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if we were to select the 2024 e-commerce keyword of the year, refund alone must have a place.

from this year's e-commerce platforms trying to only refund, to news reports that merchants were driven crazy by the wool party and traveled thousands of miles just to seek justice,the issues surrounding platforms, merchants and freeloaders come one after another.

not long ago, there was a rumor online that an e-commerce platform called jingtaotao swallowed up more than 2 billion yuan from its users.

if this is the first time you have heard of this platform, don't be confused. they have nothing to do with jd.com and taobao.

according to reports from multiple media outlets, jingtaotao, under the slogan "only refunds for everyone", attracted a large number of people to the platform to become members and take advantage of the services. the platform then took advantage of the time difference in the arrival of refunds to take away the money.

the comments from netizens were as sharp as ever.some people said that the liar was deceived by the liar, while others directly cursed.

as a result, within two days, the platform denied it, saying that it had not run away and the company was operating normally, and it also put the blame on the so-called "professional wool party."

all of a sudden, the majority of people are confused. what is the so-called "refund for all"? is running away with the money the platform's profit or the platform's profit?

after a few days of review, i have roughly figured out the business model of jingtaotao, but before we officially talk about it,

let me first state the conclusion，that is the jingtaotao app it's a bit speechless, so speechless that i don't even want to sympathize with those "victims" anymore...

the bad reviewer first downloaded this famous app from the app store as soon as possible.

yes, this app can currently be found in apple’s app store or some android app stores.

when you open the software,a strong smell of cottage flavor hits your nose, which made the knowledgeable editors cough.

it's jing, it's tao, and it's refund only. the name and the slogan are full of stitching.

but what you may not believe is that after taking a quick look at this app, the first thing that impressed me was their "sincerity".

because it has engraved the words "money scam" clearly on its forehead.

let’s put it this way, the homepage of jingtaotao is basically the same as traditional e-commerce apps, but if you click on any product, you can see the trick.

the normal purchase price of the latest iphone 16 128gb version is 5999 yuan, but this one next to it is 39994 national refund only price, i almost dropped my jaw, is this rmb...

if i add 4 yuan to this price, i can buy two huawei tri-folds...

moreover, all the products on the platform have such "double-standard" prices. the "buy now" on the right is no different from a normal e-commerce platform. you can place an order directly, pay for the goods, and then ship them. the price is also similar to the market price.

the left side only refunds the price.but it is more than 6 times the normal price.

don’t be fooled by the fact that this thing is expensive. you can’t buy it even if you pay for it.

if you want to enjoy this refund-only policy, then hurry up and "open a national refund-only membership"!

enter the member recharge interface.i was shocked that it takes 925 hours to get an iqiyi membership for 30 yuan.

there are 9 levels of membership, the highest of which requires payment of 28,888 yuan and is valid for 3 months.

according to the detailed membership agreement, different levels of membership not only have different activation fees,the higher the membership level, the higher the refund amount. and the more expensive the product, the more stringent the membership level requirement.

i also tried to buy the lowest-end 188 membership to try it out, but guess what happened... i was rejected by jingtaotao because i was too stingy.

of course, a more plausible explanation is that "four levels of membership from f0001 to f0004 are open in limited quantities", and now one has to start with the f0005 level membership which costs 3,888 yuan.

i seriously doubt that it knows that it has become a bad company and is raising the price to reap the benefits of media like us...

anyway, just take the iphone 16 mentioned above as an example. the price for a refund only is 39,994 yuan, which means that if we want to get a new iphone for free with a refund only, we have to pay at least 18,888 yuan and become an 8th-level member before we can reach the threshold to buy an iphone 16.

but this 18888 membership activation fee,it just gives you the "qualification to buy"... if you want to apply for a refund after receiving the goods, i'm sorry, please turn left to complete the task and pay the money.

just as mr. chaping said before, their main selling point for “cheating money” is “sincerity”. the customer service told mr. chaping that according to the user agreement, even if you bought a high-level membership, you still have to spend money to open several low-level memberships before you can get a refund.

this means that if we want to refund only one iphone 16, we have to buy another 1,888 yuan, one 888 yuan, one 398 yuan, and two 188 yuan memberships...

furthermore, for these package members, they must make a repeat purchase for every order they refund.

that’s not all. sometimes the app will ask you to complete certain new customer acquisition tasks. you have to recommend this “good money-saving app” to two or three friends before you can continue to get a refund.

i will give you a simple calculation. if we don’t count the “cost of cheating friends”, if we want to get a bargain on jingtaotao and just refund an iphone 16, we will have to spend a total of:

18888 yuan membership fee + 39994 yuan mobile phone price + 1888 yuan + 888 yuan + 398 yuan + 188*2 yuan supporting membership fee = 62432 yuan。。。

this amount of money is enough for me to buy 10 iphone 16s directly, plus 9 standard editions of "black myth: wukong" and draw lots to give out as benefits to my fellow reviewers.

however, even if it is so outrageous, in theory, as long as the platform does not run away，users can actually get some benefits...

let’s take the example of iphone 16. if you become a member of 18888, the refund limit is only 900,000 yuan each quarter (limited to 300,000 yuan per month), which means that i can only refund about 21 iphone 16s in three months.

then according to the platform's refund-only rule,converted to onethe iphone 16 only costs 4,449 yuan, which is a thousand yuan cheaper than the current price of 5,999 yuan on the official website.(the total cost of the additional supporting membership required for each order is 74,550 yuan, plus the 18,888 yuan for purchasing the membership, the total cost of 21 iphones is 93,438 yuan)

all i can say is that even if the boss of jingtaotao is cook’s uncle, it would probably take a lot of effort to get such a big discount.

the second-hand dealer goes to beijing taotao to buy iphone 16 every three months, and can make a net profit of 32,550 yuan by reselling it at the official website price, which is equivalent to holding 93,438 yuan of principal. if he does this extreme operation 4 times a year, he can make 130,300 yuan.a rough calculation shows that the rate of return on this investment is about 139.3%.

the person who gave the bad review took a look at the annualized return rate of 2%-3% in the bank app and shed tears of frustration.

i guess after seeing this, buffett would also want to pay a large sum of money to buy the qualification to have dinner with the boss of jing taotao, even if the boss of jing taotao comes to buffett to collect the membership fee halfway through the meal.

as for where jingtaotao gets so much money, to give back to its members...

i think those jingtaotao members who have recharged their accounts are probably very clear about this.

this game is about who can escape first before the building collapses.

to be honest, i can only think of one model that can keep jingtaotao going.that is, users are charging more and more money, and there are new capital flows.on the platformfillingmoney... and then use the new money to fill the holes left by the old users.

the bad reviewer also specifically compared the membership agreement of the previous version of jingtaotao and found that for the same f0008 membership, the condition for a refund in the previous version only required opening a 1888 membership and a 398 membership, which saved 1,264 yuan per order compared to now.

a guess,jingtaotao may no longer be able to get more funds from new users, so it can only focus on harvesting the original batch of existing members.

moreover, according to the jingtaotao platform, under normal circumstances, jingtaotao refunds will generally be credited to the account within 72 hours after the application is initiated.

but the customer service told me that the platform is now checking risky accounts, that is, those "professional wool-gathering parties". the situations where one account corresponds to multiple alipay accounts or multiple accounts correspond to one alipay account are all within the scope of investigation.

as to whether the investigation is true or false, and when refund arrangements can be restored to normal, it is unknown.

i also noticed that the shanghai jingduobao e-commerce co., ltd. behind jingtaotao, apart from this scandal of embezzling funds, the last news about them was the financing news in june.

at first glance, it seems that sequoia capital is backing it up, but according to a report by sohu technology, sequoia china has never acknowledged the investment and even warned jingtaotao over the phone.

this back and forth,this further deepened my stereotype that jingtaotao is a dishonest company. . .

in short, everyone should be more careful when seeing activities like "all refunds" or "full refund of consumption" in the future.

in the early stage, high returns and small discounts are used to attract traffic, thereby harvesting a group of wool parties who want to take advantage. this routine is really not new.

a few years ago, yi.com sold a bottle of soy sauce that cost only a few dollars for more than 700 yuan. in name, it said that all purchases would be refunded, but later it simply stopped shipping the goods. the chairman of the board of directors took more than 20 billion yuan and ran away to australia.

as for some of the "victims", i think they should learn from their mistakes. many of the people who fall into the trap are "smart people" who think they can successfully escape.

again, it seems like a gift from fate, but in fact,you will have to pay a price for all of this.

written by: jiang jiang & xi xi

edit：noodles

art: xuanxuan

image, source：

jingtaotao app, douyin, some images from the internet

e-commerce world, "refund only" is a big bomb! nearly one million freeloaders were defrauded of 2 billion!

sohu technology: jingtaotao, an e-commerce platform that only refunds everyone, collapsed, and some consumers were defrauded of 400,000 yuan. sequoia china denied investment