news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

recently, the "hong kong meicheng mooncakes" promoted and sold by the well-known internet celebrity "crazy little yang" (zhang qingyang) in the live broadcast room caused a lot of controversy. although the sales volume exceeded 50 million yuan, it was revealed that there was no store in hong kong, and the origin information was guangzhou and foshan. on the 17th, the market supervision and administration bureau of hefei high-tech zone, anhui province, issued a situation report, saying that it had filed a case against three sheep network technology co., ltd. for suspected "misleading consumers" and other behaviors in live broadcasting.

on the 17th, the hefei high-tech zone market supervision and administration bureau said it had filed a case for investigation.

on the 17th, a reporter from upstream news (reporting email: [email protected]) found that "hong kong meicheng mooncakes" have been removed from all major e-commerce platforms, and no one answered the manufacturer's phone. affected by the relevant incident, the douyin account of "crazy little yangge" has lost a lot of fans, with 2.18 million fans lost in the past 30 days. wang hai, a well-known anti-counterfeiter, said that "hong kong meicheng mooncakes" is suspected of three major problems, and consumers can ask the live broadcast room and the manufacturer for ten times the compensation.

the store involved has removed all mooncake products from its shelves

at noon on the 17th, the hefei high-tech zone market supervision and administration bureau issued a situation report: recently, the "hong kong meicheng mooncakes" sold by three sheep network technology co., ltd. through live streaming has attracted attention. three sheep network technology co., ltd. is suspected of "misleading consumers" and other behaviors in live streaming. a case has been filed for investigation and will be handled in accordance with the law and regulations based on the investigation results. our bureau has repeatedly interviewed and urged companies to standardize their business operations in conjunction with relevant departments, and will resolutely investigate and deal with illegal and irregular behaviors in live streaming by companies in accordance with the law.

on the 17th, a reporter from upstream news searched for "hong kong meicheng mooncakes" on douyin, taobao and other e-commerce platforms and found that the relevant stores had removed mooncake products from their shelves. taking the taobao store "meichengli flagship store" as an example, there are currently only three products: egg rolls, western cakes, and butter peach cakes. on the store homepage, you can still see product pages such as "meicheng black truffle lava custard mooncake". after the reporter clicked on it, a prompt appeared saying "the product has been removed from the shelves." store data showed that the sales of many mooncakes exceeded 400 orders. in response to the reporter's inquiry "are there any mooncakes available?", the taobao store customer service said: "there is no stock. i wish you a happy mid-autumn festival and a happy life."

taobao customer service said the mooncakes were out of stock. screenshot

on the douyin platform "meichengli official flagship store", in response to the reporter's inquiry "whether mooncakes can still be purchased", the reply from the manual customer service "pansibingbing" was "read and replied randomly", "thank you for choosing our mooncake products. we are well aware of your pursuit and trust in quality, so you can rest assured that all mooncakes sold in our store are authentic, and we are an official store, and we strictly follow the national food safety standards~" "dear~ since mooncakes belong to the category of seasonal special foods, we are very sorry to inform you that this product does not support 7-day unconditional return and exchange service, but this does not hinder our persistence and commitment to quality. thank you for your understanding and support!"

there are no product sales links in the "meichengli official flagship store" on the douyin platform. screenshot

data shows that the total sales of the store is 827,000 orders, but there are currently no links to any products for sale in the store, and the only promotional video has been set to "do not disturb protection function enabled", which makes it impossible to leave comments. however, around 5:30 p.m. on the 17th, the account suddenly added two videos, including introductions to the mooncake production workshop and other details, with notes such as "unveiling our small workshop" and "not running away, working hard", etc. the two newly added videos unexpectedly opened the comment function, and many netizens left comments in the comment area.

on the 17th, the reporter called guangzhou meicheng food co., ltd., one of the manufacturers, several times, but no one answered the phone. according to media reports, staff said that the company registered the brand in hong kong in 2019 and was helpless when encountering such a thing. the above-mentioned person in charge said: "(online questioning) why do we register the company in hong kong and then produce in the mainland? i believe that there is no law that stipulates that i cannot produce in the mainland if i register the brand in hong kong, right? if you think there is something wrong with this, you can also bring out some relevant laws and regulations." in this regard, the staff of the guangzhou huadu district market supervision and administration bureau said that they have paid attention to this situation and the local market supervision office has intervened in the investigation.

netizens said their request for a return was rejected.

on the 17th, the reporter saw on a social platform that a netizen posted a photo on the 15th of this month saying: "meicheng mooncakes are worthy of being a brand. they were produced on the same day and sent to me on the same day. they are so fresh!" the photo shows that the mooncakes he showed were produced on september 15, 2024, and the words "egg yolk durian" were written on the front. the reporter tried to contact the netizen through private messages, but received no response. another netizen said that he bought 15 boxes of meicheng mooncakes in xiao yangge's live broadcast room, but after the meicheng mooncakes incident, "we wanted to refund, but we were not allowed to refund."

three sheep has not announced its after-sales compensation plan

public data shows that the same mooncakes that have attracted public attention have been sold in luo yonghao's "make friends" vertical live broadcast room. in response to this, luo yonghao said during the live broadcast: "we checked the hong kong meicheng mooncakes that were recently exposed. our company has not sold them, but our (subsidiary) small vertical live broadcast rooms seem to have been affected and sold some. now they are intensively checking the information. we have dozens of live broadcast rooms. if you bought the meicheng mooncakes in one of the "make friends" live broadcast rooms, after checking, we will refund one and compensate three in the next one or two days."

on the 16th, the "make friends" live broadcast room once again released a statement on the compensation issue: "please rest assured that the compensation process is in progress. since all user information needs to be counted and verified, and it is the mid-autumn festival holiday, this process will take some time. we once again declare: all users who purchased "hong kong meicheng mooncakes" in the "make friends" live broadcast room will receive equal compensation, please rest assured."

at present, three sheep company has not yet announced the after-sales compensation plan for this mooncake. according to the after-sales screenshots posted by some consumers, in response to consumers' requests for refunds or returns, the customer service staff responded: "since mooncakes are short-term festive foods, we do not support 7-day unconditional after-sales after signing for them."

wang hai, a well-known anti-counterfeiter, told upstream news that the "hong kong meicheng mooncakes" sold by the three sheep company on live streaming are suspected of three major problems - first, "misleading consumers". "he said the mooncakes are a hong kong brand, a time-honored brand for more than 20 years, but in fact, it is just a shell company registered in hong kong and has no value; second, it involves false advertising, such as the previous live broadcast room claiming that 'you have to queue up in hong kong to buy' and 'the daily price is 238'. this mooncake actually sold for 59 yuan before, but now it sells for 169 yuan, which is price fraud; third, it does not meet food safety standards. this mooncake claims to use black truffles, but it actually uses black truffle lava sauce, and the content is only about 2%. such propaganda will mislead consumers and make them think that the mooncakes use a lot of black truffles."

"crazy little yang" once said that meicheng mooncakes are high-end mooncakes. internet picture

wang hai said that since this is "selling goods that do not meet food safety standards", according to relevant regulations, consumers who bought mooncakes can ask the live broadcast room or the manufacturer for "one-to-ten" compensation. according to previous sales data, the sales of this brand of mooncakes on the douyin platform alone have exceeded 50 million yuan. if the ratio of one-to-ten is used, the compensation amount may exceed 500 million yuan.

the manufacturer has been punished many times

public information shows that the manufacturer of meicheng mooncakes has been punished by the market supervision department many times for violating food safety, excessive packaging and other issues.

tianyancha app shows that the brand operator of "hong kong meicheng mooncakes" is guangzhou meicheng food co., ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "guangzhou meicheng"), which was established in april 2019 with a registered capital of 10 million yuan. the legal representative, manager, and director are all zhang moudeng, and the shares are jointly held by two natural persons, zhang mouzhu and zhang moudeng.

in october 2016, guangzhou meicheng was fined 50,000 yuan by the guangzhou huadu district food and drug administration for violations of article 124, paragraph 1 and paragraph 2 of the food safety law.

in september 2022, the state administration for market regulation announced five typical cases of excessive packaging, one of which was related to meicheng mooncakes. at that time, the market supervision department of nanjing, jiangsu province found that among the three boxed mooncakes sold in a supermarket, the "meicheng anna jinzun mooncake (1.68kg/box)" priced at 499 yuan was nominally manufactured by guangzhou meicheng food technology co., ltd. (zhang moudeng holds 42% of the shares) and produced on july 20. this product does not comply with the requirements of the "announcement" that "operators selling boxed mooncakes shall not sell other products in any form; nor shall they sell mooncakes mixed with other products in the form of gift boxes, etc."

in february 2024, another manufacturer of meicheng mooncakes, foshan meicheng, was fined 55,000 yuan by the danzao town government of nanhai district, foshan city for producing "prohibited production and operation" foods. in june 2024, guangzhou meicheng was fined 15,000 yuan by the guangzhou huadu district emergency management bureau for "failing to equip safety production management personnel in accordance with regulations."

regarding the controversy caused by "hong kong meicheng mooncakes", the huadu district market supervision bureau stated on the 15th that after noticing the situation, the bureau immediately conducted an investigation on the company involved. because the scope of the case is wide, the company involved and the company that brought the goods (hefei three sheep network technology co., ltd.) are in different regions, and cross-regional investigation requires coordination with multiple local regulatory departments. the huadu district market supervision bureau will speed up the investigation, handle it in accordance with the law, and respond to the concerns of the public and the media in a timely manner.

lawyer: manufacturers and other parties must bear corresponding responsibilities

on the 17th, a reporter from upstream news checked feigua data and found that in the past 30 days, "crazy little brother yang" has lost more than 2.18 million fans, but the total number of fans is still as high as 118 million.

as for the three sheep company, which is at the center of controversy, it has been caught up in public opinion many times in recent years. in september 2022, after the "three-no" hair dryer incident was exposed, xiao yangge only denied that he promoted the hair dryer; in november 2022, the jinzheng wall-breaking machine and meat grinder promoted by xiao yangge were exposed to have false power ratings. as of now, xiao yangge has not made an official response; at this year's "3.15" gala, three sheep was also involved in the inferior preserved pork with preserved vegetables incident; in september, it was revealed that the "xian duo yu" company, the manufacturer of the fake original cut beef rolls that "crazy xiao yangge" had promoted, was fined 500,000 yuan...

feigua data shows that "crazy little brother yang" has lost more than 2.18 million followers in the past 30 days.

regarding the controversy caused by "hong kong mooncakes", fu jian, a well-known criminal defense lawyer and director of henan zejin law firm, told upstream news that the company only registered the trademark in hong kong, and all production activities are in the mainland. it deliberately emphasized the words "hong kong brand" in its publicity, which made consumers mistakenly believe that the product came from hong kong, constituting false propaganda. if the three sheep are found to have misled consumers, they may be suspected of violating the provisions on false advertising in the advertising law. specific charges may include false advertising, consumer fraud, etc. penalties may include fines, orders to stop illegal activities, eliminate impacts, and compensate consumers for losses. in addition, the official investigation shows that the relevant departments have paid attention to the responsibility of live broadcast companies as advertisers in false propaganda. generally, in such cases, if the manufacturer engages in false propaganda, the seller and advertiser may also need to bear corresponding responsibilities.

in addition, if the manufacturer's products have illegal acts such as false advertising or quality problems, the relevant regulatory authorities will investigate and deal with them according to law. if wang hai's accusation that the mooncakes do not contain enough black truffles is true, it may constitute false advertising or fraud. generally speaking, the consumer rights protection law stipulates that consumers have the right to request returns, exchanges or compensation when they purchase false or fraudulent goods. if the relevant conditions are met, consumers can request a ten-fold compensation for one purchase.

douyin platform customer service previously told the media that the platform would verify the sale of "meicheng mooncakes" in xiao yangge's live broadcast room. if there is indeed false advertising, the platform will suspend business for rectification, withdraw, remove products from shelves, and close the store.