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A San Diego-based company, co-founded by a former Marine, has been picking up abandoned scooters that roam the city's streets, owned by startups Bird and Lime, for months, and handed Bird a part of it in November, in exchange for more money. $ 40,000. Since then, Bird and Lime have described the company's activities as "ransom" and a legal battle has begun.
The two scooter hire start-ups sued the company – known as a scooter move – and its founders last month, claiming that the company's removal of scooters was in many cases illegal. The civil complaints – both filed in the California Superior Court in San Diego, Lime's on March 19 and Bird's a day later – are good readings and describe a pattern of scooter seizures that, according to the companies, began last summer.
The conflict highlights a greater tension in technology, in that it raises quite fundamental questions about Silicon Valley, ie, do the so-called mobility companies really help us solve some of our larger transportation problems? Or is it really what we have at the end of the day just a bunch of new garbage?
Scooter removal definitely thinks the latter. According to Bird and Lime, company employees are "waiting" for tourists and other scooter drivers to get off scooters in San Diego, before "going at full speed" and loading them into a truck, storing them and storing them. hold in their hands. "Ransom". Bird and Lime also say that many scooters are borrowed from public property and that, contrary to the usual procedures, tow trucks could use for the impoundment of a vehicle.
A court might decide that, but Scooter Removal, meanwhile, says on its website that moves are a noble cause, a reaction to the growing presence – sometimes said thrown – of scooters across the city. Bird and Lime say that the removal of scooters has another reason less than altruistic: money.
Bird paid about $ 40,000 for the release of 1,800 scooters in November, and the company says in scuba that Scooter Removal currently has 2,500 Bird scooters and 1,300 Lime scooters and requires tens of thousands of dollars for their return.
More specifically, the Bird suit indicates that the price is $ 30 per scooter for their output, not to mention the "storage" costs that accumulate every day. (Bird says his scooters are worth around $ 950 each.) And the battle between kidnapping birds, lime and scooter apparently lasts for some time. A passage from Lime's trial – a similar version of Bird's – suggests that scooter startups have conducted private surveillance.
For example, in one case, a groom / valet from a hotel near The Promenade was observed in an alley, placing scooters in the Promenade garage. This bellman / valet had his own key to unlock The Promenade Garage. Borelli was later seen conversing with this groom / valet. Subsequently, Borelli picked up the scooters and took them to a truck carrying a magnetic sign on its side door bearing the following: "Scooter Removal, LLC – A free service for property owners and contractors – call us today! 858-262-1912 www.scootscoop.com. Borelli was also seen distributing business cards to two men in the Promenade sidewalk area.
The battle was not limited to the audience room; During a confrontation in an establishment, Lime claims that she violates the impoundment procedure, the co-founder of Scooter Removal, John Heinkel, threatened a representative of Lime by suggesting that he was armed, according to the complaint of Lime.
On at least one occasion, in response to the in-person request from Lime representatives to release lime vehicles from the Promenade garage unconditionally, as they have not yet been transported to Talon's warehouse, [Scooter Removal co-founder John Heinkel] reacted with hostility and threatened the representatives of Lime, saying that he was carrying a rifle.
All this also has the advantage, according to the lawsuits, to steer the activities towards Boardwalk Electric, a bike rental company led in part by Dan Borelli, one of the founders of Scooter Removal, also named in the suit.
Unsurprisingly, an alleged gun, a "ransom" and a possible conflict of interest are not what tells the story of Scooter Removal on his website. No, Heinkel and Borelli are just two guys to "defend themselves" against Big Scooter:
As long as the armies of electric scooters are allowed to charge people's credit cards, most scooter manufacturers are less concerned with knowing where they are and how they work. It is a "let-no-where" philosophy, "impose on everyone", which is to operate a business that does not respect public safety and the private property rights of others.
Two guys started to fight. They obtained from the owner the necessary authorizations to remove the unwanted scooters from the private properties. They cleaned up the damage of a scooter business by removing thousands of scooters that encroached on private property. Afterwards, they informed companies worth billions of dollars to collect their scooters and pay a small fee to save and store their products safely. They asked companies to modify their applications to recognize property rights, take back their products and stop allowing unwanted scooters on designated private properties where "no intrusion" signs had been posted.
Borelli and his co-founder, John Heinkel, also seem to have witnessed a coming legal battle, while trying to rally people to their cause:
Instead of respecting the community, private property rights and public safety, several companies refused to pay and threatened legal action against these two hard workers.
They want to continue the fight and provide free service to San Diego and beyond. They are looking for private citizens to donate to their funds so that they can expand their territory, complete the application to post scooters and answer the court correctly, if necessary.
I do not want to be indifferent to Heinkel and Borelli here; The real usefulness of scooters is still debated, and it is true that they are often thrown in mass in public or private spaces, which creates an unsightly and urban absurdity, to say the least. In addition, I certainly do not have much sympathy for Big Scooter, which can afford more and more effective efforts to mitigate the damage, and also has the funds to fund a lawsuit against two relatively modest who claim what is surely for Bird and Lime. , cunning change.
Nevertheless, I am struck by the apparent dissonance between the way Heinkel and Borelli describe their efforts and what it actually looks like, if not a pure upheaval then something approaching. What is also clear is that everyone seems to understand the legal issue, as in the call for Scooter Removal funds to help him fight for a possible legal battle and, of course, Bird and Lime.
There is also an excerpt from Lime's lawsuit:
Lime repeatedly told the defendants that the unlawful towing and impounding of lime vehicles violated the vehicle code. Nevertheless, the defendants continue their illegal actions. In fact, Heinkel repeatedly acknowledged to Lime that not only did he realize that the accused were not respecting the vehicle code, but that the accused refused to do so without a court order.
Beyond all this, there is a layer of deception. That payment of $ 40,000, for example, surprised me in some respects, because companies like Bird and Lime, with a mix of accountants, lawyers, and appropriate professionals, do not separate easily from their money. Or at least not without doing due diligence, usually.
Instead, in this case, Bird basically says that he was snooked and gave up the money based solely on the word Scooter Removal. (Talon is linked to the scooter abduction and is also being sued.)
Talon testified that these impoundments were legal, that all the scooters were found and impounded in the private property of Promenade – and not in another location – and that he had followed the appropriate procedures for the impoundment. scooters. Talon has asked for hundreds of dollars per scooter for recovery. Based on Talon's claims that the scooters were removed from the boardwalk, and with proper authorization, Bird agreed to pay Talon over $ 40,000 in exchange for the release of these last. Bird subsequently learned the defendants' actual plan and realized that he had been prompted to make this payment under false pretenses.
Until now, Scooter Removal has raised $ 865 of their $ 100,000 goal as part of a GoFundMe campaign, but has not yet responded to court, though updates to the record indicate that they were served. The next hearings in this case are not scheduled until November.
I sent an email to the Bird, Lime and Scooter Removal lawyers for comment, but only Bird has replied so far with this statement:
The people of San Diego are surprised by a project of local towing company. ScootScoop scooter removal, orchestrated by Talon Auto Adjusters, illegally holds micro-mobility devices and requires ransom for their return. We are trying to put an immediate end to their project because society is robbing people of environmentally friendly scooter options that they rely on every day to get to work and to get to local businesses.
I will update this story if I have news of lime or scooter.
The details of this case seemed designed to prevent the formation of a clean and correct shot. On the one hand, I am for the militia who attack Big Scooter and clean our streets. On the other hand, these vigilantes in particular seem a little unfortunate, as the fake Batmans at the beginning of The black Knight. What I know is that scooters are here to stay. Bird and Lime must clearly find a way to prevent them from becoming a nuisance if they inspire efforts like Scooter Removal.
I mean, look at this shit from Comic-Con in San Diego this summer:
Both lawsuits are included below.
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