[비즈한국] The Swing is facing difficulties with 'Swap,' a bicycle subscription service introduced last year. The service allows users to rent bicycles for a desired period by paying a monthly subscription fee, but the rise of malicious users is creating operational challenges. The Swing has intensified its management and oversight to identify illegal users. However, there is criticism that their response methods are excessive.
Bicycle Ownership Possible After 12–48 Months of Subscription; Highly Popular from the Start
In May of last year, The Swing launched 'Swap,' an electric bicycle subscription service. Users pay a registration fee and a monthly subscription to use an electric bicycle. The Swing delivers the bike to the user's location, and the user can use it for as long as they pay the monthly fee. It is also possible to take ownership of the bicycle while using it. By selecting an "ownership-type subscription" product and paying the subscription fee in full over 12 to 48 months after an initial payment, the user becomes the owner of the bicycle.
Swap gained significant popularity from its launch. The Swing stated that it secured 5,000 subscribers within just 10 months of launching the service. Recently, promotions such as a one-month free trial and 100-won monthly rental benefits have attracted high interest among electric bicycle enthusiasts.
Despite the growing number of users, The Swing is not entirely relieved. The number of illegal users who stop paying subscription fees and go off the grid, or sell the products on the second-hand market, is on the rise.
An official from The Swing explained, "At some point, there are customers who stop paying their subscription fees. In such cases, we need to recover the product, but sometimes we cannot get in touch with them. If there is no response after multiple attempts to contact them, we inevitably proceed with forced recovery. There is a GPS function in the bicycles for anti-theft purposes. We use this function to track the location of the bike and recover the product."
Cases where rental products are sold on the second-hand market are also frequent. Many users falsely claim that the bike is their personal property rather than a rental, take the illegal profit from the sale, and then disappear. The company states that it has no choice but to monitor second-hand trading websites in real-time to respond.
The Swing official said, "A lot of transactions take place on online second-hand websites. Our employees are continuously monitoring these sites to find and restrict posts as they appear."
Conflict Arises from Misidentifying Second-Hand Buyers as Malicious Users
As The Swing focuses excessively on cracking down on illegal users, critics point out that it is causing inconvenience to innocent parties. This is because the company reacts sensitively even to legitimate second-hand transactions, sometimes misidentifying people as malicious users and causing conflicts.
A person named Mr. A recently purchased two Swap bicycles on the second-hand market because he needed bikes for himself and his wife. He bought them for 900,000 won and 800,000 won from different sellers, respectively. Both sellers explained that they had paid the subscription fees in full and that the bicycles were now their personal property. Mr. A checked the payment receipts and bought the products without suspicion.
However, the bike he bought for 900,000 won turned out to be a rental product. Mr. A only found this out after his bike was recently "stolen." He said, "One day, the bike I had locked up was missing. After reporting it, I found out that The Swing had forcibly recovered it. They tracked the bike's location using GPS and took it without any explanation. I explained that I didn't know it was a rental product, but I was told it couldn't be returned because it was company property."
Feeling dejected after realizing he had been a victim of a second-hand scam, Mr. A decided to sell his remaining bike as well. Shortly after posting the ad, he was contacted by an official from The Swing. Mr. A recounted, "Someone contacted me saying they wanted to buy the bike, but looking at the phone number, it was the same company official I spoke to when my other bike was forcibly recovered. They pretended to be a consumer interested in buying to ask for the product's serial number."
He further pointed out, "It seems they have a motive to look up the serial number. If it’s a rental, they come and forcibly take it, and if it's fully paid off, they leave it alone. They could have just identified themselves as company officials from the start, but approaching me by pretending to be a buyer is unpleasant from a consumer's perspective."
When Mr. A expressed his dissatisfaction, The Swing blocked him from trading, claiming that "selling rental products is illegal." Even when he repeatedly explained that it was a fully paid-off product, not a rental, they were adamant. He explained, "The Swing official accused me of being a fraud, claiming that 'a theft report for the same model and color has been filed.' I even received a threatening text from The Swing CEO Kim Hyung-san stating, 'Just posting a Swap sale ad can lead to a prison sentence' and 'If I file a criminal complaint, I will never withdraw it or settle.' Only after I proved it wasn't a rental product with various pieces of evidence did they finally admit, 'We are sorry, there was a mistake.'"
Mr. A criticized The Swing for displaying an attitude of distrust and intimidation toward ordinary consumers while cracking down on illegal transactions. He noted, "They claim to monitor all posts on second-hand sites, but do they respond this way every time? It is infuriating that they accuse everyone trading Swap products of being a fraud without any evidence, and then take a 'so be it' attitude when they are wrong."
The atmosphere at The Swing is clearly very sensitive regarding the management of Swap, to the point where the CEO personally intervenes. A The Swing official explained, "There seems to have been a misunderstanding in the communication process," adding, "At first, the company wasn't that aggressive. But as (illegal transactions) became frequent, the situation reached a point where (the CEO) had to contact people directly. Sometimes the CEO intervenes when there is an issue." They continued, "There are more malicious users of subscription or rental products than we thought. As of now, we have no choice but to monitor them one by one, so the company is also in a very difficult position."