Angry customers of Chinese bike-sharing pioneer Ofo queue up at Beijing office for deposit refund
- Early users were asked to pay a 99 yuan deposit which was later raised to 199 yuan before they could rent the bike service.
Several hundred customers of bike sharing company Ofo lined up outside its main office in Beijing on Monday to demand an immediate refund of their deposits, increasing pressure on the cash-stretched Chinese sharing economy pioneer.
After hearing local Chinese news reports on Monday morning that said users who personally went to Ofo’s office on Sunday were able to get refunds right away, hundreds of Beijing residents headed to the company’s headquarters in Zhongguancun.
Early users were asked to pay a 99 yuan (US$14) deposit which was later raised to 199 yuan before they could rent the bike service. Riders could request a deposit refund anytime but doing so via the Ofo app meant there was a waiting period of 15 working days for the refund to be received.
However, some Ofo users have complained that they were not able to get their deposits back even after the waiting period.
“I asked for a refund over a month ago and my hundreds of phone calls to the Ofo service line went unanswered,” said a recent college graduate surnamed Qiu.
Qiu, 25, said the main reason he does not want to use Ofo bikes any more was because of the poor user experience as the bikes did not receive proper maintenance, but added that as he was still unemployed getting his 99 yuan back was important.
Ofo is being sued over unpaid bills by its suppliers. Bike makers Shanghai Phoenix Bicycles and Tianjin Flying Pigeon Cycle Manufacturing as well as logistics services providers Best and Deppon Logistics are among the firms that have recently sued Ofo. The lawsuits reflect the challenge of slowing demand for bike-sharing services in the world’s second-largest economy.