First things first,
- If you are an Obike user who has made a deposit with them in the past
- If you have not been active on the Obike app
You might have fallen victim to what we are going to bring up in this article.
Obike converting deposits in idle accounts into 1,000 days SVIP subscriptions, WITHOUT users’ consent
We came across a reddit thread that talks about a method which Obike might be using to lock in deposits of users and prevent them from drawing out their deposit.
So here’s what is going on:
- Idle Obike accounts are secretly being converted into SVIP subscriptions without the consent of the users. This is what it looks like on your app.
source: Seedly Personal Finance Community
- This means that your deposits are being locked up for as far as years down the road.
- Most of these users are not notified that their deposits are being used to subscribe to this SVIP package. All of the action is done secretly at Obike’s side.
- What made things worse is that under Obike’s Terms and Conditions, there is a line which gives Obike the rights to amend, modify and make changes to their agreements.
(who on Earth reads Terms and Conditions anyway right?) - These Terms and Conditions actually gave Obike rights over user’s deposit and they can change it to whichever that works best for them. Ultimately, consumers are at the losing end of this case.
Problems withdrawing deposits from Obike
On top of this, users are having problems withdrawing their deposits. A process that is supposed to take 14 days according to Obike’s FAQ, users are complaining about how some of their refund process took months.
source: reddit
What is going on?
This behaviour reminds us a lot of Multi-level marketing (MLM) companies, where the influx of new consumers are needed to support a possible lack of cash flow.
While we are waiting for more concrete evidence, it seems that Obike might be running into some trouble with their monetization methods.
Also, from now on, I guess it is best we pay more attention to Terms and Conditions of any app we use before parking our money.
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