerman’s enquiry at a later date as they could not meet Stuff’s deadline.

The comedian was toldhe needed to get a police report about the use of the Beam to refund him for the ride.

But Boerman said he was unwilling to burden the police with something this trivial. “They don’t need me showing up looking like Eddie Vedder telling them that someone stole my scooter… They’ve got a tough enough job already.”

However, without the police report, Beam wouldn’t give him his refund, Boerman said. While he had a full-time job and could afford the bill, someone else may not have been able to.

“I’m quite upset about because I went to buy groceries, and you know that’s two blocks of Tasty cheese. And now I can’t have any cheese in my quesadillas.”

New Zealand e-bike company Flamingo contacted Boerman after seeing his post online, to tell him they were giving him $50 free credit.

“Flamingo came through. They emailed me and they gave me the equivalent amount of account credit, so shout out to Flamingo.”