Mobike has difficulty returning deposits, raised 3 billion in financing but still owes users money?

Mobike's deposit issue has always been a source of dissatisfaction among users. Compared to other users' 99 yuan deposit, Mobike's deposit is as high as 299 yuan. Not only is the high deposit questioned, but the difficulty in refunding the deposit is also a target of public criticism.

In response to user complaints, Mobike once said: The deposit refund policy on the Mobike APP has always been that the funds will be credited to the account within 2-7 days. As for the recent delay in deposit refunds for a small number of Mobike users, it is related to the product design of the online third-party payment platform.

However, no matter how Mobike explains itself, the fact that many users have not received their money for more than 20 days cannot be avoided. Some users also said that they called Mobike's 400 customer service number dozens of times a day, but no one answered the call, and no one responded to their private messages on Weibo, so the customer service function was virtually non-existent.

The continuous increase in user complaints finally attracted the attention of relevant departments. On March 20, 2017, the Haidian Branch of the Beijing Municipal Administration for Industry and Commerce issued a document stating that "the difficulty in refunding Mobike and the low efficiency of handling customer service have led to a significant increase in complaints recently." It will sort out and summarize Mobike's "off-site operations, disclosure of entity identity information, supervision of deposited funds, user privacy protection, and bicycle quality and safety hazards" and issue a notice of responsibility to the company, and conduct administrative interviews with its executives. The document emphasizes "giving priority to resolving the refund problem" to avoid "social panic caused by delayed refunds" and not "ignoring the main responsibility of the platform."

Many people are puzzled as to why Mobike is so "low-level" despite having nearly 3 billion yuan in financing but still refusing to pay users. Now, this behavior has finally been explained: the media speculates that Mobike has spent more than 4 billion yuan to build bikes, and the financing amount has long been insufficient to cover expenses. In order to prevent the capital chain from breaking, Mobike has no choice but to consider the deposit. You know, based on the tens of millions of Mobike users, its deposit pool is conservatively estimated to be more than 4 billion.

Now, nearly a month and a half has passed since the Industrial and Commercial Bureau criticized Mobike by name, but the company still has no response or action. Complaints about users’ difficulty in getting refunds are still increasing day by day, and there are even cases where “the deposit is shown to have been refunded, but it has not been received for several days, or even overdue for 30 days”.

Mobike can ignore users’ dissatisfaction, so can it also maintain an arrogant attitude towards the government’s handling opinions? We don’t know, but we still hope that Mobike can value its reputation and come forward to resolve this matter as soon as possible.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.