Recently, some consumers reported to a reporter from Beijing Youth Daily that after using the Hello shared bicycle to ride and before returning the car, the interface of buying a "seven-day unlimited card" for only 5.5 yuan popped up. However, a few days later, she found that she was still deducted 3.7 yuan. After a closer look, I found that there was also a small print on the bottom of this card that said "up to 30 minutes for each deduction". "It feels misleading, with 'infinite times' written in large letters, and such crucial information in small print. I didn't have time to take a closer look at the car in a hurry, and I knew that I would definitely not buy a card."
A reporter from Beiqing Daily investigated and learned that there are still many problems in the shared bicycle industry, such as the difficulty of returning the bike, tying in the sale of cycling insurance, the cancellation of the account is still deducted, and the cycling card purchased on the payment platform is limited to the use of the bicycle app. At present, the Beijing Municipal Transportation Commission and others have issued a number of policies to regulate the behavior of platforms. However, due to technical limitations, revenue pressure and other reasons, there are still many problems in the industry.
I bought an unlimited card and still get charged
The shared bicycle riding card routine is deep
Open the Hello Travel app, click on the wallet, the page has a bicycle riding card purchase option, click to buy the card, there will be a variety of options for Hellobike discount cards, there are 30 days of continuous monthly national general card, the original price is 35 yuan, Limited time discount 12.5 yuan; bicycle 30 days unlimited card, marked only in my city can be used, the original price is 35 yuan, limited time discount 15 yuan; there is also a bicycle 90 days unlimited card, the original price is 90 yuan, limited time discount 42.7 yuan, only in my city can be used, the above coupons are marked with small print below: a single deduction of 120 minutes, buyers need to read carefully before purchasing, otherwise they will be mistaken for just literal meaning, unlimited use within the specified number of days. There are many users who place an order to buy a card because they did not read the instructions carefully.
Ms. Wang is one of them, she told a reporter from Beiqing Daily, "A few days ago, I went out with friends and found that Hello Bike had a seven-day unlimited card, only 5.5 yuan, I thought it was a good deal, so I bought it, but I didn't expect to be deducted 3.7 yuan when I returned the car." I thought it was unreasonable, and I checked the details only to find that it was written below the unlimited card icon, "up to 30 minutes per deduction", that is, only 30 minutes can be deducted each time, which is very misleading to the public, and the first time I saw it, I took it for granted that it was literally infinite.
Ms. Xuan, who was also "deceived" by the "word game" of Hello Bicycle, told a reporter from Beiqing Daily, "I bought a monthly bicycle riding card before, but I didn't expect to ride for 50 minutes, and I was actually asked to pay for it!" I couldn't figure it out, just now, I found the cycling card package I bought before, it turned out that my renewed monthly card was a single arrival of 30 minutes, I checked again where I bought the package, it turned out that there was another package, "monthly card, a single arrival of 30 minutes 17.6 yuan". When I clicked on "More Discounts", I found that there was no above package at all, all of them were 120 minutes for a single time, and the same "monthly card, 120 minutes for a single time" was only 19.3 yuan. Normal people's logic, who would buy the 17.6 package, this word game is really misleading to the public. Afterwards, I contacted customer service to ask for a refund, the monthly card was more than 17 yuan, and there were 15 days left, but I could only refund more than 6 yuan."
The reporter of Beiqing Daily first consulted the customer service of the Hello Bicycle platform, and the customer service could not solve the problem of the shared bicycle riding card, and the commissioner would be arranged to answer it later, and there would be a reply within 1-3 working days. Later, a "commissioner" told a reporter from Beiqing Daily that the problem encountered by Ms. Xuan like the above is the system discount generated by Alipay, and Alipay usually promotes Hello Bike, the purpose is to make more people download Hello Bike, and this situation is unavoidable.
Alipay to buy a travel card
Why is the offer "Bike-sharing app only"?
In addition, after Alipay scans the code to ride to pay for the order, it will pop up to open a cycling card, and there will be no charge within the specified time, but the Beiqing Daily reporter's investigation found that this kind of cycling discount card can only be enjoyed by the Hello Travel app.
Mr. Su has encountered such a situation, "I used Hello Bike in Alipay, and the pop-up window recommended that I open a monthly card without charging within the specified time, and I thought it would be more cost-effective to open it, but I found that I was still deducting the fee after riding, so I contacted the online customer service to ask for the details of the order, why I have been deducting the fee after opening the monthly card, and the customer service told me that it was because I was using the Hello applet, not the app, and only by using the Hello Travel app could I enjoy the rights and interests of the monthly card. I don't understand why I can open a monthly card and ride in the mini program since it can only be used on the Hellogo app? ”
In addition, Mr. Lin also said that he bought a 7-day unlimited ride for 4.4 yuan at that time, and never told him that he must use it on the app from the point in to the payment, and never said that he would have to pay for more than 30 minutes.
Why can users open a cycling card on Alipay, but can only use it on the Hellogo app? How can the losses suffered by users be recovered? A reporter from Beiqing Daily consulted the commissioner of Hello Bicycle, and the answer he received was that he "didn't know the specifics, and sometimes this is the case." ”
Using highly attractive words such as "unlimited" and very low prices to induce users to spend, but the real situation is very different from user expectations, similar to this kind of word play, some people on the Internet say, it is like "I ordered food in your store, but I was asked to eat at another restaurant".
Vanishing P-Spot:
"5 minutes by bike, 2 hours parking"
Many netizens complained that when they went to the parking spot after riding a bicycle, they obviously parked many bicycles with the same bicycle as themselves, but on their mobile phones, the nearest parking spot was more than 100 meters away, and after they went, it still showed that they were not at the specified parking spot, why did other people's cars park and I couldn't park?
Mr. Wang told a reporter from Beiqing Daily, "I rode a shared bicycle to hold a parent-teacher conference for my children a few days ago, and when I arrived opposite the school gate, there was a place where the bicycle was parked, so I planned to lock the car, but I couldn't lock it, obviously there were many other shared bicycles parked nearby, so I had no choice but to push a section of the road and arrive at the nearest parking spot, but it still didn't work, so I rode and walked for a while before locking it, and then walked back to school, tired and sweaty, and almost late." ”
It is obviously a convenient means of transportation, but it invisibly increases the pressure of riding, and with it, there are scheduling fees and overtime fees.
Ms. Yang told a reporter from Beiqing Daily, "I swept a Qingju bicycle, and I couldn't find a parking spot after arriving at the place, and I had to charge a dispatch fee of 23 yuan when I was done." Ms. Yang also said, "Since then, I will no longer ride the Qingju bicycle every time I ride, and I will ride the small yellow bike (Meituan shared bicycle) instead, but the small yellow bike is often inaccurate now, and it is also parked in a white frame, which can be parked for a while, and cannot be for a while, which causes me to be very annoyed every time I park, and I don't want to ride anymore when it expires."
Mr. Kong told a reporter from Beiqing Daily, "After I rode to the destination, I couldn't find a parking spot, so I rode for 15 more minutes to find a place to park, and finally I was deducted for 1 hour and 1 minute, and 4.5 yuan was deducted, and I was deducted 1.5 yuan a minute, and I was very depressed."
Beiqing Daily reporter searched social media and found that netizens complained about the outrageous parking incidents they had encountered, some people said, "The mobile phone shows that the parking positioning is 1 meter away, but I can't go 1 meter forward, and I can't go 1 meter backward, I pay the dispatch fee directly and then uninstall the APP", and some people said, "It's true that it's good to ride, it's true that it's hard to stop, the parking area doesn't let it lock, I just park it according to the parking area given to me on the map, and the place where I go is actually on a highway, and the road where cars come and go can be locked, I can't park in a few shared bicycle parking areas, it's outrageous, and I was deducted more than a piece because I didn't lock it out of time." What's more, "Once I was parked with a bunch of shared bicycles and didn't let them stop, I just searched and searched according to point P, and finally found a motor vehicle parking lot, told me that it was point P, and I parked in the middle of the two big buses." ”
In response to problems such as not being able to find a parking spot, netizens also showed their own magic and came up with strange tricks.
Someone said, "There will be white boxes drawn at the designated parking spots, and one way to do this is to take out the parked cars in the lattice and stuff your car into it, so that it can be locked, and it is suitable for almost all shared bikes."
"I tried turning off the data traffic and location of the phone, and then turned these two functions back on, and then the positioning was accurate, and I was able to turn off the lock smoothly."
"Once, just in time to catch up with the eldest brother who was tidying up the car, he taught me: put it horizontally, if it still doesn't work, just lift it up and fall a few times after the car wheels, it really works after trying it yourself, and the car won't break."
Some netizens said, "If you really can't click on it, you can't turn it off, but this option will tell you that the number of times you have used the function has been used up after 3 times."
Regarding the inability to park cars at parking spots, the commissioner of the Hello platform told a reporter from Beiqing Daily that the mobile phone signal will generally fluctuate, and the positioning will also drift due to the fluctuation of the mobile phone signal. Regarding the scheduling fee generated when parking, the commissioner said that you can click on the Hello interface to disapprove the charge, and there will be customers who will refund them according to the user's positioning.
For office workers, riding a shared bicycle is an excellent choice to avoid the rush hour of commuting, people are often in a hurry when they are in a hurry, obviously park to the line can park and leave, mobile phone lock car is very convenient, but every time you have to spend time in place, it is really "go to work against time, lock the car is time-consuming and laborious", but if parking can only rely on the transport of parked vehicles, turn off and turn on mobile phone data repositioning and other means, that has the characteristics of lightweight, environmental protection, efficiency, comfort and other characteristics of shared bicycles will be difficult to be accepted by the public.
The customer service of the platform said that if a user complaint is received, it will be judged according to the user's location to see if there is a parking spot nearby, and if the situation is true, a refund will be considered. In the case that the user activates password-free payment, the platform will directly deduct the scheduling fee, and if the user does not find that he is charged the scheduling fee, this loss can only be borne by the user, and there is no solution for the time being.
The mobile app forgot to turn off the lock
Why does it take 4 hours for the bill to be automatically turned off?
"The last time I rode the bike, I found that there was no automatic lock, and I waited until 240 minutes of overtime billing to automatically close the lock, the cost was 8 yuan, if you don't pay this money, there is no way to continue to use the car. Call the customer service phone to complain, they said that the car has been in use, what I see is, the total riding distance is only a few hundred meters, even if it is ridden away by others, a few hundred meters to ride for 240 minutes, this is not reasonable, why must it be 240 minutes after the billing before the lock is automatically closed and said to deduct money, how is it not 60 minutes or 120 minutes, this time interval is inevitably too long", user Ms. Zhu said.
A reporter from Beiqing Daily saw that unlike the previous mechanical version of the lock, the latest shared bicycle locks need to be manually locked on the App. However, its positioning is based on the positioning of the mobile phone, so the user must remain motionless in the P point when locking the car, otherwise the car may fail to be returned.
Ms. Zheng has the experience of forgetting to close the lock, she told a reporter from Beiqing Daily, "I was deducted an extra 10 yuan a few days ago because I forgot to close the lock, and there was no SMS reminder, after going home, I played with my mobile phone for a while before I remembered that the car lock was not closed. ”
"It's annoying to go to work, and it's even more annoying to scan the new version of the shared bicycle. The new version of the bicycle canceled the function of manually closing the lock, and the simple thing that you could manually close the lock by bending down has now become complicated, and you have to take out your mobile phone, open the page, and then choose to close the lock, and the mobile phone card has to be pestled in place and wait for the lock to be successful", Mr. Zhou, an office worker, told a reporter from Beiqing Daily.
Some analysts believe that this way of closing the lock is also to improve the open rate of the App, and it is more convenient to increase the sales of bicycle cards and other products to consumers when returning the car, which is an operational strategy of the bike-sharing platform.
Tied "cycling insurance"
The account is still deducted after the account is closed
On the Internet, many consumers said that they encountered problems when settling the bill for shared bicycles and found that they had "purchased" "cycling insurance".
Ms. Mo, who was studying in Xuzhou University before, told a reporter from Beiqing Daily, "I recently logged in to the Alipay account that I don't use often, and found that there is an automatic deduction record for Hello Bicycle, I haven't ridden Hello Bicycle for 3 years, and I look at the payment record and find that there has been a deduction record of 5.5 yuan every month since October last year." Click on the historical orders one by one, and found that they are all riding in Xuzhou, I used to go to college in Xuzhou, and I have been using the campus card issued by the university, and I canceled it after graduation, and all related Alipay, Taobao, WeChat, etc. were cancelled, and the Alipay account at that time was unbound to the university's mobile phone number, and the official process application was bound to the QQ mailbox, and all the registrations were replaced with the mobile phone number of the work. Calling the official customer service of Haro, escalating layer by layer, saying that he could not solve it, so he contacted the commissioner to solve it, waiting for the commissioner's reply in one to two days, I asked if I continued to be stolen, would you bear the loss of my property, the customer service was silent directly, and finally hung up the phone directly. ”
Ms. Mo said that in the end, she first untied the overlord treaty of automatic payment in the background, and finally refunded the money after continuous complaints.
When a reporter from Beiqing Daily asked Ms. Mo, the commissioner, about the fraudulent payment of Hello Bike, the commissioner said, "On the one hand, the user needs to close the passwordless payment, and on the other hand, the user must cancel the account of Hello Bike at the same time as unbinding the payment account.
Others were tied to cycling insurance. Ms. Wang told a reporter from Beiqing Daily that she had received a text message to buy "cycling insurance", and she had not purchased insurance through any channels before. According to the content of the text message, I clicked into Ant Insurance to check and found that I had a cycling policy, and I consulted the customer service of the platform and learned that it was Hellobike's cycling insurance. The platform's reply to Ms. Wang was that Ms. Wang herself opened Ant Bao by entering the password.
Ms. Wang recalled the experience of the day and said: one day before, she had ridden a Haro bicycle home to get something, and she was more impressed at the time, she and her younger brother rode the Haro bicycle into the community because they were in a hurry, and when they came out, they found that they could not ride into the community, and each person was deducted 15 yuan in dispatch fee, and he entered the password to pay 15 yuan in the dispatch fee, and there was no other payment in addition to this payment that day. "Now click in and look again, the Haro order paid at that time has become 13 yuan, and there is still no other item to pay on the same day. After careful checking, I found that when I entered the payment password, I automatically checked and opened the insurance together, so I didn't look at it carefully, but fortunately, there was no loss," Ms. Wang said.
The commissioner of Hellobike said that Hellobike does not have the authority to open user Huabei and purchase insurance for users, and it is necessary to ask Alipay customer service about the situation that Huabei is opened or has been opened for insurance. When asked if it was the user who paid and directly checked the option to open Huabei, the commissioner said, "No, Haro does not have this permission."
Reporter's Notes:
Why is the chaos of shared bicycles endless
In recent years, with the popularization of the concept of "green travel" and the construction and improvement of urban greenways and other facilities, more and more people are cycling, and bicycle sharing has become the choice of more cyclists. According to the data released by the Beijing Municipal Transportation Commission in November 2023, the number of shared bicycle rides in a single year has exceeded 1 billion, and the average daily riding volume has reached 3.1157 million, a record high.
As of the end of October 2023, the city has reported 1,001,300 vehicles, including 800,000 vehicles in the central urban area.
For example, the prospectus of Hello Travel shows that more than 90% of the company's revenue comes from shared two-wheeled vehicle services, including shared bicycles and shared motorcycles. However, in 2018, 2019, and 2020, Hellogo's revenue was 2.1136 billion yuan, 4.8233 billion yuan, and 6.0443 billion yuan respectively; The losses were 2,207.5 million yuan, 1,504.6 million yuan and 1,133.5 million yuan respectively.
At present, Didi and Meituan see bike-sharing as an entrance to app traffic, so increasing the app open rate has also become one of their goals. For example, the new version of the bicycle must be returned by the app, which has indeed doubled the open rate of the app. Another example is the card bought on other platforms, but you must scan the code with your own App to enjoy the discount, which are all ways that these companies think of in order to increase the App open rate.
Although bike sharing is not a lucrative business. However, for the development of the company, the platforms are also exploring how to increase revenue on the bicycle side, such as "selling cards". Therefore, in order to sell cards, in order to sell higher-priced cards, the actions of the platform may be deformed, such as marking the restrictions on the use of cards in small print, such as automatic renewal, and so on.
A person familiar with the bike-sharing platform told a reporter from Beiqing Daily that problems such as "disappearing P points" and "difficulty in returning the car" are indeed caused by technical conditions, "to be very accurate, not only within the fence, but also to facilitate various special situations that users may encounter in different scenarios." To this end, the platform is also constantly cooperating with the management side, on the one hand, to improve the accuracy of positioning, on the other hand, to standardize the user's parking behavior. According to previous news, some shared bicycle brands in Beijing are equipped with "Beidou + GPS" dual-module positioning devices in their vehicles to improve the accuracy of satellite positioning.
To this end, the relevant administrative departments of Beijing have also introduced various policies to standardize management. In July 2023, the Municipal Transportation Commission issued the "Beijing Internet Rental Bicycle Operation Service Supervision and Management Measures (Trial)", revised and issued the "Beijing Internet Rental Bicycle Service Quality Assessment Measures (2023 Revised Edition)", increased the assessment of the order management of shared bicycles, and deeply linked the order management results with the scale of enterprise vehicle launch, and consolidated the main responsibility of enterprises. The Beijing Municipal Transportation Commission issued the "2023 Annual Rules for the Evaluation of the Special Governance of Internet Rental Bicycles", and also compiled the "Beijing Internet Rental Bicycle Comprehensive Supervision and Compliance Manual (First Edition)", which clearly takes the supply of parking resources, the coverage rate of electronic fences, and the governance of parking order at key points as evaluation indicators, comprehensively measures the implementation of supervision in each district, and guides the improvement of the supervision and service level of the shared bicycle industry.
However, at present, there are still problems of one kind or another in the bike-sharing platform, and we look forward to ushering in a greener and better shared cycling travel environment with the efforts of users, governments, platforms and other parties.
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Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Wen Jing Intern Zhu Yinhua Zhu Lijun
Editor/Fan Hongwei