Lime promises refunds as scooters fail to lock at end of trips

Lime riders outside NZME. Photo / Chris Keall.

Readers tell the Herald that multiple Lime e-scooters are parked with their lights on this morning - signalling they've failed to lock.

Ordinarily, a rider locks a scooter at the end of a ride via Lime's app - ending their journey and ensuring no one gets a free-ride on their credit card.

"We are aware of some cases where customers are having difficulty locking their Lime scooters at the end of a trip and are currently looking into the cause," a Lime spokeswoman said.

"Customers are not being charged more than they should for their ride. However, if for some reason this does happen, we ask that riders contact customer support and we will refund any overcharges."

A Herald journalist arriving at NZME's Graham Street building was among those affected by the bug.

"I'm nervous that I'm going to face a $50 bill, because the scooter still had 20 minutes worth of juice on it," he says.

"But what could I do? I had to go to work."

I had that a month or so ago. I just took a photo and sent to the support desk. I got overcharged for like 5 hours, but it got credited back onto my lime account later.

— Chris Stevens (@ChrisStevensNZ) April 6, 2019

And although the Lime scooter in front of NZME shortly disappeared, the journalist's trip history indicated he had not had any freeloading rider billing kms to his credit card.

The daylight saving changeover has a history of causing tech glitches, but Lime had no immediate comment on that point as it continued to investigate the issue.

Lime scooters were pulled from Auckland streets for a week during February after a bug was discovered that locked up brakes mid-journey, causing 30 injuries.

Council COO Dean Klimpton said he wanted Lime to come to him directly with issues, not make him learn about them through the media.

Auckland's e-scooter trial was recently extended by another seven months until October 31.