After squatting for an hour, Ms. Li from Zhoukou, Henan province finally chose to give up - not long ago, in order to grab two coupons during the promotion of an e-commerce platform, as a member, she kept refreshing and grabbing coupons in front of the mobile phone screen from 9:50 a.m., but she still didn't grab them until 10:50 a.m.
As an old member, Ms. Li has accumulated more than 20000 yuan of consumption on the platform and 10000 member points. Her promise of "members can exchange points for coupons" has not been realized. Ms. Li didn't understand. After consulting the customer service, she got a reply: clean up the mobile phone memory, or uninstall the app, download and log in again. However, according to the method provided by customer service, she still "failed" after many tests.
"Is the platform suspected of false publicity?" Ms. Li questioned that she thought her membership rights had been infringed.
In reality, there are not many "members" with the same doubts. With the popularity of mobile networks, more and more apps have entered people's lives: if you want to shop, you can place an order for high-quality and low-cost discounted goods through shopping apps; If you want to chase a play, you can watch it freely by opening the film and television app and enjoy the advertising free mode... But these can only be realized after opening the members of the relevant app.
So more and more people have all kinds of "member" identities, some to enjoy discounts, some to remove advertising, some to chat, and some just to use an app. However, the reporter of the rule of law Daily recently found that the use experience of many members is not good. For example, some apps attach various restrictions to member preferences, arbitrarily adjust the terms of members during the use of members, resulting in damage to users' rights and interests, automatic renewal and suspected false publicity.
Adjust membership rules at will
Set auto renewal trap
Like Ms. Li, Mr. Liang from Shenzhen, Guangdong, is a member of an e-commerce platform. Recently, when shopping on the platform, he found that his account could not receive coupons, and the page showed that he had received them, but his friend's account could receive them at the same time. The customer service explained that "the page display shall prevail".
In addition to the issue of coupons, there will also be differences in the membership prices of the above platforms. Ms. Zhang and her colleagues bought the same mouthwash on the platform not long ago, but the price is different. After asking the customer service, they learned that the last time they activated their members was different, so the membership rules referred to were different and the discount calculation methods were also different.
The reporter checked the membership rights and interests rules of the platform and found that the last one is that the platform "can change or adjust the rights and interests rules according to the actual situation of the rights and interests, and the relevant changes or adjustments will be published on the rights and interests page and take effect according to law after publication".
The reporter found that many consumers rarely understand and pay attention to the changes of membership rights and interests rules. Each renewal of membership is equivalent to accepting the new membership terms by default. However, when the membership is not expired, the membership rules are often changed at will by the platform.
Ms. Wang, a resident of Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, applied for a membership card in a physical store of a fresh supermarket last November. When applying for the card, the clerk introduced that the store (located in Chengxiang District of Suzhou) can deliver goods to Ms. Wang, who lives in the East District of JinJiHu lake. But before long, the membership rules changed: the store only delivered within 5 kilometers, while Ms. Wang's home was beyond the scope of distribution. A month later, the membership rules changed again: the distribution quota was increased, the minimum distribution quota was increased from 299 yuan to 399 yuan, and the distribution fee was 15 yuan.
In addition to changing membership rules at will, some platforms also have the problem that automatic renewal is difficult to cancel.
Ms. Huang, a resident of Pingdingshan, Henan Province, bought a member of a video website at the beginning of this year. The first month is 0 yuan and the next month is 19.9 yuan. Later, when Ms. Huang wanted to cancel the membership, she was told by the customer service that it would take six months to cancel, and she had to go to the offline business hall.
The experience of Mr. Wu, a resident of Liuzhou, Guangxi, is even more regrettable. He tried a shopping platform for one month in 2018. Because he didn't often use the platform and the bound bank card was rarely used, Mr. Wu forgot about membership over time. In February this year, he suddenly remembered the matter. After checking, he found that the platform automatically renewed the fee for a total of 5 years without his consent: 139 yuan was deducted from the ordinary annual card member in the first year, and 178 yuan was automatically changed into the joint card between the platform and a video website in the second year, which has continued to this day.
Mr. Wu contacted the customer service of the platform to ask for a refund. The other party said that the signing fee of previous years had passed the processing period and could only refund the membership fee of the co branded card between the platform and a video website in 2022.
Claim free chat for members
In fact, it will induce users to recharge
During the interview, the reporter found that many dating apps have also been criticized for membership problems, especially inducing users to recharge.
Mr. Li, a 30-year-old resident of Handan, Hebei Province, recently downloaded a dating software. Soon, many "women" came to chat with him, but Mr. Li couldn't reply because he didn't activate his account. So he spent 39 yuan to activate his account, but just after a few words, he was reminded that "recharge members can chat freely". In order to find the right person, Mr. Li spent another 69 yuan to recharge the member, but finally he found that the member can only initiate 15 conversations and need to continue to recharge before he can chat indefinitely.
After suspecting that he had been cheated, Mr. Li opened the dialog box of "women" chatting with him one by one and found that everyone greeted him with the same content. Later, Mr. Li changed his mobile phone number and re registered. The previous routine reappeared. There was even a "woman" who had the same avatar and ID as the person who chatted before. At this point, Mr. Li found that he might be induced to recharge by app.
Subsequently, the reporter downloaded a free chat app and set the gender to male. The app first pops up pictures of several women, prompting users to chat up, and some women will take the initiative to connect videos. They can only play for two minutes for free. To continue chatting, they need to recharge and chat money. The "chat field" function on the home page recommends many video avatars of women. The lower part of each video avatar is marked with how much chat money they need for one minute. According to the beauty of women, it ranges from 150 to 500 chat money for one minute, There are tips for new people to recharge special offers in the eye-catching position on the home page, corresponding to the recharge of 18 yuan, 38 yuan and 88 yuan respectively. In the chat area, if you want to chat, you need to recharge. If you want to continue chatting after sending more than 24 messages, you also need to recharge.
After that, the reporter downloaded another dating app for experience. The reporter registered the app and set the gender to male. Once opened, many heterosexuals with real avatars sent out chat video invitations and actively initiated dialogue. However, the reporter found that after the reply reaches a certain number of times, the system will prompt the reporter that there is not enough gold coins to do the task or buy gold coins. The recharge price of gold coins ranges from tens of yuan to thousands of yuan. If you want to check the "distracted problem" on the other party's home page, you need to open a member, with a monthly member of 55 yuan, a quarterly member of 138 yuan and an annual member of 368 yuan.
In addition, the reporter's investigation also found that in order to induce users to recharge, these heterosexuals with real-life avatars will take the initiative to send some vulgar content of the nature of the edge ball, such as photos of naked clothes and pornographic topics.
Liu Deliang, a professor at Beijing Normal University and director of the Asia Pacific Network Law Research Center, said that inducing users to recharge step by step is a consumption scam, and businesses may have fraud. According to the law on the protection of consumers' rights and interests, consumers have the right to ask businesses to compensate for the recharge fee of members or three times the membership fee.
Liu Deliang said that these dating software are also suspected of violating the contract law. After users pay membership fees, there is a contractual agreement and legal relationship between users and businesses. When consumers find that they have been cheated after recharging, they can sue in the court to claim the cancellation of the contract and demand corresponding economic compensation. The market transaction part of dating software is supervised by the market supervision department, and the contents that hit the edge are supervised by the central network information office. Please refer to Article 15 of the measures for the administration of Internet information: Internet information service providers are not allowed to produce, copy, publish or broadcast obscene and pornographic information.
Increase the illegal cost of businesses
Protect the basic rights and interests of members
"The membership system means that there is a contractual agreement between consumers and businesses. The membership rules are the system corresponding to the terms of the standard contract. The seller is one party and the buyer is many parties. The formulation and interpretation of the terms are explained by the seller." Liu Deliang said.
Liu Deliang pointed out that some businesses violate the principle of good faith and maximize the interests of businesses by limiting the rights and interests of each other or imposing obligations on consumers, which violates the fairness principle of contract law. The formulation of standard contract should strictly follow the law and cannot exempt itself from its obligations. Some businesses that lack integrity use standard terms to exploit loopholes in the law and infringe on the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.
According to Liu Junhai, a professor at the school of law of Renmin University of China, the random change of membership rules by businesses reflects the lack of contract spirit, infringes on consumers' right to know and fair trading, and should be liable for breach of contract.
If the rights and interests of members are damaged, how should consumers protect their rights?
Liu Juncheng can file a complaint with the market supervision department, or ask consumers not to file a complaint with the market supervision department.
Liu Deliang believes that in order to put an end to the phenomenon that the platform or app uses members to infringe on the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, we must increase the illegal cost and strengthen law enforcement.