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Author | Chen Bubai

Editor-in-Chief | Su Huai

"Hello, it's me. I'm Wang Yibo. I just bought a bottle of water at the convenience store. I want to remind you that the repayment date for your Huabei loan is coming."

"I am actress Gui Lunmei. Have you been eating and sleeping well recently? Have you had a good relationship? Friendly reminder: Huabei repayment date is coming soon";

"My mom asked me why I used Huabei, and I said I wanted Zhiling to call me";

"I received a debt collection call from boss Wan (Wan Qian), but I lost my temper and listened to the recording with an auntie smile on my face";

After Ant Huabei launched the "Celebrity Calls" feature, some consumers took the initiative to default on their payments and let their "idols" (idol artists) call them to urge them to pay back their debts in exchange for a moment of "exclusive favor."

What is a "celebrity call"? According to the 2023 ESG Sustainable Development Report recently released by Ant Financial, Ant Huabei launched a celebrity call reminder service in February 2021. Consumers can choose a celebrity voice package on the Huabei page and use their favorite people and voices to remind them to repay. Currently, more than 60 million people have subscribed to the call reminder. Huabei's celebrity call IPs include "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves" and "Hello Flame Blue", and the celebrities who have cooperated include Hu Ge, Wang Yibo, Yang Di, etc.

Yuan Media learned that if users who subscribe to the "Celebrity Calls" reminder fail to pay off their bills three days before the monthly due date or fail to pay the minimum repayment amount for the current period, it will trigger a celebrity call reminder from Ant Huabei's mobile phone numbers 10100556, 10101227, 1253902588, and 1253902689.

The fancy debt collection methods, while funny, also reflect the anxiety of Ant Huabei.

"Celebrity Calls", self-operated debt collection may involve false marketing

Information shows that after Ant Group completed the rectification required by the regulator, the Huabei and Jiebei businesses have been transferred to Ant Financial. According to the official website of Ant Financial, Huabei and Jiebei are exclusive consumer credit products under Ant Financial. Among them, the maximum amount of Huabei does not exceed 200,000 yuan; the installment period includes 3/6/9/12/24 periods, etc.; the annualized interest rate (simple interest) is interest-free to 24%; Huabei users can enjoy interest-free loan services for up to 41 days. In order to remind users to repay on time, Huabei products have developed the above-mentioned "celebrity call" reminder function.

Regarding the purpose of subscribing to celebrity calls, Ant Financial said, "In the past, 80% of consumers chose to subscribe to celebrity calls because it was 'interesting and fun'; now 55% of consumers choose to subscribe to celebrity calls to remind themselves not to forget to repay and affect their credit."

However, Yuan Media found that on Heimao Complaints, many Huabei users complained about Ant Huabei’s random charges for calls from celebrities.

Among them, consumer Li Lin (pseudonym) complained, "Before the repayment date for Huabei, a Huabei celebrity called me, and then I paid the money right away. There was no freezing for no reason, and it has never been overdue."

Consumer Jiang Gua (pseudonym) complained, "Huabei has a service that says you can get celebrity calls for free, so I clicked on it. When I was about to pay, I thought it would be deducted, but I ended up paying with my face. Then I saw on their event page that I could call 95188 to contact the merchant, but I went back and couldn't find this page at all."

"The Huabei call was in Alipay, so Alipay also has a certain responsibility. Regardless of the amount, the consumer feels very sad, both mentally and materially. I thought it was a promotion and I spent the money, but they didn't give me an effective solution, which made me very upset," Jiang Gua said.

For this reason, Jiang Gua asked Huabei to refund the 2 yuan service fee charged for celebrity calls.

It is clearly written in the Huabei call service rules that the repayment voice reminder is a free service, please feel free to use it. If you have any questions, please consult customer service. Yuanmeihui tried to consult Alipay customer service, but did not receive a relevant response.

In addition to false marketing in terms of payment, Ant Huabei also has "water" in terms of celebrity phone resource promotion. According to the above report released by Ant Financial, its cooperating stars include Hu Ge, Wang Yibo, Yang Di, etc. On the display page of Huabei's "Celebrity Call Reminder", it is also shown that the IP voice packages available for celebrity calls include Happy Twist, Brother Chasing Lights, Green Snake, Flying Tiger, etc.

However, Yuan Media was disappointed when it tried it out itself. Among the stars that could be replaced, there were only two options: Hua Xiaobei and the costume drama "Stars Falling into Sugar". It was not possible to select a specific star's voice in "Stars Falling into Sugar" as a "star call" reminder. The validity period was shown to be until 2099, and there were not as many star voices to choose from as mentioned in the above sustainable development report.

User Wang Zhima (pseudonym) said, "There are so many stars to choose from online, but I only have one. It's not fair."

Xie Da (pseudonym) also complained on Xiaohongshu, "I used to have Wu Xuanyi, but now I don't have her anymore. I don't know why."

At the first "Consumer Finance Summit Forum" in March this year, Ant Financial's Chief Risk Officer Lin Jianan told the media that Ant Financial's consumer finance business is mainly based on Huabei, so the entire form is different from the mainstream commercial loan model of other consumer finance companies and banks.

Data shows that Ant Financial's net profit in 2023 was 152 million yuan. By the end of 2023, Ant Financial's total assets were 239.669 billion yuan, total liabilities were 216.728 billion yuan, and total owner's equity was 22.941 billion yuan.

Although Ant Financial emphasizes that "Huabei has an interest-free period of up to 41 days, and about 75% of consumers have never paid interest fees when using Huabei", in addition to the interest-free period, the main force that contributed 152 million yuan in net profit to Ant Financial is obviously inseparable from the more than 60 million users who subscribed to Ant Financial's celebrity call reminders due to repayments and interest payments.

Outsourcing debt collection is even more of a "hard-hit area"

In addition to complaints about debt collection issues by Ant Consumer Finance's direct departments, such as charging for celebrity calls, complaints about Ant Huabei's outsourced third parties are abnormally high on multiple complaint platforms such as Black Cat Complaints and Woodpecker Complaints.

According to Ant Group's prospectus, the company determines the priority of debt collection based on factors such as the length of time the loan has been delinquent. Most of the company's debt collection activities are carried out through automated digital processes, such as payment reminder notifications in Alipay, text messages, voice messages, or collection calls initiated by artificial intelligence.

"If a loan has been overdue for a period of time, the company usually outsources the collection business to a third-party service provider to optimize collection efficiency. The company will carefully select third-party collection service providers and closely supervise them to ensure that their collection process complies with the company's internal policies and relevant laws and regulations," Ant Group said in the above-mentioned prospectus.

Source Media learned that currently, a number of consumer finance companies have publicly announced cooperative collection agencies, including Jincheng Consumer Finance, Beijing Sunshine Consumer Finance, Harbin Bank Consumer Finance, Jinmei Xin Consumer Finance, etc. However, Ant Consumer Finance, a subsidiary of Ant Group, has not yet announced the list of partners.

According to Tianyancha, the third-party collection companies currently cooperating with Ant Financial include Shenzhen Hengyuanhao Information Technology Co., Ltd., Henan Xiongteng Electronic Technology Co., Ltd., Shanghai Jinqiao Yifa Information Technology Co., Ltd., Wuhan Zhuochen Pengyuan Information Technology Co., Ltd., Guangdong Guoheng Technology Co., Ltd., Hunan Qihe Network Information Co., Ltd., Hebei Boyue Communication Technology Co., Ltd., etc. These companies have some violations in participating in the collection business related to Huabei and Jiebei.

Yuanmeihui typed the keywords "Huabei, debt collection" on Heimao Complaints. As of July 17 this year, there were a total of 10,322 search results, mainly complaints about outsourced debt collection by the above-mentioned third-party companies, involving violent debt collection, refusal to negotiate repayment, illegal acquisition of personal information, harassment of units, sending threatening text messages, continued harassment after overdue payments were settled, impersonating judicial institutions to threaten home visits, and impersonating national law enforcement officers.

Zhang Feng, partner of Wanshang Tianqin Law Firm, told Source Media that according to the provisions of the "Administrative Measures for Consumer Finance Companies", when entrusting a third-party collection company to collect debts, consumer finance companies must ensure that the collection behavior is legal and compliant, and may not use violence, threats, intimidation, harassment and other improper means to collect debts, nor may they collect debts from third parties who are not related to the debt. If a third-party collection company encounters problems such as violent collection, the consumer finance company, as the entrusting party, needs to bear the corresponding management and social responsibilities.

In addition, consumer finance companies should establish a collection management system to manage and record the collection process and ensure that the records are true, objective, complete and traceable. Relevant data and information should be kept for at least 5 years.

Lin Jianan previously stated in an interview with the media that Ant Financial's business is mainly based on Huabei business. "We (have passed) the stage of grabbing land in the early stage of development. Now how to serve the existing 400 million customers well and how to continue to deepen financial health, risk management, etc. are issues that Ant Financial must continue to face and solve."

At present, the Huabei customers who are being harmed by debt collection are also part of the 400 million customers mentioned above. Ant Financial really needs to think carefully about how to serve them well.