A High Wycombe man has vowed never to use any of the town’s new e-scooters again after a “nightmare” first trip left him fearing he would have to fork out hundreds.

Shane Thorne used one of the new Zipp Mobility e-scooters on Sunday evening for around 15 minutes, starting and finishing his journey at the parking bay near Majestic Wines at the junction with the A40 London Road and Gordon Road.

But while he followed all the correct instructions for ending his journey – which includes taking a photo of the parked e-scooter and clicking ‘end ride’ in the Zipp Mobility app – it refused to turn off.

Using one of the e-scooters, which are part of a government-backed trial in towns like High Wycombe, Aylesbury and Princes Risborough, costs 15p per minute.

And being unable to end his journey, Shane feared he would be racking up hundreds of pounds in costs for using the electric scooter. Drivers have to add their bank card details into the app to set up their profile, and Shane had added his credit card.

Speaking to the Bucks Free Press on Monday about his experience, Shane said: “They are right by my house so I thought I would try one out. After the ride, I went to end it and take a photo and it should turn off but it wouldn’t.

“I assume for safety reasons, you can’t access the app when the scooter is moving. Because it wouldn’t end the journey, I couldn’t get into the app to message support about the problem. It’s a massive design flaw.

“I used my credit card so I don’t know how much it’s going to charge me. I reckon it’s going to cost me about £200.”

When Shane contacted the Bucks Free Press, his journey length was recorded in the app as being 21 hours and 19 minutes long – and counting.

He added: “They’ve said they would refund the money to my Zipp account but I never want to ride one of these again.”

Because he could not end the journey, Shane had to eventually just leave the e-scooter running at the parking bay overnight, and said he did not even know if Zipp Mobility had picked up the scooter to repair it or if it had been stolen.

He said: “Someone could have just walked past and picked it up because it was all still up and running. Zipp Mobility told me they got the bike but the journey hasn’t been ended yet.

“I have messaged support, and messaged them on Facebook and I still haven’t heard anything. They’ve got my mobile number as well.

“It’s the worst experience I have ever had. For a government-backed scheme, how are they allowed to do this?”

Shane said the whole experience left him with anxiety – fearing he would be charged hundreds of pounds for his journey and possibly hundreds more if the scooter had been stolen overnight.

He said: “Waiting 24 hours for contact from the support just isn’t a quick response – what if I had had a crash or a fall in the middle of the road? It’s really scary.

“I just want to make sure no one else has this problem. I chose to use one of the newer black models because I thought it would be better, but maybe I should have used one of the older yellow ones instead.”

A spokesman for Zipp Mobility said the “technical issue” of Shane not being able to end his ride was finally resolved on Monday.

He added: “Zipp don’t have the ability to take money from anyone’s account. Users credit their own accounts to enable them to use the scooters. It did result in him having a negative Zipp account, but it was sorted out as soon as we could (plus a bit extra for the inconvenience and unnecessary worry).”