In its first statement almost a week after announcing it would cease operations, oBike reassured the public that the company is working to address all issues that have arisen ending operations, including refunding the deposits that oBike users made to the company.
The bike-sharing operator announced in a post on its Facebook page on July 1, Sunday, that an announcement for processing refunds would be forthcoming at a later date when “details are finalized.”
In a meeting with the company last week, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) gave o-Bike until Wednesday, July 4, to remove all bikes around the country. The company said in the statement that it aims to meet this deadline, and that it is working “with an absolute focus” to take its fleet of 14,000 bikes away from public spaces by then.
The LTA announced that it would take away any oBikes from public spaces after July 4 and that the company or its liquidators would be obliged to pay storage and towing fees in order to get the bicycles back from them.
Many oBike users took to the Consumers Association of Singapore (Case) concerning whether or not their S$49 deposits would be returned. Case announced last Thursday, June 28, that so far, more than 770 complaints have been lodged against oBike since June 25.
Edward Chen, co-founder of o-Bike, said last week that there is a plan for the process of liquidating the company, but has yet to clarify when and how users deposits would be refunded.
The Facebook post on July 1 ended with an apology, “We would like to apologize once again for the inconvenience cause (sic) to all parties. oBike is fully committed to solve these issues to ensure proper closure for our stakeholders in Singapore,” it read.