A shared e-bike company is now hurriedly sweeping up its bikes from Shanghai after being called out by city authorities for flagrantly flouting regulations.

Shared e-bikes are banned in Shanghai but that didn’t stop Hellobike from recently introducing more than 1,000 of its electric bikes to the streets of the city’s Songjiang and Minhang districts.

Evidently, the company was working under a “ask for forgiveness, not permission” strategy with a representative telling Shanghai Daily that it had dumped the bikes on a “trial basis” and was now negotiating with local authorities for certificates and plates.

Those negotiations did not go terribly far with the Shanghai Road Transport Administrative Bureau warning Hellobike to pick up its bikes pronto or face a citywide ban.

Hellobike now says it is retrieving the electric bikes as quickly as it can and is offering full refunds to all those in Shanghai who bought monthly passes.

The company was a bit of a later starter in China’s shared bike boom several years ago, though that may have helped it outlast its rivals. Rather than trying to compete with Ofo and Mobike in China’s biggest cities, Hellobike instead focused upon China’s smaller cities.

Then, as Ofo and Mobike battled each other, tried expanding overseas, and ultimately lost ground, Hellobike decided to go the route of shared electric bikes — a very popular concept in China, though it may be frowned upon in some localities.

[Images via Shine.cn]