Deposits converted into subscriptions as oBike withdraws from another market

Frustrated oBike customers fear they’ll never see their $70 deposits again after it emerged the company has allegedly been converting deposits into subscriptions. The Singaporean bike service withdrew from the Melbourne market several weeks ago after strict rules were imposed on the company by the state’s environmental authority. On Monday, the company issued a statement saying it would also stop operating in Singapore after the country’s Land Transport Authority slapped it with new, strict guidelines.

“It is with deep sadness that we have to pull out of the Singapore market,” the company wrote in a statement on Facebook. The withdrawal from the Singaporean market comes weeks after a similar announcement in Melbourne, and months after the City of Adelaide council ordered oBike out of the South Australian capital after granting it a permit to operate in October last year.

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