2024-07-31
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This article comes from the WeChat public account: Shanshang, author: Xue Xingxing, editor: Wang Bin, title picture from: Visual China
Local life has been one of the most competitive battlefields among Internet platforms in the past few years.
In addition to Douyin and Meituan, which have been fighting fiercely for the past three years, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, Amap, WeChat Video Account, etc. have also tried to expand their local life business. This is a huge market worth tens of trillions of dollars, and no giant is willing to miss it.
The trend breeds chaos. Some third-party service providers began to hold investment promotion conferences in various places under the name of the platform, taking advantage of the trend of local life to attract businesses to join, and illegally collecting tens of thousands of yuan in deposits.
On social platforms, you can search for a large number of posts by victims, so beware of scams by local life service providers. Most of these companies use similar methods, first inviting participants to conferences in the name of various platforms, then touting the high returns of service providers in conference rooms of high-end hotels, and promising to return the deposit in full after certain conditions are met. However, this is often not achieved.
A WeChat group chat called the Victims Communication Group has gathered more than 300 victims, covering almost all local life platforms on the market. In the WeChat group, their names are prefixed with the location + fraud company + the amount of money they were defrauded of, "Quanzhou-Jiangsu Jubing-50,000", "Sichuan-Xindong Micro-enterprise-59,000", "Nanjing-Jiangsu Hangcheng-9800"... According to rough statistics, the amount of money defrauded in the group chat may be as much as tens of millions.
In September 2023, in a conference room of a Hilton Hotel in Wuhan, an investment promotion conference titled AutoNavi Local Life Empowering Entity Enterprises was being held. On the PPT in the conference room, it was written "How to become a city partner of AutoNavi Wangpu".
The room was full of attendees. A middle-aged man was holding a microphone and excitedly explaining the huge business opportunities of Gaode Wangpu. Gaode Wangpu is a marketing product launched by Amap in 2021 for local life merchants. It can help merchants carry out traffic marketing promotion and other operational activities to acquire customers for merchants.
The man claimed to be a lecturer hired by AutoNavi, responsible for recruiting city partners for AutoNavi. By paying a deposit of 60,000 yuan, one can obtain the city agency rights of AutoNavi Wangpu and recruit merchants to settle in Wangpu on behalf of the platform.
According to him, the city partners of Gaode Wangpu have huge benefits. For every merchant recruited to Wangpu, the partner can get an account opening reward ranging from 100 to 200 yuan. At the same time, the partner can also take a commission of the merchant's daily turnover as an operating reward, the specific ratio is 80% of 3% of the turnover, that is, 2.4%. The partner can also take a 20% commission of the merchant's advertising revenue.
The lecturer said that based on the account opening bonus alone, if 600 accounts are opened in a year, the partners can earn 60,000 yuan, and with the subsequent operating bonus, the annual income can reach 579,200 yuan. The PPT has attractive slogans, "Gao De Wang Pu gives you a new opportunity" and "Continuous transactions, endless profits".
The scene of the investment promotion conference/Photo provided by the interviewee
Even the tens of thousands of yuan deposit paid in advance can be refunded. The lecturer said that as long as the partners attract 80 merchants to settle in, the deposit will be fully refunded. "Since AutoNavi has found you and given you such a good opportunity to start a business and make money, if you seize it, you can get a share of it. If you don't, you will miss it."
"This is a hot spot, very tempting," said Chu Tiankuo, a Wuhan native sitting in the audience. He runs a real estate agency business in Wuhan and has been working in the local area for decades. He has connections and resources. That day, a person claiming to be an official customer service representative of AutoNavi called him and invited him to attend a free investment promotion conference at the hotel. He attended with a try-it attitude.
The atmosphere on the scene left him no doubt. The new outlet of local life, the conference room of a high-end hotel, the big sign of AutoNavi Map, and the professional staff are really an opportunity to make money that cannot be missed. "I use AutoNavi Map every day. It is a giant. Even if the money is less, you will do it."
As soon as the meeting was over, he rushed to pay the deposit and became the first Wuhan-level partner of Gaodewangpu. "For those who want to grab a spot, the first place will get 2% more profit than the second place."
In March, a similar Kuaishou local life investment promotion conference was also held in a Hampton Hotel in Nanshan District, Shenzhen. The organizer claimed to be an official staff of Kuaishou, responsible for recruiting Kuaishou local life city-level affiliates.
Huang Rong attended the investment conference. She runs a media company in Shenzhen and has a certain understanding of the local life strategies of Internet platforms. When the other party invited her to attend the conference, she thought that she might be able to establish an official connection with Kuaishou, "It might be an opportunity."
When she arrived at the site, she was moved. The lecturer on the stage was familiar with the development history of the Kuaishou platform and analyzed the competitive relationship in the local life industry. What are the advantages of Kuaishou's local life, where are the opportunities, and what kind of changes short videos will bring, "very professional."
Promotional materials provided by the company involved to Huang Rong/Photo provided by the interviewee
The benefits of becoming a service provider are also attractive. The profit model shown in the PPT is similar to the above-mentioned Gaode Investment Promotion Conference. The service provider will receive a 200 yuan reward for attracting a merchant, and a 4% commission on turnover. There are 529,400 catering merchants in the local area. Even if the cooperation rate is calculated at 1/1000, there are 529 merchants a year. Assuming that each order is 100 yuan on average, the commission income alone will be 770,000 yuan a year.
Huang Rong paid the deposit without a second thought and secured the qualification of Kuaishou affiliate in Bao'an District, Shenzhen. The atmosphere was tense. The first place would get a higher commission rate. There was a broadcast on the spot. When someone paid, they would shout congratulations to Mr. So-and-so for becoming a service provider in a certain district. "You think this thing is rare and worth buying. You have to pay quickly."
In the past two years, similar investment promotion meetings have been held in many places, mostly in the name of local life investment promotion. The nine victims contacted by "Shan Shang" are from Guangdong, Hubei, Sichuan, Chongqing, Zhejiang, Guizhou, Henan and other places, involving multiple platforms such as Gaode, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, Douyin, Meituan, WeChat Video Account, etc., and the deposits paid range from 10,000 to 70,000 or 80,000 yuan.
Most of the victims are local small and medium-sized businesses. They use these local life platforms on a daily basis, open stores on Meituan or Gaode, and place advertisements on short video platforms, but they are not familiar with the specific details of the platforms. Faced with high returns, attractive opportunities, endorsements from official platforms, and a hot atmosphere on the scene, they all rushed into the scam.
Chu Tiankuo realized something was wrong that day. The investment promotion conference was held in the name of AutoNavi, but when it came to the signing stage, the other party said that they were just AutoNavi's service provider, and the party signing the contract was not AutoNavi, but Fujian Zhihai Chuangyun Information Technology Co., Ltd., and there was no mention of AutoNavi on the contract. He wanted the other party to provide AutoNavi's official authorization qualifications, but they failed to provide them.
There was something fishy about the payment process. He first paid a deposit of 20,000 yuan, and used a public account to transfer the balance to the other party, but the other party's account was under risk control by the bank, and his three attempts were rejected three times. But he was "hot-headed" at the time and used his personal Alipay account to transfer the money, but it still didn't work. Alipay customer service called him and reminded him to check carefully. He thought, "AutoNavi is such a big platform, there should be no problem", and the other party also promised to send him the authorization qualification later. He finally transferred the money, "I really want to do AutoNavi's business."
Several victims contacted by "The Mountain" all said,You don't have time to think too much at the investment promotion site.When it comes time to pay and grab the operator's spot, people keep raising their hands to grab a spot. The staff keeps urging you in your ear and trying to prevent you from contacting the outside world.
Li Lin, who attended a business conference held in Chongqing under the name of Kuaishou, said that when he paid, he didn't have enough money, so he asked to borrow 10,000 yuan from a friend. The organizer immediately said not to tell your friend, we will advance the remaining 10,000 yuan for you, and tell your friend when your business picks up. Another victim said that when she was paying, she wanted to discuss it with her family, so she ran outside the venue to make a phone call. Two staff members followed her, "just watching me, as if they were afraid that I would run away."
Professional is the word most mentioned by almost all victims when recalling the process of being deceived.Huang Rong said that in addition to being very familiar with the development history of Kuaishou, the lecturer on the stage also reviewed the various service provider trends in the past 20 years, from Ctrip to Didi, and Kuaishou is a new trend.
Li Lin also said that the people in these companies are very familiar with Kuaishou's business, and they update their social dynamics and publish official photos on WeChat Moments every day. For example, the local life conference held by Kuaishou in Qingdao in March this year was promoted on WeChat Moments, "All group purchases are worth redoing on Kuaishou."
Photo provided by the company's investment promotion staff/interviewees
Chu Tiankuo thought back and felt that there were loopholes everywhere, but he didn't notice them at the time. For example, he didn't know anyone at the venue. Afterwards, he asked in the local Wuhan business group whether anyone had attended the investment promotion conference. No one attended, only he went. He suspected that those who paid money enthusiastically at the scene might be agents.
For example, after the meeting, he called the other party's staff and asked where their offline office was and when they would go for training. The other party said that they had left Wuhan and were going to the next city to attract investment, and the training would be held in the form of online live broadcast."They ran away after the meeting."He said.
It is almost a common practice for such companies to move from one place to another when attracting investment. They never stay in the local area for too long. Zhao Tianmei from Luohe, Henan Province, participated in an investment promotion meeting in the name of WeChat Video Account, which also offered a 200 yuan bonus for opening an account and commissions for turnover. She paid 59,000 yuan to become a city-level partner of Video Account in Luohe. After returning home, she searched online and found that it was a scam. She immediately called the other party, but the other party had already got on the highway and left Luohe.
Chu Tiankuo still did not give up. In order to verify the qualifications of this company, he called AutoNavi's official customer service twice to verify it. However, AutoNavi's customer service responded to him:Fujian Zhihai Chuangyun Information Technology Co., Ltd. is not a service provider of AutoNavi, nor has it authorized this company to obtain the corresponding Wangpu investment qualification, it is recommended that he call the police or sue the other party as soon as possible.
At this time, he finally believed that he had been cheated. He repeatedly asked the other party on WeChat and asked for a refund, but the other party kept shirking responsibility, emphasizing that Chu Tiankuo signed the contract voluntarily and they would continue to provide services. As for his refund request, they would help him report to the company. He had already recruited people and was ready to do a big job, but now he had to stop. Since September last year, he has been busy collecting evidence and asking the other party for a refund.
Industrial and commercial data show that Fujian Zhihai Chuangyun Information Technology Co., Ltd. is registered in Xiamen, Fujian, and its main business is software and information technology services. In March this year, it was listed on the abnormal business list by the Xiamen Jimei District Market Supervision Administration because its registered residence or business premises could not be contacted.
In February this year, Chu Tiankuo sued Fujian Zhihai Chuangyun Information Technology Co., Ltd. for a contract dispute. In May, the People's Court of Jimei District, Xiamen City ruled that Fujian Zhihai Chuangyun must return the 45,000 yuan that Chu Tiankuo had paid and pay the capital occupation fee. However, Chu Tiankuo has not received the refund yet.
In the past six months, Chu Tiankuo has met many people who were deceived like him. The victims came from all over the country, including Chengdu, Xiangyang, and Tangshan. They all signed contracts with Fujian Zhihai Chuangyun Company and paid a deposit of tens of thousands of yuan.
Chu Tiankuo found out he was cheated early and did not recruit merchants to settle in. Wang Dawei from Chengdu worked for half a year, recruiting sales staff, printing materials, and going door to door to attract merchants. However, only 9 merchants recruited in the early stage successfully settled in Gaodewangpu, and no merchants settled in in the remaining months.
Wang Dawei said that the company is professional and familiar with AutoNavi's business process. In the early days, his business was going smoothly. Every time he attracted a potential merchant, the other party would create a WeChat group chat for him to connect with. The merchant would send in information such as the business license, and the merchant would be able to list on AutoNavi Maps quickly without paying any fees.
"The merchants have truly listed their products on Gaode, and some of their group buying packages can also be seen on Gaode. Everything is normal." said Wang Dawei.
The only problem was the account opening bonus the other party gave him. According to the contract, he would receive a 200 yuan account opening bonus for each merchant he successfully attracted. This bonus was not issued through the public account, but the other party’s staff directly sent him a WeChat red envelope.
However, the business went smoothly in the early stage, so he did not care too much. Later, he found that it took longer and longer for merchants to settle in Gaode. At first, it took three to five working days to settle in Gaode, but then it took two weeks, a month, and finally, none of his new merchants were successfully settled in. The other party also responded to his messages more and more slowly, and each time explained that the company was handling it and they would solve it soon, until they stopped responding to his messages.
This year, Henan Metropolitan Channel reported a victim in Henan who also signed a contract with Fujian Zhihai Chuangyun Company to recruit merchants for Gaodewangpu. The victim provided the settlement information of more than 100 local merchants, but in the end only 5 merchants passed the review and settled in.
So far, Wang Dawei's income is only the 1,800 yuan account opening bonus for early merchants. He paid a 50,000 yuan deposit. He said on the phone that these scammers just wanted to make money from his deposit, and the smooth entry in the early stage was just to stabilize him.
This is not an isolated case.After conducting business, most victims often find that these companies have no ability to fulfill their contracts.Huang Rong from Shenzhen joined Kuaishou Local Life. The contract she signed was with Jiangsu Jubing Culture Media Co., Ltd., which claimed to be the official service provider of Kuaishou.
But after working for a while, she found that the company had no Kuaishou qualifications and no service capabilities. The so-called service of this company was just to help merchants list on Kuaishou, but "anyone can do it as long as they have merchant information and mobile phone verification codes, and it does not require any technical skills at all."
She brought seven or eight merchants to Kuaishou, but after two months, there were almost no orders. "At the meeting, they pretended to be a platform and said they would provide traffic support and it would be easy for merchants to place orders, but in the end, the merchants had no orders at all."
The only order she placed was when she wanted to verify whether the product was actually on the shelves. But after checking the order on site, she found that the service provider backend provided by the other party did not show the completed order. She questioned the other party, and the other party asked her to provide a screenshot of the order, saying that they needed to verify it. A few days later, the transaction was shown in the backend.
The service provider backstage provided by the company involved to Huang Rong/Photo provided by the interviewee
Huang Rong guessed that the so-called service provider backend was just a shadow system built by the other party, a "fake backend" that did not have the ability to obtain the merchant's transaction flow. The service provider backend provided by the other party did not have a cash withdrawal system, so cash withdrawal was not possible.
More companies pretending to be platforms disappear after the money is paid.
A man from Zhejiang province named Kaohsiung has been blacklisted by the company involved. He runs a small noodle restaurant in Huzhou, Zhejiang. In April this year, he received a call from someone claiming to be a Douyin takeaway customer service representative, inviting him to attend a Douyin takeaway investment conference. He also does takeaways on other platforms, but the number of orders is not good. He often plays Douyin and knows that Douyin has takeaways. At the investment conference, the other party said that Douyin has huge traffic and can help businesses start takeaway businesses.
"It was all very exaggerated," he said, as if he had been brainwashed. The other party claimed that they were Douyin's official staff and could help merchants shoot short videos and provide traffic support, but the price was to pay a deposit of 9,900 yuan. If the merchant's monthly turnover reached 30,000 yuan, the deposit would be fully refunded.
He paid the money. This amount of money was not a small sum for him. He paid 9,900 yuan in three installments. The first installment was 3,600 yuan, the second installment was 400 yuan via WeChat, and the third installment was 5,900 yuan after he returned home and discussed it with his wife.
When he paid, the other party promised that the product would be available in 40 working days. He signed the contract in April, and now it has been almost 3 months, and it has not been available. The staff who invited him to attend the meeting and contacted him to put Douyin food delivery on the shelves have blocked him.
On social platforms, you can search for a large number of posts by victims, so beware of scams by local life service providers. Most of these companies use similar methods, first inviting participants to conferences in the name of various platforms, then touting the high returns of service providers in conference rooms of high-end hotels, and promising to return the deposit in full after certain conditions are met. However, this is often not achieved.
"This type of scam has started at least since 2021." Sun Xiaoxiao, who runs several offline stores in Guangzhou, said that she was defrauded of 50,000 yuan in February this year by a company impersonating Xiaohongshu. The fraud methods were similar to the above-mentioned Gaode and Kuaishou cases.
2021 is the year when Internet giants rekindled the battle for local life. This year, Douyin began to add a group purchase entrance on its homepage, officially starting a melee with Meituan. This year, Alibaba integrated its AutoNavi, Ele.me and Fliggy to form a new local life service sector.
After being cheated, Sun Xiaoxiao began to help people who were also cheated to defend their rights. A victim communication group she manages has gathered more than 300 people. In the WeChat group, their names are prefixed with the location + fraud company + the amount of money they were cheated of, "Quanzhou-Jiangsu Jubing-50,000", "Sichuan-Xindong Micro-enterprise-59,000", "Nanjing-Jiangsu Hangcheng-9800"... According to rough statistics, the amount of money cheated in the group chat may be as much as tens of millions.
Among the investment scams counted by Sun Xiaoxiao, in addition to the common local life investment scams involving Kuaishou, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Gaode, and Video Account, there are also dozens of investment scams involving fake platforms such as Palm Print Payment, JD Health Service Center, Huawei Cloud Cross-border, and JD Jingxiangfu.
Some companies will impersonate multiple platforms to commit fraud.For example, a company called Jiangsu Jubing Culture Media has been recruiting investors in the name of multiple platforms, including Kuaishou Local Life, Xiaohongshu Local Life, and Douyin Takeaway. Shanshang verified with multiple platforms, and all of them said that the company had no cooperative relationship with the platforms. In March this year, Xiaohongshu issued an announcement to the public, exposing that several companies, including Jiangsu Jubing, had faked official recruitment. Xiaohongshu suggested that victims report to the police or take civil lawsuits to protect their rights.
Announcement released by Xiaohongshu
Industrial and commercial information shows that Jiangsu Jubing Culture Media Co., Ltd. was established in January 2023 with a registered capital of 10 million yuan. The company was originally named Jiangsu Hankaze Culture Media Co., Ltd., and changed its name in February this year, and also changed its legal person. In March and June this year, the company was listed twice by the local market supervision and administration bureau in the list of abnormal business operations because it could not be contacted through its registered residence or business premises.
"These companies are very cunning." Sun Xiaoxiao said that when they hold offline investment promotion conferences, they often use the entities of five or six different companies to sign contracts with victims, "and in the end, the explosions of each company will not be very big." For example, at the investment promotion conference impersonating Xiaohongshu that Sun Xiaoxiao attended, the contract signing companies involved three companies, including Suzhou Dingming Culture Media Co., Ltd. and Jiangsu Jubing Culture Media Co., Ltd.
Sun Xiaoxiao has some legal knowledge. She went to many places to report the case and sue the relevant companies, but most victims are unable to defend their rights. "Many of them are local small and medium-sized businesses. Few of them have chain stores. Many of them just open a small store. They either don't have the energy to do these things or don't know how to do them."
After some victims found out they were cheated, the company involved would ask the other party not to pursue the responsibility on the condition of returning part of the deposit. Wang Qian from Guizhou was defrauded of 20,000 yuan by a company in the name of Douyin local life. Afterwards, she found out she was cheated and asked the other party to return the deposit. After multiple complaints, the company involved returned 14,000 yuan to her, leaving 6,000 yuan unreturned.
The 20,000 yuan was paid by her credit card. Wang Qian runs a maternity and baby store in the local county town, which just opened last year. She said that after deducting rent, water and electricity, the profit is only a few thousand yuan a month, "6,000 yuan is not a small amount of money." She did not agree to stop pursuing responsibility.
Zhao Tianmei, who was defrauded of 59,000 yuan by a fake video account in Luohe, did not get a full refund. She called the police, and the other party refunded her 43,000 yuan, but still had 16,000 yuan to go. She still hoped that the other party would refund her in full, but the company involved began to make excuses for various reasons.
Some victims believe that Internet platforms should be held responsible for these frauds that use the platform's name. Most victims were deceived because they trusted the platform. Several victims who spoke to "Shan Shang" said that they valued the official endorsement of the platform, "How could such a big company cheat you out of tens of thousands of deposits?"
Sun Xiaoxiao said that some companies did obtain partial authorization from the platform, but it might only be a cooperation authorization from the MCN agency rather than an investment authorization. However, this is enough to deceive some victims.
When developing the local life market, Internet platforms often hire multiple service provider teams to conduct business in the region. The responsibilities of these service providers are mostly to help merchants operate, rather than to attract franchisees. In fact, the service provider operating regulations of many platforms explicitly prohibit service providers from recruiting secondary agents, attracting franchisees, etc.
However, the platform has limited control over service providers. Some service providers need to pay a deposit of RMB 100,000 when entering the platform, and the platform’s treatment of illegal service providers is mostly through withdrawal, confiscation of deposits, and permanent refusal to cooperate.
Last year, Douyin cleared 211 illegal service providers, with the main types of violations concentrated on developing and recruiting second-level agents, infringing on platform intellectual property rights, commercial bribery, etc. Douyin said that the illegal development of second-level agents is the focus of annual governance. Several companies involved in the illegal recruitment of Douyin takeaway and Douyin life services were previously Douyin service providers.
Douyin's governance announcement
A person from an Internet platform said that service providers are basically local tyrants. A person from another platform told us that some service providers thought they were fake, but turned out to be agents after checking, "We need to verify them one by one."
Since last year, many Internet platforms have issued notices to warn against fraudulent investment promotion in the name of the platform. Platforms including Douyin, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu have issued notices to remind the public to be cautious in identifying offline investment promotion and franchising behaviors.
Sun Xiaoxiao said that in the past two years, there have been more and more cases of fraud in the name of fake platforms. The increase in cases may be related to the popularity of local life. Local life is a hot spot, and giants are rushing in. It is growing wildly, and subsidy wars are one after another. Even ordinary small businesses that are not familiar with the Internet game also want to join the game, keep up with the trend, and get rich.
But they are often the most vulnerable. They don’t know much about the advanced Internet games, nor do they understand what traffic or leverage is. They care about orders one by one, and hope to keep up with the times and the trend. But they are often swept away by the trend.
"In the past two days, I have received several calls inviting me to participate in local life investment promotion conferences." Huang Rong said, "They are all scammers."
(Chu Tiankuo, Huang Rong, Li Lin, Zhao Tianmei, Wang Dawei, Kaohsiung, Wang Qian, and Sun Xiaoxiao are all pseudonyms.)
This article comes from the WeChat public account: Shanshang, author: Xue Xingxing, editor: Wang Bin
This content is the author's independent opinion and does not represent the position of Huxiu. Reprinting is prohibited without permission. For authorization matters, please contact [email protected]
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