A businessman in Bristol has been accused of ‘holding five e-bikes to ransom’ after Tier mistakenly designated a hire zone on his property, placing the vehicles in his car park on December 15 last year.
Tier reportedly said someone would come back and move them but when they were still there at the end of the day, Stewart Burrough, who runs self-storage business Stashed Away, moved the e-bikes into a unit. He later began sending the micromobility company invoices for the cost of storage.
The operator then called the police and reported that Burrough had stolen the bikes. He was warned by police that he could be arrested, but said he would sue for wrongful arrest.
Burrough told Bristol Live: “We do get people walking in through the gate and looking around the car park with their phones in their hands asking where the bikes are because they want to ride them and they are showing up on the Tier app.
“On that first night, I had to take them inside. There’s only a small car park here and they were taking up space that is for my customers, and not only that, but my solicitor warned me that if someone tripped over a bike left on my land I could be liable for injuries, or damage to the bike. It’s a ridiculous situation.”
A spokesperson for Tier told Bristol Live the firm had dropped the bikes at the car park by mistake, and they were intended for a parking zone around the corner. They said they did go to pick up the bikes, but Burrough demanded a fee for storing them.
Staff have however also visited to try to change the batteries on the bikes. The firm explained: “This is an automated process and it is important the vehicle batteries are not left without charge for extended periods of time. The police have been supporting Tier in retrieving the vehicles. We remain available to collect the vehicles at any time."
Tier rolled out e-bikes in Bristol at the end of last year, after also taking over as the city’s official e-scooter provider. “This is the first time that shared e-bikes will be available in Bristol at this scale, so there is a lot of work going on behind the scenes at the moment to ensure the launch goes smoothly,” the operator said at the time.
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The police called Burrough again in February and said it was now a criminal investigation, after he said he wouldn’t return the bikes until the bill had been paid.
In March, he wrote to Metro Mayor Dan Norris, who said he was unable to get involved because the police were ‘adjudicating’ between the parties, but said he had raised the issue with Tier.
“It’s unbelievable that no one at Tier wants to sort it out," said Burrough. "It’s also unbelievable that the police want to get involved and are treating this as a crime. I run a self-storage business. Someone came and left their property at my business, and I’m storing it. They have to pay for that - that’s how it works.”
Burrough said the bill is nearing £1,000. “It’s costing me money because they are taking up space in one of my storage units. It’s just ridiculous, and I don’t understand why Tier didn’t just come round and pick them up straight away like they said they would.
“Instead, they say I’m holding them to ransom and I’m sat here waiting to be arrested for this. If they do, then I will be making a case for wrongful arrest, because I haven’t disposed of them. I don’t want to keep them, I just want the bill to be paid. When the police phoned me the first time, I thought ‘this can’t be real’ - I couldn’t believe it.
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“The thing that baffles me the most is what made someone think they could just put the bikes here in the first place? We’re behind a locked gate for 12 hours overnight, and we’ve got electric security fencing and everything - we take security really seriously, obviously. It’s clearly private land and not a public space that would be suitable to use as a parking zone for these bikes.”
Tier declined to provide a comment to ebiketips on this story.
