A CROWD of car owners gathered at the office of Shenzhen Tengda Shengang Taxi Co. in Longhua on Tuesday to protest possible contract fraud that involved 8 million yuan (US$1.16 million).

    To their disappointment, the office was closed and employees of the company couldn’t be reached by phone.

    The company, which had registered its business in May this year, claimed it cooperated with Didi and BYD to operate an app-based taxi service. It promised the car owners that their cars would be prioritized in getting orders from the Didi app.

    A car owner, surnamed Lin, said he bought a BYD car with a down payment of 30,000 yuan from the company. The company rented the car from Lin, promising to pay his monthly car loans and give him an additional 2,000 yuan a month since his car had already been registered to be engaged in an app-based taxi service. The company collected a 6,800-yuan monthly fee from each driver.

    However, over the last month many car owners, around 160 in total, couldn’t get the monthly rent the company had agreed to pay, Lin said. They signed contracts with the company to buy 293 BYD cars . Yet BYD and Didi company denied any cooperation with the company.

    Longhua Subdistrict Government Office has started an investigation. (Han Ximin)