For what it's worth, I agree with this whole-heartedly. I too have been charged for an ebike when a manual bike was stuck in a dock and could not be taken out.
In those events, I've had success reporting the stuck bike to Citibike, who has been able to resolve it pretty quickly (within 48 hours), but it's still just one more thing to do.
I agree as well. This happened to me just the yesterday day. Checked all classic bikes. None of them were available. Checked out an e-bike and it ended up charging me. Still working on a refund right now.
