UPDATE: Lime has contacted the Herald since this article was published to say it has now decided to drop the fine.

Auckland man Vaughan Rivett is facing a $100 penalty from Lime over a "missing" e-scooter - which he says he did not even ride.

Rivett says he'll go to the Commerce Commission if the US multinational slaps the money on his credit card, as it is threatening.

Lime claims Rivett is the last known rider of one of its hire-by-the-minute scooters, which it now cannot locate.

An email from "Lime support" to Rivett on October 19, which appears to be automated, said: "I'm reaching out with Lime about a missing bike report on Fri, 19 Oct 2018 05:54:14 +0000. It seems we are unable to recover the Scooter 185088 since that time. Please remit the vehicle to the public right of way [sic] so that our team can retrieve and recharge it."

Rivett told the Herald that not only did he not remove the scooter in question from a public place, but that he did not use it at all.

"The scooter had been left outside my work," Rivett says.

"I had seen it there during last week and tried to use it but a message came up saying that it needed servicing."

The email from Lime included a number to call in the US. Rivett says he replied to the email saying he did not want to incur the cost of an international toll call. He asked for a local contact.

He received no reply to that email, but did receive a second message from Lime support on October 20, saying: "I'm reaching out to let you know that a penalty in the amount of $100 will be applied to your account for misuse of scooter 185088. Our records indicate that you were the last known user and our operations team is not able to recover the item because it has not been released to the public right of way [sic]. This is a direct violation of the user agreement that you signed when you began using the service."

Rivett said he replied to that email, saying he had not broken Lime's terms of service and asking for the company to produce evidence to the contrary.

This morning, the white collar worker located the "missing" scooter near his St Mary's Bay office. He messaged Lime. But by mid-afternoon, it had not been collected.

He can't reach a human at Lime. The company's robotic system is still set to fine him $100.

Rivett says if the charge is applied, he will complain to the Commerce Commission.

Consumer head of research Jessica Simpson says: "Given Mr Rivett has informed the company he didn't take the scooter and that the payment is disputed, it should not charge his credit card."

If he is charged the $100, he should ask his bank or credit card company for a chargeback – a reversal of the payment, Simpson says.

"We'd also recommend he make a complaint to the Commerce Commission."

For his part, Rivett says he can't understand why the emails from Lime are so blunt, and why the company is so hard to contact. "You would think that if you were entering a new market, you would have someone monitoring replies and be a bit more softly-softly about things," he said.

Lime employs casual contractors known as "juicers" to collect and recharge its scooters overnight.

Anti-theft precautions range from an annoying beep to the back wheel locking up if payment isn't received. The scooters are also tracked by GPS (used by riders to locate a free scooter, via a smartphone app, and juicers for end-of-day retrieval).

The San Francisco-based Lime launched in New Zealand on October 14, putting 600 scooters into Auckland and 400 into Christchurch. The scooters are unlocked by scanning a code with your phone and cost $1 plus 30c a minute (or $18 an hour) to ride.

Safety concerns have been raised over the scooters, which can be ridden at up to 25km per hour through pedestrians or traffic, with a helmet optional. After a crash on Tamaki Dr that necessitated an X-ray, ACC confirmed it has already fielded a string of claims from Auckland and Christchurch riders.

Auckland software engineer Tom Isaacson called out Lime on social media for several instances of over-charging, but also said the bug had been resolved and money refunded

Lime did not immediately respond to a request for comment.