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"the freeloaders only wanted to get a refund, but were fleeced by the platform, which ran away with 2 billion yuan."

recently, a user posted on a social platform that the e-commerce software that promotes "all people only refund"jingtaotaoit is suspected that the company ran away with the money and only provides refunds, which may be a "ponzi scheme", attracting attention online.

according to a post by netizen "liang xiang" on september 18, the jingtaotao shopping app launched with the slogan "only refunds for all", and many "freeloaders" rushed in to try to buy and then apply for refunds only. the platform really refunded and also gave compensation.

the model of the platform supporting the introduction of new users and paying commissions spread quickly among the wool party circle. "however, after the main group of people placed orders and received goods and applied for a refund, the system showed that the funds would be credited in 30 days. in the past two days, the platform suddenly ran away, claiming to have taken away 2 billion yuan."

regarding claims such as "ponzi scheme" and "running away with the money", the reporter asked the customer service of jingtaotao platform on september 20, and the other party replied that there was no running away, "the platform discovered that some users took advantage of platform activities to maliciously place orders and cash out, and the risk control department is currently checking each order one by one."

customer service denied running away:

investigating malicious cash-out scams

will the orders of ordinary users be affected? can the "refund only" function be used normally? the customer service representative said,currently, risk control is investigating risky accounts. after the investigation is completed, refunds will be arranged gradually for orders without problems.however, the customer service did not respond to the specific refund time. the homepage of the app shows, "if the refund order of quanmin has not been processed for more than 15 days, please contact the platform customer service for assistance."

according to red star news, a relevant person in charge of jingtaotao said,the allegation that the company ran away with the funds is not true. the company is operating normally.the person in charge said that jingtaotao was "fleeced" by a group of users with a premeditated plan some time ago. the company screened the abnormal transaction users and found that some of them were "professional fleecing parties" with huge amounts of money, so it strengthened risk control management. at present, various businesses and refunds are being carried out one after another. at the same time, the person in charge also revealed thatlegal proceedings will be taken against these users。

the reporter tested on the 21st and found that the jingtaotao app can currently be downloaded and used normally.

public information shows that the developer of jingtaotao is shanghai jingduobao e-commerce co., ltd., which was established in shanghai in 2019. tianyancha shows that the company completed an angel round of financing of 500 million yuan in early 2024. there are three shareholders, lin xiuqing, lin qingxiang, and lin jinfan, holding 50%, 27%, and 23% of the shares respectively. its holding companies include fujian genggengjia investment co., ltd. and fujian jingtaotao supply chain management co., ltd.

the reporter noticed that as early as september 16,the jingtaotao team issued an announcement saying that it has initiated corresponding procedures for some arbitrage and profit-taking behaviors. for users who shop normally, jingtaotao will strictly follow the normal process to conduct a universal refund operation."during this process, users do not need to take any additional actions, and the refund will be accurately returned to the original payment channel within the specified time. this operation is in full compliance with relevant laws, regulations and business norms, and aims to effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of users."

the "refund only" model is an after-sales mechanism launched by major e-commerce platforms. that is, when consumers apply for "refund only" to the platform, if the merchant does not take action within 48 hours, the system will assume that the merchant agrees to the refund application and automatically initiate a refund. its original intention was to protect the rights and interests of consumers and crack down on bad merchants, but in the implementation process it provided an opportunity for "wool parties". a large number of malicious refunds have caused losses to merchants' profits and also had a negative impact on the e-commerce ecosystem. in the second half of this year, e-commerce platforms have successively adjusted the refund-only rules.

on july 26, taobao announced that it would optimize the "refund only" strategy, improve the after-sales autonomy of merchants based on the new experience score, and reduce or cancel after-sales intervention for high-quality stores. the relevant strategy will be officially implemented on august 9. on september 4, 1688, the source factory direct sales platform under alibaba group, announced the "buyer protection service upgrade announcement". it mentioned that starting from september 12, in order to reduce the operating burden of merchants, 1688 will adjust the "refund only" rule, and subsidize merchants with high return rates by setting up special funds, and provide them with a green complaint channel.

one product, three prices

or suspected of price fraud

jingtaotao app was launched in early 2024 with the slogan "only refunds for all". in actual use, users have two shopping modes to choose from: "only refunds for all" and "buy now". nandu reporters found thatthe price of the same product in the "refund only" mode is much higher than that in the "buy now" mode, and the price difference between the two is as high as tens of thousands of yuan.in addition to the two prices mentioned above, the product details page in the jingtaotao app will also mark the "market price". the "market price" of some products is more than 10 times the refund price alone.

taking the iphone 16 pro with 128g memory as an example, the price of "all people only refund" on the jingtaotao platform is 53,327 yuan, and the price of immediate purchase is 7,999 yuan, which is consistent with the price on apple's official website. in addition, the product page also marked the market price of up to 129,000 yuan, which is obviously inconsistent with the actual price of the iphone 16 pro.

in addition, the "buy now" price of hanshu red waist five-piece gift box on jingtaotao is 338 yuan, but the price in the "all people only refund" mode is 2251 yuan. it is worth noting thatafter the price of 338 yuan, the market price of 3377 yuan is marked in gray font. however, when the reporter checked the price of this product in taobao and jd’s official flagship stores, they were both 399 yuan.

independent lawyer at shanghai zhonglian guangzhou law firmwang haoit seems that the above-mentioned behavior is suspected of price fraud and violates the consumer protection law. in addition, by setting unreasonably high prices and false market prices, the app may also constitute unfair competition to other e-commerce platforms and disrupt market order.

source: southern metropolis daily, red star news