Paying for bicycle parking in Beijing?

[smh254]

So we recently moved here and purchased bikes.

While running errands around the Wudaokou area, we park our bikes with the hundreds of others and run into the store or bank. We return to the bikes and suddenly a person comes out and demands some money for when we go to leave. This has happened twice in the past 3 or 4 days. They usually accept a kwai for each bike.

Is this common? Are these people legit or just scammers? Do the Chinese residents pay this as well or do they only come after the laowai (like us)?

The first time it happened, this older woman physically grabbed my bike as I was about to ride away from the local ICBC bank. Fortunately, a nice Chinese man intervened and gave her a 0.50 note. I walked by this same bank today and noticed that the woman was there, waiting to collect money. I actually decided not to open an account at this bank solely because I didn't want to deal with this woman every time I needed to get money.

The second time, a woman wearing an official-looking "Parking" shirt came up and tried to demand 3 kwai for the 2 bikes. I gave her 2 kwai and a dirty look. This was on the sidewalk outside the Lotus Centre in Wudaokou.

Should I just ignore these people or is it customary to pay them?

[zhwj]

It's pretty standard to pay for bike parking at shopping centers and grocery stores. Some of the more upscale places charge .5 or even 1 kuai, but for most places (including subway stations), it's 0.2 kuai for a normal bike and 0.3 or 0.4 for a multi-speed or mountain model. It's posted in some places, but most of the time you'll just have to notice someone sitting there, possibly doing double duty collecting fees for car parking as well.

[roddy]

You're not the first one to wonder - see here. Sometimes you'll see a sign like this, but not always. If you watch you'll see that everyone pays this, although in foreigner-heavy areas it wouldn't be surprising if the attendants got into the habit of overcharging.