E-scooter rental startup Lime, which has already seen its share of bad PR, now has a new batch. The company used Definers, the conservative PR firm that became famous for its smear tactics in its work for Facebook.
And now Lime is trying to skate away from the firm, according to TechCrunch.
Lime is known for online dockless renting of electric scooters and bikes. Last week, TechCrunch wrote about Definers pitches it had received, which included a press release for Lime. Also in the email inbox was a note trying to raise questions about the veracity of Bird, another e-scooter company that competed with Lime.
Lime’s Vice President of Global Expansion Caen Contee told TechCrunch during an event in Berlin: “As soon as we understood they were doing some of these things we parted ways and finished our program with them.”
It’s just the latest bad PR news for Lime. The electric scooters that the company and a handful of other startups have dropped in cities have been linked with accidents that ended up in emergency room visits, according to CNET.
One model of Lime scooters would sometimes catch fire—Lime shut those scooters off—and another type reportedly broke in half. And some city officials have wanted to ban the devices from all the companies because of people riding on sidewalks and dropping them off in unauthorized places.