Hundreds of customers in Australia and Singapore say company refuses to refund deposits and is uncontactable

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The bike sharing company oBike has faced new criticism after users said the latest app update, released yesterday, removed the button that lets customers refund deposits.

On Monday the company abruptly announced it was closing down in Singapore, where it was founded, only weeks after it closed its operations in Melbourne.



Hundreds of oBike customers in Singapore and Australia have complained that the company is refusing to refund deposits and is uncontactable. Others said their initial deposit had been converted into an ongoing subscription fee without their permission.



When the Singaporean newspaper the Straits Times visited oBike’s headquarters on Monday it found the building had been abandoned.

The company’s Australian helpline has also been disconnected and oBike has not responded to emails or media requests.

Bleio (@khktw) Recent app update oBike has removed Refund button in their app. The action itself would continue losing more numbers of loyal users. Waiting @oBikeMY to respond. pic.twitter.com/TGlbtqLJBA

Bleio (@khktw) For your update from Malaysia, oBike has maliciously removed the Refund button from their app. All users who wished to refund at this moment are stuck in anger without any notice from the oBike itself. This has affected Singapore and could be in worldwide scale.

C✨ ｢woojin💓｣ D-17 (@chamwoojin_x) Ok is it just me or the obike refund deposit button just disappeared mysteriously??????????? WHAT?!!!!! EXCUSE ME OBIKE JUST BC YOU ARE PULLING OUT OF SG DOESN’T MEAN THAT YOU CAN’T RETURN US OUR DEPOSIT.

A report by the Business Times of Singapore found that oBike had been in financial trouble before its Monday announcement, with losses of more than S$4m a year.

In 2017 the company earned S$912,000 in revenue, but recorded a loss of S$4.25m. It had assets of S$11.3m, but liabilities of S$22.7m, and owed months of unpaid fees to one of its PR firms, Ruder Finn.

On 12 June it removed all its bikes from the city of Melbourne after the mayor threatened to impound them and charge the company A$3,000 for littering.

However, a spokesman for the city of Sydney said oBike continued to operate in Sydney.

“The city has found bike share operators to be responsive to requests,” he said.

“The city of Sydney has agreed on a set of guidelines with five other inner-city councils which set out minimum standards and expectations for dockless bike share operators.”

But a former oBike customer, Gao Yang, told Guardian Australia he had been waiting three weeks for a refund.

Obike closes bike-sharing HQ raising customer fears for deposits Read more

“I came to Australia last July and was happy to learn that they were here, but shortly I realised how wrong their entire system is,” he said.

“Pricing, app design, customer service, back-end IT support, promotions. Everything they did signalled to the market that they were in deep shit. Now they have problems refunding our money.

“I wouldn’t call it scam. I just think they have a completely wrong business model.”

The consumer group Choice said customers could pursue their money under the Australian consumer law.

“The Australian consumer law has clear protections to stop companies using unfair terms in contracts,” said Erin Turner, Choice’s director of campaigns.

“Anyone who has had their ‘refundable’ deposit converted into a subscription fee without their active consent should first make a complaint to oBike and, if that doesn’t work, take the issue to their state or territory consumer affairs body.”

The NSW fair trading department said that if oBike did not respond, customers should lodge a formal written complaint with it.

The founder of the competitor bikeshare ReddyGo, Donald Tang, said the bike share model could still succeed in Australia if it was given more support.



“We still believe bike share is a good model to fill the gaps of traditional public transport,” he said. “To make this model successful we also have to understand that, apart from operators’ responsibility, we also need support from other parts of this society.”