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Lime scooters price hike raises questions

Author
Otago Daily Times,
Publish Date
Mon, 10 Jun 2019, 11:23AM
In the past week the scooter hire company increased its prices in New Zealand from 30c per minute to 38c, an increase of about 26 per cent.
In the past week the scooter hire company increased its prices in New Zealand from 30c per minute to 38c, an increase of about 26 per cent.

Lime scooters price hike raises questions

Author
Otago Daily Times,
Publish Date
Mon, 10 Jun 2019, 11:23AM

Lime should have been more upfront about increasing its prices, a consumer watchdog says.

In the past week the scooter hire company increased its prices in New Zealand from 30c per minute to 38c, an increase of about 26 per cent.

It still costs $1 to hire the scooter and the minute rate is then applied.

Riders are able to see the cost per minute using the company's app, if they select a specific scooter, but they can hire a scooter without ever seeing the price per minute.

There were no other notifications of a price increase, despite Lime having access to customer's emails and the ability to send messages directly to riders.

In a statement, Lime public affairs manager Lauren Mentjox said the company had increased its pricing across New Zealand in the last week.

Users were always able to see the per-minute rate of scooters by opening the app and tapping an individual scooter, she said.

"We've adjusted our pricing to ensure that we can continue to offer excellent operational support where riders demand it most."

Ms Mentjox did not directly respond to a question about whether customers had been satisfactorily notified about the increase.

In its own terms and conditions Lime says in the event of a price increase it would post the new pricing on its app and attempt to notify customers in advance by email.

Consumer NZ head of research Jessica Wilson, of Wellington, said she expected a company such as Lime to notify customers of any price increase.

A price increase was a significant change to the terms and conditions of service and Lime should have notified customers directly, Ms Wilson said.

Customers should have been given reasonable notice so they could choose to use the credit they had or to put in a cancellation, she said

"In this case, Lime says in its own terms and conditions it would notify customers of any increase, so it has an obligation under those."

The way the price increase was handled also raised potential issues under both the Consumer Guarantees Act and the Fair Trading Act.

Since the service was launched in Dunedin in January more than 300,000 trips have been made by more than 52,000 riders.

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