中國(guó)消費(fèi)者投訴收不回共享單車(chē)押金

The streets of Chinese cities have been taken over by fleets of colourful shared bikes that users can hire for less than a dollar a month after paying a deposit. However, some cash-strapped bike start-ups have used this cash to fund operations — against Beijing’s wishes — and hundreds of thousands of consumers have complained after bankrupt groups failed to return the cash.

中國(guó)城市的街道如今遍布色彩鮮艷的共享單車(chē)車(chē)隊(duì)，用戶(hù)在支付押金后，每月僅需不到1美元就可租用這些自行車(chē)。然而，一些資金匱乏的共享單車(chē)初創(chuàng)企業(yè)把這筆資金用作營(yíng)運(yùn)資本，這與監(jiān)管部門(mén)的愿望相悖，在破產(chǎn)的共享單車(chē)企業(yè)未能歸還押金后，眾多消費(fèi)者提出投訴。

The mass complaints have exposed an easily exploited loophole in China’s growing bike-rental market, one that is being tested in a civil suit filed this week against Mingbike, a Guangzhou-based bike sharer, the first court case of its kind.

這波大規(guī)模投訴暴露出中國(guó)不斷增長(zhǎng)的自行車(chē)租賃市場(chǎng)中一個(gè)容易被利用的漏洞。本周對(duì)廣州共享單車(chē)企業(yè)小鳴單車(chē)(Mingbike)提起的民事訴訟——這是第一起此類(lèi)訴訟——將挑戰(zhàn)這一漏洞。

“Most companies refrain from using deposits to pay for expansion, but we see it in the shared bike space because there is a liquidity and fundraising issue,” said Xue Yu, analyst at IDC, a market research firm.

“大部分企業(yè)不會(huì)利用押金來(lái)為擴(kuò)張買(mǎi)單，但是我們?cè)诠蚕韱诬?chē)行業(yè)看到了這個(gè)現(xiàn)象，原因是存在流動(dòng)性和籌資問(wèn)題，”市場(chǎng)研究公司IDC分析師薛宇表示。

In May, top policymakers, including those from China’s transport ministry and central bank, jointly issued draft regulations that asked companies to distinguish cash flows from deposits and store them in a designated bank account. The express purpose was to ensure users could reclaim the cash if the company failed.

今年5月，包括中國(guó)交通部和中國(guó)央行在內(nèi)的高層政策制定者共同發(fā)布法規(guī)草案，要求企業(yè)將現(xiàn)金流與押金分開(kāi)，將它們存入指定的銀行賬戶(hù)。規(guī)定的明確目的是確保用戶(hù)在企業(yè)倒閉的情況下可以收回押金。

The Guangdong Consumer Council, a provincial consumer watchdog, filed the Mingbike suit after it received 30,000 complaints from users unable to reclaim a $30 deposit after the group shut down last month.

廣東省消費(fèi)者委員會(huì)是小鳴單車(chē)案的原告，此前這家省級(jí)消費(fèi)者監(jiān)督機(jī)構(gòu)接到了3萬(wàn)份用戶(hù)投訴，這些用戶(hù)在小鳴單車(chē)上月停業(yè)后無(wú)法收回199元人民幣的押金。

Ofo, the big bike sharing group, said it does not use consumer deposits to fund daily operations. Ofo and Mobike, the two largest shared bike companies by market share, have together attracted about $2bn in funding this year alone. Mobike was not immediately able to comment for this article.

大型共享單車(chē)集團(tuán)ofo表示，其不使用消費(fèi)者的押金為日常運(yùn)營(yíng)提供資金。按市場(chǎng)份額計(jì)算為業(yè)內(nèi)最大兩家公司的ofo和摩拜單車(chē)(Mobike)，今年總計(jì)吸引了約20億美元資金。摩拜單車(chē)暫時(shí)無(wú)法為本文置評(píng)。

Smaller start-ups, such as Mingbike and Kuqi, have struggled to raise the capital to buy and maintain bikes, especially as competition heats up in the over-saturated bike sharing space in China.

較小的初創(chuàng)企業(yè)，如小鳴單車(chē)和酷騎單車(chē)，在籌集資本購(gòu)買(mǎi)和維護(hù)自行車(chē)方面遇到困難，尤其是在中國(guó)過(guò)于飽和的共享單車(chē)行業(yè)競(jìng)爭(zhēng)加劇的背景下。

Consumers have forked out almost Rmb1bn ($150m) in deposits for shared bikes to groups that have since gone bust, according to a report from Ant Financial, the fintech affiliate of Alibaba, the tech company.

科技公司阿里巴巴(Alibaba)的金融科技關(guān)聯(lián)公司螞蟻金服(Ant Financial)的一份報(bào)告顯示，消費(fèi)者向現(xiàn)已倒閉的共享單車(chē)企業(yè)支付了近10億元人民幣(合1.5億美元)押金。

The figure may underestimate consumers’ exposure. The China Consumers Association, a state-run advocacy, issued a public letter in December demanding Kuqi return deposits of about $45 to each of its 16m registered users — if all users were unpaid that would add up to $720m.

這個(gè)數(shù)字可能還低估了消費(fèi)者可能蒙受的損失。政府運(yùn)營(yíng)的維權(quán)機(jī)構(gòu)——中國(guó)消費(fèi)者協(xié)會(huì)本月發(fā)表一封公開(kāi)信，要求酷騎單車(chē)向全部1600萬(wàn)注冊(cè)用戶(hù)歸還每人298元人民幣(約45美元)的押金。如果這些用戶(hù)誰(shuí)都拿不回押金，那么打水漂的押金總額將達(dá)到7.2億美元。

The association said it had also received 210,000 complaints from users of the failed Kuqi, after the company listed a nonexistent address for users looking to reclaim their deposits.

中國(guó)消費(fèi)者協(xié)會(huì)表示，它還從已經(jīng)倒閉的酷騎單車(chē)的用戶(hù)那里接到21萬(wàn)份投訴，原因是該公司竟然列出一個(gè)不存在的地址來(lái)打發(fā)要求退還押金的用戶(hù)。

Kuqi was not immediately contactable for comment.

記者暫時(shí)聯(lián)系不上酷騎單車(chē)請(qǐng)其置評(píng)。

November brought a flurry of bankruptcies in the bike sharing sector, led by Bluegogo, start-up that shuttered its operations five months after its launch this January after accumulating losses of nearly $150,000, delaying deposit returns to thousands of irate users.

11月，中國(guó)的共享單車(chē)行業(yè)發(fā)生一連串破產(chǎn)事件，首當(dāng)其沖的是小藍(lán)單車(chē)(Bluegogo)，該公司在累積近15萬(wàn)美元虧損后停業(yè)，還拖延向眾多憤怒的用戶(hù)退還押金。

Alibaba and Tencent have started experimenting with social credit scores, developed from a user’s history of online purchases, to rent bikes deposit-free.

阿里巴巴和騰訊(Tencent)已開(kāi)始嘗試基于用戶(hù)的網(wǎng)上購(gòu)物歷史計(jì)算社會(huì)信用評(píng)分，讓他們免押金租用自行車(chē)。

“China’s shared bike companies should not require deposits, and I hope that this will be realised in the future, said Zhang Yi, chief executive of iMedia Research Institute, a mobile internet consulting agency.

“中國(guó)的共享單車(chē)公司不應(yīng)該要求押金，我希望將來(lái)能夠?qū)崿F(xiàn)這一點(diǎn)，”移動(dòng)互聯(lián)網(wǎng)咨詢(xún)公司艾媒咨詢(xún)(iMedia Research)首席執(zhí)行官?gòu)堃惚硎尽?/p>

Additional reporting by Yingzhi Yang. Yingzhi Yang補(bǔ)充報(bào)道