This has been a thing with cars in the US for a long time.<p>If you leave your car for days in some business's parking lot, then they will call a tow service who will pick up the car at no charge to the business owner, then charge the car's actual owner an exorbitant set of fees for towing and storage.<p>You can read the California laws on "Removal of Parked and Abandoned Vehicles" here:<p><a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&sectionNum=22658" rel="nofollow">https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...</a>
This is like the circle of life for startups, I swear. Next up will be "legal services for someone interfering with your disruptive business model as a service".
We were talking about this exact problem in a HN thread about Bird scooters several weeks ago. Some people legitimately thought these scooters could never be a problem for businesses, and that businesses should be "happy to have scooters left on their property" without their consent. How this ridiculous sentiment emerged, I have no idea, but finally there's a service out that realizes the issue.<p>If anything, I hope Bird learns from this service and starts implementing hubs/waypoints in their business model. In addition to chargers and riders, there should be hub owners, who get a payment for signing their property up as a hub for scooters to be safely parked at. Hubs are a piece of the puzzle I think Bird desperately needs if they want to avoid this gray area stuff.
Doesnt surprise me, I was in San Diego last week and it was funny seeing all these scooters littered around every street corner. In some instances they clogged up sidewalks. I could see how it might spark the ire of some business owners.<p>Scooter companies could offer incentives to normalize the distribution of scooters around the city (for example, a discount or credit for taking a scooter from a densely covered area to a sparse one).
For those not living in San Diego, scooter pollution is real. I have seen several times 20-60 scooters in piles littering parking lots / outside businesses / blocking sidewalks at intersections. It seems to happen frequently in the area surrounding UCSD, in Pacific Beach, and in Old Town.
This is amusing and not at all surprising. If they only remove from private property & not public right-of-ways, everything will be fine - but you know it won't.<p>Most importantly "Scoot Scoop" for a name? I imagine they will be get getting a C&D for the use of the "Scoot" name in very, very, very short order.
<p><pre><code> Companies notified and Invoiced to pick up at our facility
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So, picking up scooters sitting on <i>public sidewalks</i> and then sending Bird/Lyme bills to pick them up.<p>Seems a little bit like stealing. Not unexpected from a tow company.
Normally this service is provided by some dude with a compact pickup overloaded with old washing machines and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.<p>I guess this service is targeting people with scrap removal needs but are too high class to call a "traditional" scrapper.