VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WVEC) — Norfolk city officials say the Bird scooter company owes them more than $93,365 to get their scooters back. City staff collected 560 of the company's electric scooters for being in the city illegally.
Right now, they are also not allowed in certain areas of Virginia Beach such as the Oceanfront Boardwalk and Town Center.
Around 5 a.m. Tuesday, 13News Now ran into James Marshall, who calls himself a “Bird Charger,” setting scooters out at the Virginia Beach Convention Center.
He told us this part-time job is for the app-based scooter company. His shift starts any time after 5:00 at night. Then he uses GPS and Bluetooth to track the scooters to point out which ones need more battery power to ride.
Once he finds the low-battery scooters, Marshall picks them up, charges them at home, sets them back out and gets paid by Bird with a direct deposit.
"It's not a lot you know,” said Marshall. “It's like $5 a Bird or something like that."
To Marshall, it's a quick way to make extra money. He said, "Christmas time is coming for the kids, so you know?"
He told us he found the job after seeing a post online and charging some Birds are worth more than others.
"Some of them tend to get lost,” said Marshall. "Some (scooters) are all over the place and harder to find and then those are a higher pay scale."
We reached out to Bird’s media team to get a statement on the impounded scooters and getting permits from the city. 13News Now hasn’t heard back yet.
Regardless of how many scooters are impounded by either city, Marshall said he’ll still work his part-time job in public spots just before daylight.
"I'm choosing locations that are out of the way and I see that could be helpful for tourists or people in the area who may be able to use it."
The City of Norfolk spokeswoman said the city was looking into electric scooters before Bird showed up, in August. They have a workgroup studying e-scooters right now and they will be discussing the topic in an upcoming city council meeting in December.