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Onboarding is the highest-leverage screen in your entire rider app. Get it right and a first-time rider moves through signup and onto a scooter without unnecessary friction. Get it wrong and you have handed a connected vehicle to someone paying with a stolen card, or to a 14-year-old whose parent will be on the phone with your city the moment there is a crash. Rider identity and age verification is the control that sits at that fork, and it is one of the few settings that touches fraud losses, safety liability, city compliance, and conversion all at once.
Here is the part that saves you a procurement cycle: on Levy you do not buy or wire up a separate identity vendor. The identity work is handled by tools already in the included software stack: SoCure for ID verification and Experian for credit and identity are two of the nine platforms bundled on every plan, and Stripe Identity (the document-based check built on Stripe, your payments platform) confirms a government ID and reads details such as date of birth. These come standard on the Managed plan (20% of GMV, or 15% of GMV at 100 to 249 active vehicles on an annual or approved term) and on Software-Only ($14 per vehicle per month, for 100 to 249 vehicles run in-house on an annual commitment) alike, because Levy does not gate core capability behind tiers. Pricing is $0 upfront and revenue-share, so there is no added software cost to switch identity on. Note that this is not a zero-fixed-cost plan: a $250 per month platform minimum still applies, credited against your fees, and Levy invoices the difference in any month your fees come in under it.
Not legal, insurance, or compliance advice
This lesson explains how Levy's identity and age tools work, not what your jurisdiction requires. Minimum-age rules, license and insurance requirements, permit conditions, and liability exposure vary by market and change over time. Treat everything here as operational guidance, not legal, insurance, tax, or regulatory advice, and confirm the exact rules for each market with a qualified professional before you launch.
Why verification is a money decision, not a checkbox
Operators who treat the signup gate as a legal formality tend to swing to one of two extremes, and both cost real money. Weigh them against each other before you touch a single toggle.
The fraud and chargeback cost
Every rider you onboard is a payment relationship. Levy runs managed payments on Stripe with volume pricing of 2.6% plus $0.20 per transaction (versus the standard 2.9% plus $0.30). That fee is the cheap part. The expensive part is a chargeback: when a rider (or the true cardholder behind a stolen card) disputes a ride, you lose the ride revenue, you eat a dispute fee, and someone on your side spends time assembling evidence to fight it. A weak identity gate is what lets that fraud in the front door in the first place.
This is exactly where the identity tools earn their place. Verifying a rider's identity and payment method at signup gives you a documented record tying the account to a real person and a real card, which is what you draw on if a "I never authorized this" dispute comes in later. On the Managed plan, Levy runs payments, disputes, and collections for you, so the downstream cleanup is handled. Your job at the front door is to configure the checks that make it harder for bad actors to get through.
The underage and safety liability
The second failure mode is a minor on a fast, connected vehicle. Underage riding is a safety problem before it is a legal one, and it is the fastest way to lose a city permit. Age verification is the tool you use to enforce your minimum age and any local legal minimum before a rider unlocks. Get this wrong once in a public way and the cost is not a chargeback fee, it is your license to operate in that market.
The friction cost on the other side
Now the counterweight. Every field you add to signup and every extra step you require will shed some percentage of would-be riders before they ever take a trip. A tourist standing next to a scooter in the rain will not photograph a passport to save $4. If you over-verify, your fraud rate looks fantastic and your revenue quietly bleeds out through abandoned signups. The goal is not maximum verification. The goal is the right verification for the risk, applied at the right moment.
Both extremes are expensive
Under-verify and you pay in fraud, chargebacks, and underage-rider liability. Over-verify and you pay in abandoned signups and dead vehicles. Rider identity and age verification is the dial between those two costs, not an on-off switch.
What ships with Levy for identity and age verification
You are not assembling this from scratch. The identity and fraud layer is part of the included software stack on every plan:
- SoCure (ID verification): identity confirmation from the data signals a rider provides.
- Experian (credit and identity): identity and credit signals that corroborate a real person behind the account.
- Stripe Identity: document-based verification, where a government ID is used to confirm the person and read details such as date of birth.
Because Levy runs managed payments and support, the pieces downstream of signup are handled too: the Managed plan covers disputes, chargebacks, collections, and dunning. So identity verification at the front door and dispute defense at the back door are two ends of the same included system, not two vendors you have to integrate yourself.
Included, not a paid add-on
SoCure and Experian are two of the nine software platforms bundled into every Levy plan, and Stripe Identity is the document check built on Stripe (your payments platform, also one of the nine). Identity and fraud tools are part of the platform stack, not a separate vendor you have to source and wire up yourself. If any usage-based terms apply to identity or document checks, confirm them in your operator agreement.
Design the flow: the fraud-versus-friction dial
The best signup flows are progressive. You collect cheap, low-friction signals first, and you reserve the heavy, high-friction checks for the small share of riders who actually look risky. That way the honest tourist sails through and the heavier checks land on the riders who look risky.
Verify contact first (email and phone)
Start with the cheapest filter. A confirmed email and a verified phone number are nearly free, and they are your first filter against throwaway-account signups. Levy includes SMS in the platform (the help center documents Telnyx as primary with Twilio failover), so phone verification is built in. Do this before you ask for anything sensitive.
Verify the payment method
A real card that passes a successful authorization is one of the strongest fraud signals you have, and riders expect to add a card anyway. Because Levy runs managed payments on Stripe, the card check is part of the flow you already need. A verified card plus a verified phone give you two low-friction signals to build the flow around before you ask for anything heavier.
Confirm identity and age
Now establish that the person is real and old enough. This is where the included tools do the work: SoCure and Experian corroborate the identity from data signals, and Stripe Identity handles the document-based check when you need a government ID on file to confirm date of birth. Ask for the level of proof your market and vehicle type actually require, and no more.
Step up only on risk
Do not put every rider through a full document scan. Reserve the heaviest verification for riders who trip a risk signal: a mismatch between the card and the identity, a first ride in a high-fraud window, or a failed earlier check. Progressive step-up keeps friction off honest riders and concentrates it on the ones you have flagged for a closer look.
The dial is not a global maximum. It is a policy: which check fires, for which rider, at which moment. Set it once with your risk tolerance and your city's rules in mind, then watch your signup completion rate and your dispute rate together. If disputes are near zero but signups are dropping off at the ID step, you have the dial turned too far toward friction and you are leaving money on the table.
Age verification, specifically
Age is not identity, and the two want different evidence. A self-entered date of birth is the weakest possible age control because anyone can type a number. Treat self-entered birthdates as a soft gate only, and corroborate age with something harder when the stakes justify it: a date of birth read from a government ID (via the included document check), or a credit or identity signal that ties back to a real adult record.
How much age proof you need depends heavily on the vehicle. Heavier and faster vehicles carry more risk and usually more regulation, so they warrant a deeper check.
| Vehicle type | Typical age posture | Practical verification depth |
|---|---|---|
| Kick scooter | Commonly 18 and up (some markets allow younger with limits) | Verified phone and card, self-entered date of birth, ID check where local rules or risk require it |
| E-bike | Similar to scooters, varies by class and market | Verified phone and card, date of birth, ID check on risk signals |
| Moped (seated) | Frequently requires a valid driver's license | License verification, which establishes both age and eligibility to operate |
| Car (car sharing) | Licensed adult driver | Identity and insurance verification, both documented in Levy's car-sharing product |
Two rules keep you out of trouble here. First, the number is set by your local ordinance, not by a national default, so confirm the minimum age (and any license requirement) for every market you enter before you launch. Second, match the proof to the vehicle: it is reasonable to gate a moped behind a driver's license while letting a kick-scooter rider through on a lighter check.
Do not trust a typed birthday alone
A self-entered date of birth is fine as a first pass, but it verifies nothing on its own. When age actually matters for safety or compliance, back it with a document-based check or an identity signal so the birthdate is tied to a real person.
How verification supports chargeback and dispute defense
Verifying identity and payment method at signup gives you a documented record for chargeback defense, and on Levy that verification is part of the included stack. When a rider's identity and payment method are both verified up front, you have a record tying the account to a real person and a real card, which is what you draw on if an "unauthorized charge" dispute comes in later. The stronger you make the front door, the more you can require of anyone trying to abuse stolen cards or disposable accounts.
The back half of the system matters just as much. On the Managed plan, Levy runs disputes, chargebacks, collections, and dunning on your behalf, so a dispute that does slip through is handled by the platform rather than by your team at 11 pm. Front-door verification is your first line, and managed payments handle the disputes that still come in. For a fuller picture of how rider accounts, wallets, and identity records fit together, see the customer management help center, which includes a dedicated identity verification article.
Layer ongoing trust after signup
Verification is not a one-time gate you close and forget. The signup check tells you the rider is real and old enough. What they do after that is a separate signal, and Levy gives you tools to act on it:
- Rider Score is behavior-based safety scoring with rewards and an intervention ladder. A rider who parks badly, triggers sidewalk detection, or racks up safety flags can be nudged, restricted, or rewarded based on how they actually ride, not just on who they said they were at signup.
- Helmet verification at unlock (part of Levy Vision) is a safety-compliance control, separate from identity. It confirms a helmet at the start of a ride. It is not an identity or age check, so treat it as a parallel safety layer rather than a substitute for verifying who the rider is.
Clean identity at signup is what makes all of this trustworthy. If you do not know who the account belongs to, a good Rider Score or a passed helmet check tells you far less.
Put it live
Start with the risk you are actually exposed to. If you are launching kick scooters in a permit market with an 18-and-up rule, your priority is a reliable age gate and a verified card. If you are running mopeds or cars, license and insurance verification move to the front. Set the progressive flow so honest riders can clear it with minimal friction, use step-up for riskier signups, and then watch signup completion and disputes side by side for the first few weeks. Tune the dial from real data, not from a guess.
If you are still standing up the business around this decision, the broader launch playbook in how to start an electric scooter rental business walks through where identity and age verification sit alongside pricing, permits, and vehicle sourcing.
See rider verification in a live Levy demo
Walk through the included identity stack (SoCure, Experian, and Stripe Identity), the progressive signup flow, and managed dispute handling on a real operator dashboard.