Tesla, Starbucks, Nesher's Tea... Named

On April 22, the China Consumers Association released the Annual Report on the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests in China (2021).

For the first time, the China Consumer Association has adopted the form of an annual report

Comprehensively sort out the cause of consumer rights protection

Development process

01

Comb through last year

Consumer infringement in key areas

Excessive collection and use of consumers' personal information

Internet platforms provide "free" or "personalized" services in a way that collects personal information or even privacy. However, consumers do not necessarily have access to a convenient, fast, fair and safe "consideration" experience.

App collection and use of "peripheral information" to form a "user portrait", and consumers often do not have informed consent.

Consumer lending, payment functions, etc. require consumers to bind personal bank accounts.

Food safety risks still need to be vigilant

Food safety and quality complaints are still high. The main problems are: expired food spoilage, poor sanitary conditions in catering establishments, and irregular operations; some online shopping foods are three-no products; individual unscrupulous merchants tamper with production dates; false publicity of the concept of hype; excessive marketing of internet red product traffic and gourmet food, and poor quality stability.

Some well-known brands have been exposed to food safety incidents:

Starbucks private ingredient labels use expired ingredients

Yoshino's household stinky minced meat

Xiaolongkan's kitchen was dirty and messy and used a broom to pound the ice machine

RT-Mart overnight stinky meat ground into meat stuffing sausages

"Nesher's Tea" uses rotten fruit

"Fat brothers" meat crab stew dead crab pretending to be live crab"

......

——The consumption of new energy intelligent vehicles has caused new problems in rights protection

Car safety issues, such as sudden acceleration during driving, flameout, oil leakage, engine noise, brake steering failure, etc.

There are many new problems in the consumer disputes of new energy intelligent vehicles, and there are difficulties in safeguarding rights.

For example, the Incident of Tesla Car Owners At the Shanghai Auto Show in April 2021 and the On-site Rights Protection Incident of Car Owners at the Guangzhou Auto Show in November reflect that consumers still have pain points, difficulties and blockages in the automotive field, especially in the field of intelligent and connected vehicles.

The used car sales information does not match the actual situation, and the quality of the car after the transaction occurs.

The price increase in addition to the clear price can only be picked up, which has become the "unspoken rule" of some high-end, "tight" models.

-- The problem of difficulty in refunding fees in the field of prepaid consumption is prominent

In 2021, the data on consumer complaints accepted by the National Consumer Association showed that there were a total of 80,528 complaints about off-campus education and training, an increase of 43.4% year-on-year, most of which were related to refund disputes.

After some training institutions fail to operate well or the capital chain is broken, it is difficult to recover the prepaid fees;

In order to circumvent the provision that "no one-time fee shall be charged for more than 3 months", some training institutions have adopted various ways to increase the cost of a single course and the total training in disguise;

Some institutions induce consumers to apply for "consumer loans", and after the institution closes its doors, consumers still need to repay the loans on schedule.

- Minors and the elderly are subject to various and complex forms of abuse

Disputes arising from online and offline consumption by minors mainly include:

Minors spend a large amount of money to recharge online game accounts and tip the anchor, and parents apply for refunds but are rejected by the platform.

Minors spend thousands of yuan to buy mobile phones, pets, game cards, etc., and their parents ask for returns after discovering them, resulting in disputes with merchants.

Individual merchants encourage minors to "vote" for "rice circle" idols, or induce minors to consume impulsively in the name of treasures, rarity, and limited quantities.

Consumer complaints of the elderly are mainly concentrated in the fields of health care product purchase, collectible investment, financial management, health prepaid cards, TV shopping, and online shopping. The main manifestations of the problem are:

Using small favors, playing the family affection card, using false publicity, price misleading and other means to mislead the elderly about high consumption, and even hollow out the "money bags" of the elderly.

Health seminars are held under the banner of "experts", brainwashed and marketed, and information is arbitraged or fraudulently obtained.

Take advantage of the weaknesses of the elderly such as poor identification ability and lack of relevant financial and scientific and technological knowledge to induce the elderly to purchase financial products such as insurance and financial management.

Induce the elderly to invest in the "housing pension" project and illegally occupy the property of the elderly.

TV shopping after-sales service is poor, and it is difficult to return goods.

02

Six major problems affect the improvement of the consumption environment

Further progress is needed

The implementing regulations of the Consumer Rights protection law could not be promulgated as scheduled

The establishment of a consumer complaint publicity system and credit mechanism needs to be further promoted

The application of the punitive damages system and the adjudication standards for "professional counterfeiters" appeals are different

For example, in the case of Li Xuanqi v. Fuzhou Aipinhui Trading Co., Ltd. online shopping contract dispute, the court of first instance found that the plaintiff's transaction purpose did not meet the definition of "consumer" in relevant laws on the grounds that the plaintiff had initiated multiple judicial lawsuits in different courts within a year, and therefore did not support its tenfold compensation claim. The court of second instance revoked the judgment of the court of first instance in the final judgment made in 2021, supporting the plaintiff's claim of "returning one and paying ten".

The consumer class action mechanism has not yet been fully established

The quality of consumer infrastructure and public service supply needs to be improved

Such as due to the production standards are not uniform, charging interface is not compatible, pipe maintenance is not in place

The phenomenon of charging "zombie piles" is more common. During the holiday concentrated travel, new energy vehicles queued up in the service area to charge, which magnified consumers' "mileage anxiety" and reduced consumer satisfaction.

The concept of scientific consumption and rational consumption needs to be consolidated and strengthened

For example, some consumers are still superstitious about the concentration of business operators in promotions but "first increase the price and then discount" and other price routines and promotional traps, constantly inducing consumers to invest more time and energy and penetrate the ability to pay.

Some operators take advantage of consumer greed and cheap psychology to induce consumers to consume blindly through improper "algorithms".

03

Big data is ripe, and the cost of "niche formats" rights protection is high

Plague online consumers

-- There are shortcomings in market autonomy in network platforms

First, the intervention and control of the platform's promotional behavior at specific time nodes is not enough;

Second, there are many problems in the low threshold of live streaming with goods, and the governance of platform management needs to be strengthened.

——New formats and models challenge traditional systems and governance methods

First, social and sharing marketing "embedding" mobile Internet platforms has generated new problems in the definition of consumer relationships;

Second, the deep integration of online advertising and social marketing is challenging the identification of attributes and responsibilities;

Third, the application of technology to advertising and marketing puts forward new demand for the innovation of regulatory means;

Fourth, there are problems in the application of rules for the supervision of automatic deduction of APP fees;

Fifth, blind box marketing lacks clear rules, and it is difficult to resolve consumer rights protection disputes.

There are problems in the supervision of "big data killing"

The main problems brought about by the "killing" behavior at the transaction level are:

First, it restricts consumers' freedom of choice of prices, which may induce consumers to distrust the market pricing mechanism;

Second, de facto price discrimination has been formed, which may infringe on consumers' right to know, their right to make their own choice and their right to fair trade;

Third, personalized pricing expands the diversity of operators' implementation of price competition strategies, but may also have the effect of restricting competition;

——It is difficult for consumers such as "niche formats" such as second-hand transactions to protect their rights

Opaque information, the sale of counterfeit goods, piracy, phishing fraud, and the sale of contraband on second-hand trading platforms often occur. The implementation of transaction rules and governance measures on some platforms is not in place, and it is difficult for consumers to protect their rights.

In online transactions, third-party appraisal institutions that rely on or work closely with the platform are poorly regulated. Some third-party appraisal institutions that have not obtained brand authorization have played the role of "adjudicators" in the identification of brand authenticity and falsehood, and the legality of their appraisal qualifications and related reports has become the focus of disputes and differences between platforms and consumer platforms and platforms.

Source 丨China Consumer Daily· China Consumer Network

Edited by 丨 Huang Jingru

Audit 丨 Liao Haofeng He Boyi