Inside the scooter's side tumult: Charging for Lime and Bird is a new sharp concert in Saint-Louis | Metro

They pulled out a white SUV and loaded their first scooter at the back. They caught a second by flashing hazard lights as Koch jumped out of the compact car and caught the price. They then went down an adjacent street, only to see the scooter on which they had already loaded eye in a tanned sedan.

"Beat again," Koch said, moving away.

It's the latest excitement of St. Louis: seize electric rental scooters scattered throughout the city and charge them overnight for the Lime and Bird scooter companies.

Starting at 9 pm, those looking to make a living can get scooters at low loads and plug them into their homes. They bring them back to the street at 7 am the next morning to earn the entire bonus, averaging $ 4 to $ 6 per charge, although some charges may be worth up to $ 20.

Like many in St. Louis, the Koch were seduced by attractive advertisements and found a flexible way to add revenue.

Hunting can also be fun and addictive. Chargers compare their work to a real video game: look for scooter locations in the app, rush to collect them before competitors and beat the clock to bring them back to the street.

"I feel like Mario or something that collects coins, levels," said a Bird Loader.

But as in any game, there are winners and losers. Some realize that they do not earn enough and give up, while others spend money on expanding their business by renting U-Hauls or buying trailers.

And in the end, companies control the rules. Shippers are subject to their whims and business practices. Lime, for example, has recently reduced the amount it pays per 20% load in St. Louis, which has significantly altered the economic conditions of the people who charge them.

"I loved the pursuit," said former Lime Loader Karen Smith, who has prepared scooters in addition to a full-time job. "But it was not worth it anymore. I ran every night and realized that it was just not worth it. "

Bird and Lime scooters were launched in St. Louis at the end of July. Since then, companies have almost tripled their fleet. According to the city's traffic division, 1,900 scooters were deployed around St. Louis in October.

Runners unlock the scooters with the help of a mobile application and pay as and when. A Lime-S, for example, costs $ 1 to unlock and 15 cents per minute of driving.

Both companies were quickly valued at more than $ 1 billion each, while Bird was dubbed the "Uber of Scooters". And like Uber and other companies leveraging a new sector of the economy, Bird and Lime are relying on an army of paid workers through the concert to keep the company up and running. .

It is not difficult to register. These workers, known in the vulgar language of companies as "lime juice" and "bird watchers", can quickly apply through the application and come with starter kits comprising three or four charging cables.

Then the game starts. Chargers use the app to locate the scooters, load them, and then the app again to find hubs where companies want to place them the next morning.

"There is definitely a learning curve," said Chris Wilson, who registered as a loader after seeing an advertisement on Instagram. "It takes a while to understand the application, to find them before they leave. I had nights where I would only have one. "

When workers equip a sufficient number of scooters, they can "upgrade" with the company and have the right to buy more charging cables or buy them at a lower price.

Payments can be fast, with shippers sometimes seeing deposits on their bank accounts within hours. "It's like instant gratification," said Koch.

"I was getting anguished by the red lights, fearing other people would use scooters before me," said Wilson, who has worked steadily as a lime and bird feeder for about two months. in addition to a job in the health sector. "You start thinking that you have to speed up to get there faster."

The streets are often swept by a night without cleaning the scooters, and stories of confrontations between shippers, including verbal arguments about who is the first to take a scooter, are not uncommon.

"Once, I was almost at a scooter when I saw this woman running after a sprint when she saw me," Wilson said. "I let her have it. It was not worth fighting.

Scooters can be hard to find. Sometimes, runners looking for a ride in the morning hide it under a porch, in their house or yard, to prevent other runners from taking it. This can also put them out of reach of the chargers.

Workers who were trying to find low powered scooters reported finding them on the top floor of a parking garage, hanging in trees and hiding in bushes.

The scooter game also has a cheating problem.

A former lime loader admitted to getting ahead a few nights loading scooters into his car at 8:30 pm, half an hour before the start of the hunt. Scooter alarms would ring in her van until 9 pm, when she could officially unlock them in the app.

"This has clearly brought out my aggressive side," said the woman, who is in her fifties. "I think I must have hunter-gatherer blood."

"The scooter accusations" are another common tip, say the shippers.

The longer a scooter lasts without being billed, the more companies will pay for people to bill it.

Bird will pay up to $ 20 for missing scooters. Thus, the chargers recover them without unlocking them, keep them at home until they disappear, then unblock them and charge them as much as possible.

The cheats frustrate the chargers that lead to the markers on the map only to find scooters locked in a garage or loaded in the back of a van.

"I would say that 15 or 20% of the scooters we see are accumulated by someone for one reason or another," Koch said. "We do not like them because we do not want confrontation, but I know other people have claimed to be someone with the company to try to get them."

Some experts argue that by encouraging self-employed people to participate in this type of gambling and keeping them in pursuit of their career, companies earn at least some workers end up losing.

Economic jobs generally offer workers fewer benefits and less protection than traditional employers, said Laura Padin, senior counsel for the National Employment Law Law Project. This includes items such as overtime pay, minimum wage protection, health insurance, disability insurance, unemployment insurance, sick leave and workers' compensation.

"The huge problem is that he pushed this race to lower working conditions," Padin said. "These workers have little benefit of being independent contractors, but all risks."

"These companies are taking advantage of the difficulties faced by workers in accounting for their expenses," said Padin. "When they enter a market, they attract a lot of people, but the turnover rate is high. People realize that jobs are not as good as they look.

Lime did not respond to several post-Dispatch interview requests regarding the business model, while Bird responded simply with a written statement: "Bird is working with a network of trained and local shippers in St. Louis , and we welcome those who would like to join our charger community. Loading with Bird can be an excellent source of additional income. "

Companies are still recruiting. "Earn money while you sleep," say Bird 's ads.

"Earn up to $ 150 a day," Lime announces in his app.

To earn this money in St. Louis, however, a loader should reap 37 scooters per night. And that does not take into account the expenses or the income tax they may have to pay.

Companies estimate that it costs between 8 and 40 cents in electricity to fully charge each scooter. Chargers also pay the cost of their gasoline.

When Karen Smith started as a lime loader, for example, she drove 11 miles per scooter, based on records kept for tax purposes. Having more and more experience in scooter research, she reduced that number to four miles, or about 25 cents in gasoline per scooter.

When Lime lowered the base fare from $ 5 to $ 4 a scooter, Smith stopped working as a loader.

Some chargers have gotten used to driving scooters while they were picking up to avoid the expense of gas, hanging other scooters on their ride with rubber bands to perform balancing. .

"I always saw this guy in Soulard able to drive a scooter with two scooters on his shoulder," Wilson said. "I do not know how he did it. I tried it and it was a disaster. "

Other workers have decided that they should step up their operations to make money, Lime believes, possible.

In September, Marquita Mahon, loader of lemons and birds, decided to invest 500 USD in a trailer of 4 feet by 6 feet in order to accommodate 15 to 20 units at a time and to 39, avoid lifting scooters, which can weigh up to 20 pounds. MPV.

"It was such a great opportunity to make money," said Mahon. "I wanted to take full advantage."

But Mahon encountered difficulties along the way. Competition has intensified, along with the decline in Lime's wages.

Also, in September, she fell off one of the scooters that she was driving back to her car and broke her elbow. She had health insurance through a day job but was paying about $ 100.

Because shippers are considered independent contractors, Mahon is not eligible for workers' compensation as a traditional employee injured on the job.

Nevertheless, she continues to load scooters between her other two jobs, in the health sector and in the management of a computer repair business in the Southampton district. She is just above break even after buying her trailer, earning just under $ 600 since September.

She is concerned, however, that companies are continuing to cut rates. In some cities, lime costs only $ 2 per scooter.

"I know it might not last forever," said Mahon. "So, I'm trying to make as much money as I can."

Some chargers worry about other work-related safety risks. Scooters are often on private property or in isolated areas such as lanes.

The shippers say that scooter hunting takes them at night to the high-crime areas of St. Louis. "People have definitely thought we were buying drugs in some of these places," said one official. "But we're like," No, we're here for the scooter, goodbye. "

Despite the difficulties, Colby Koch goes hunting about six nights a week. A recent morning, Koch and her husband, Nicholas, barely made it.

After about an hour of searching over 12 km the previous night, the couple rode six scooters. They woke up at 6:30 in the morning to book two centers where they had to drop the scooters before 7am – their pay could be halved if they did not meet deadlines.

By the time they were making their way through the morning traffic, each scooter was in a straight line in both hubs and, as usual with Lime, turned each handlebar to the left, they were now in focus.

The lime requires that they then send a photo of their work. They did it at 6:59, with a minute to spare.

They sighed with relief. The Koch won $ 24 for their efforts.

And at 9 pm sharp the next night, they would do everything again.