Pay to charge Lime scooters has sunk so low 'juicers' won’t do it anymore

File photo of a Lime and Bird scooter parked in front of a building in San Francisco. File photo of a Lime and Bird scooter parked in front of a building in San Francisco. Photo: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images Photo: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Pay to charge Lime scooters has sunk so low 'juicers' won’t do it anymore 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Independent contractors employed by Lime to charge its scooters allege that the pay rates have sunk so low, it’s not worth doing anymore, according to Vice.

The juicers, as they’re called, are facing a 30% pay cut in Oakland, according to IndyBay and confirmed by commenters in a Reddit group for juicers. Thus, most juicers have stopped charging the scooters since after taxes and their own expenses from going to pick them up (in their own cars and trucks), they say they're no longer making a profit.

“At $3.30 you're basically paying Lime for the privilege of charging their scooters for them,” one juicer commented on Reddit.

Juicers use their personal cars and trucks to gather scooters and take them home to charge them on their power supply overnight. According to their Lime agreement, the scooters must be back on the road by 7 a.m.

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"We deeply value our Juicer community and the help they provide in ensuring scooters are fully charged and ready to use. Lime regularly makes minor adjustments across a range of business inputs in every market we operate, all with the goal of providing our riders a reliable, affordable and convenient transportation option. Of course, every market is different and we scale Juicer pay to reflect local conditions," the company said in a statement to SFGATE.

Lime also noted that pay rates go both up and down with market fluctuation.

In January, Lime laid off about 100 people and exited 12 markets, despite its $2.4 billion valuation last year.

Tessa McLean is a digital editor with SFGATE. Email her at tessa.mclean@sfgate.com or follow her on Twitter @mcleantessa.