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produced by phoenix.com's eye of the storm

text | huiye editor | wenhua

email for tip-off complaints: [email protected]

after the sensational news of "members taking advantage of the platform and losing 2 billion yuan" broke out, "jing tao tao", standing in the storm, said a little aggrievedly that it did not run away, but was a victim, and that 180 million yuan was lost by members. therefore, the risk control investigation led to the delay of refund.

at a time when the "refund only" model of e-commerce platforms was under great scrutiny, jingtaotao launched the "refund only for all" model in reverse, designed a complex set of gameplay, turned "controversy" into a "business", and sucked hundreds or even tens of thousands of yuan in membership fees from each player's pocket.

unlike the "refund only" service of pinduoduo and other e-commerce platforms that people generally understand, jingtaotao's "refund only" service requires membership and high-priced purchases of goods to be realized. the platform shouted out the slogan of "responding to national policies and benefiting the people", claiming that everyone should benefit.

with the help of online groups and friends' promotion, the refund platform alone has gathered a large number of people who want to take advantage of the products. however, the complicated rules of the game and the lack of understanding of the products themselves may prevent some people from not only failing to take advantage of the products, but also getting trapped by the platform.

jingtaotao raised a large amount of funds in just a few months by relying on the ever-increasing membership fees and products that were far above the market price, which also caused great controversy online. after the rumors of running away broke out, the 500 million yuan in financing it claimed to have received from sequoia capital and others was also refuted. sequoia china said it had warned jingtaotao by phone. since then, jingtaotao has been accused of fraud, and people have questioned whether its refund-only model is a disguised way of covering up the fundraising behavior of collecting high membership fees?

phoenix.com's "eye of the storm" contacted a jingtaotao member and listened to his experience of joining the market for two months. the following is his self-narration:

01 “let everyone benefit from it”

i am in my 30s and work in the internet field in shanghai. i like electronic products and have never tried "薅羊毛" before. it was not until mid-june this year that i came across the jingtaotao platform.

at that time, i saw in wechat moments that a friend posted a message about jingtaotao raising 500 million yuan, introducing it as a "refund-only" platform that "allows everyone to profit from it." this was my first time to come across such a concept platform, and i found it very novel. i asked him if the platform was reliable, and he said with certainty that it was a good platform.

of course i didn't dare to believe it, so i searched the internet for a lot of information. a few days later, my friend pulled me into a jingtaotao wechat group. at most, there were only 200 people in the group. i observed that the group owner should be a jingtaotao employee who often posted advertisements. i was not sure whether the others were users or agents, because the group was lively only at the beginning, but no one talked anymore later.

one day, jingtaotao launched an event where new users did not need to pay for membership, but only needed to register the app with their real names to experience the "refund only" service for products under 600 yuan. i thought that even if i did not refund the 600 yuan, it would not be a big loss. so i bought snacks worth more than 500 yuan on the platform. afterwards, i contacted customer service, registered and sent the order number, and received a refund in two or three days.

photo provided by the interviewee

at that time, as long as you confirmed receipt, you could apply for a refund, and there was almost no time limit. however, although this time it went smoothly, i was still very cautious and did not dare to buy a membership.

i always feel puzzled. this platform has established a model called jingtaotao alliance, claiming that everyone can make money and everyone can benefit. but how can everyone benefit? how can the platform, merchants, and consumers achieve a win-win situation? if the goods are "only refunded", the platform does not make money. how can it continue?

i just kept my hands off and continued to watch their ads every day. in early july, a person who claimed to be the person in charge of a certain department of the company explained the operation and profit model of jingtaotao in the group with pictures and texts.

these pictures are very eye-catching. one picture suggests that jingtaotao has only been in trial operation for 5 months, but it has already verified the core advantages of taobao, jd.com and pinduoduo. another picture explains that jingtaotao's profit mainly comes from user membership fees, merchant entry fees, store franchise fees, merchant promotion fees, and cash flow interest.

photo provided by the interviewee

after seeing these, my doubts were gradually dispelled and i thought it might as well be a try.

photo provided by the interviewee

02 it may empty the pockets of the wool party

on jingtaotao, if you want a "refund only", you must register as a member.

jingtaotao has nine levels of membership fees, ranging from 188 yuan to 28,888 yuan. each level of membership fee will give different refund quotas and different things that can be purchased. when applying for a refund, you must purchase a "complementary membership" in addition to the original membership in order to get a refund. the component membership is just some activation codes that cannot be used by yourself.

photo provided by the interviewee

at the beginning of july, there was a promotion that was quite affordable. i bought a membership for 18,888 yuan, which was a high-priced membership in tier 8. this membership is valid for three months, with a "refund only" quota of 300,000 yuan per month, and a refund only quota of 50,000 yuan each time.

photo provided by the interviewee

in fact, the things on jingtaotao are relatively expensive. when buying goods, you can choose to buy them normally or buy them for a refund only. even if you buy them normally, the price of a mobile phone may be 1,000 yuan more expensive than other platforms, so few people buy goods normally on jingtaotao, and most of them come for a refund only.

on jingtaotao, an apple iphone 15 costs 50,000 yuan if purchased with only a refund. based on the monthly refund limit of 300,000 yuan, only 6 apple phones can be purchased in a month.

such a high price allows the platform to quickly accumulate "cash flow interest", which i think is one of the ways it claims to make profits.

for me, if i buy 6 mobile phones in a month and refund only the expenses, it is equivalent to "0" yuan shopping. the cost is only the membership fee and the "supporting membership" fee. amortized, the cost of a mobile phone is about 4,000 to 5,000 yuan. if i put the mobile phone on the second-hand market and resell it, it will be about 6,000 yuan, and i can make a profit.

i quickly put my reselling plan into practice. i bought two mobile phones in two days and paid with a credit card. after the purchase, when i needed a refund, i spent another 3,550 yuan to buy the activation code for the supporting membership, which was equivalent to buying multiple memberships from tiers 1 to 4. however, i could not use the quota of these supporting memberships myself, so i could only give them to friends and invite more people to promote the platform.

out of caution, although i bought these activation codes, i did not invite any friends. in fact, whether you can make money on jingtaotao depends on your sensitivity to commodity prices and careful calculation.

for example, if i only buy something worth 30,000 yuan, the refund limit for a single transaction of 50,000 yuan is not worth it. i need to calculate how much difference i can make when i refund the money. and those products priced at 60,000 or 80,000 yuan can only be purchased by higher-level members.

because i like electronic products, i am more sensitive to the prices of mobile phones and computers. others may buy some drones, gold and the like. i have observed that the sales of these products on the platform are increasing every day, but there are also many products whose sales have always been 0. since the membership activities of the platform are constantly changing, the cost of wool will also be higher and higher. if you don't know how to match them properly, you may lose money.

03 some products are suspected to be resold from orders placed on other platforms

while using jingtaotao, i saw that there were quite a lot of merchants in the app, and the cities where the merchants were located were also diverse.

it is hard to understand. on other platforms, merchants hate the refund-only model, but jingtaotao displays "all refunds only" on its opening screen. with this as its main concept, why are these merchants willing to join? i sometimes wonder if merchants on jingtaotao can earn higher profits?

i can't figure this out, but there is another thing that has puzzled me for a long time. i remember one time, i bought something on jingtaotao. i had received the logistics information from sf express, but i also received a delivery reminder from jd.com. these signs seem to mean that after i placed the order, the jingtaotao merchant placed an order from jd.com and sent the goods to me. however, when the phone arrived, it was indeed an original product and the serial number could be seen.

i bought several mobile phones, and at least one or two of them had this problem. i suspect that these merchants do not have their own stores, and i don't know much about how jingtaotao reviews merchants.

i also saw a post about jingtaotao recruiting students for part-time jobs. i didn’t quite understand the job description, which said “assisting the company’s high-quality customers in purchasing designated goods online, ensuring order accuracy and punctuality.” however, combined with my strange experiences buying mobile phones a few times, i seem to understand what this sentence means.

photo provided by the interviewee

in addition to the online app, jingtaotao also operates offline convenience stores. i know that there is an offline jingtaotao store in shanghai that sells snacks and drinks, and it just opened in july. jingtaotao also sells some supermarket shopping cards online, which can also enjoy a refund-only policy, but the price is much more expensive than buying things in a normal supermarket.

04 the wechat group was deactivated and refunds became slower and slower

although jingtaotao claims that the refund time is about 10 days, in fact, the refund was relatively fast in the early days, but later it became slower and slower. i remember that the refund was received in less than 7 days in the first month, and sometimes it took 9 days to get the refund in the second month. i also consulted the customer service to urge the refund progress.

every few days i would check if the platform was operating normally. i clearly remember that on august 28, there were no more related promotional ads in the group. i felt something was wrong at the time, so i quickly searched on major social platforms. around the beginning of september, there were already news about jingtaotao running away.

i consulted jingtaotao customer service and only asked whether the platform was still operating normally. there was no mention of refunds. however, the customer service directly replied to me that the refund is under review and will be refunded normally in the future.

i had a feeling that there must be some problem with the refund. i never bought any products from then on. soon, the jingtaotao wechat group i was in was also suspended, showing "suspected of spreading fraudulent content". it was obviously not the group owner who disbanded the group chat.

photo provided by the interviewee

fortunately, all the goods i purchased before august were refunded normally, and the value of the goods sold was almost recovered.

recently, the news that "jingtaotao ran away with 2 billion yuan" has been flying all over the place. i also saw the response from the platform, saying that the platform was cheated of about 180 million yuan by a premeditated group of "wool-gathering parties", so the risk control management has been strengthened. after the investigation is completed, refunds will be gradually arranged for orders without problems.

my app is still usable, customer service is still responding to messages, and products can be purchased normally. i think jingtaotao has not run away so far. although i don't think this model can be sustained. if you continue to buy things, i'm afraid you won't get your money back.

the platform rules i understand are that the same person cannot be authenticated multiple times, which is against the rules. some people may use their new accounts to collect their own activation codes, which means they have not promoted members and have obtained some additional refund quotas. i guess this may be one of the contents of the platform's risk control.

i haven’t seen any users who couldn’t get a refund, and i don’t know how many of them there are. but in fact, i don’t quite understand what “premeditated wool party” is.

i have never purchased things on other shopping platforms and have never had this idea, because i am a normal buyer. if the things are not good, i will return them. why should i occupy this thing? but jingtaotao is different. it promotes that everyone can only refund. we use it for refunds. it charges such a high membership fee and has its own set of rules. we follow the rules to complete its "wool-pulling" task.