On March 11, the reporter learned from the "3·15" briefing of the Guangzhou Municipal Consumer Commission that in 2021, the Guangzhou Municipal Consumer Committee accepted 169,800 consumer complaints, of which education and training complaints increased by more than 30% year-on-year, and the number of complaints about online live broadcasting with goods increased by more than three times year-on-year.
The number of complaints in the city in 2021 increased by 7.79% compared with the same period
Commodity complaints increased by about 30% over the same period last year
According to reports, in 2021, the Guangzhou Municipal Consumer Committee received a total of 10,757 consumer visits and consultations; accepted 169802 consumer complaints, an increase of 7.79% compared with the same period in 2020; 155,540 cases have been handled; 110222 cases have been coordinated by the Consumer Council and reached mediation, with a mediation rate of 70.86%, saving consumers 101 million yuan in economic losses.
Comparison of the number of complaints received in 2020 and 2021
Among the 169,800 consumer complaints, the areas involved are mainly distributed in Internet services, life and social services, clothing, footwear and hats, daily necessities and household electronic appliances (the top five complaints).
The top five complaints in 2020 and 2021
According to the relevant person in charge of the Guangzhou Municipal Consumer Commission, commodity complaints and service complaints accounted for about 47% and 52%.
Among them, commodity complaints increased by about 30% over the same period last year. Categories with an increase of more than 30% include agricultural means of production, clothing, footwear and hats, tobacco, alcohol and beverages, jewelry and problem supplies, and household electronics and electrical appliances. The main disputes include: quality problems such as fading and cracking of goods in the category of clothing, shoes and hats; after-sales service problems such as commodity maintenance, return and replacement in the category of household electronic appliances; problems of mismatch in custom furniture in the category of daily necessities, long production and installation cycle, and inadequate follow-up after-sales service; and the controversial issues in jewelry and stationery are mainly about the quality of gold jewelry, sales publicity and return and exchange.
Service complaints decreased slightly from the same period last year, but the increase of more than 30% included five categories: public facility services, financial services, postal services, Internet services and education and training services. The main disputes include: poor network access services in Internet service complaints, unexplained opening or changing packages to require refunds, broadband installation can not be installed to require refunds or cancellation of corresponding package restrictions, fault repair is not timely, etc.; public facilities service complaints are mainly online car fare and pricing disputes, involving multiple online ride-hailing brands; online game recharge, refund, game experience and game account blocking in online game consumer complaints.
Prepaid consumption is still a pain point and difficulty in rights protection
The increase in education and training complaints exceeded 30%.
According to the Guangzhou Municipal Consumer Commission, at present, the prepaid consumption model has penetrated into all aspects of the consumption field, and merchants in all walks of life are keen to encourage consumers to carry out prepaid consumption in various names, "Although in 2021, the city's consumer committee accepted prepaid consumer complaints decreased by about 900 cases year-on-year, but from the total number of accepted more than 15,000 cases, the mediation success rate is only about 50%, prepaid consumption is still the pain point and difficulty of consumer complaints." Among them, there are many well-known brand enterprises that deliberately design unfair standard contract terms in consumer contracts to 'routine' consumers."
At the meeting, the Guangzhou Municipal Consumer Commission reported the analysis of the hot spots and typical cases of consumer complaints accepted by the city in 2021, and the Nandu reporter found that there is still a problem of large risks of prepaid consumption in the education and training industry.
According to the Municipal Consumer Commission, among the service complaints, there were more than 10,000 complaints about education and training services, an increase of more than 30%. The main complaints of consumers have shifted from poor course content or service quality in the past, unfair and unreasonable contract terms, false or exaggerated sales promotions, etc., to the transformation of service agencies, the closure of stores or the refusal to provide services but refuse to refund.
Affected by policy factors such as epidemic prevention and control and education "double reduction", educational institutions involved in discipline training are facing great changes, and some education and training institutions have responded to the "double reduction" by transforming their services, changing teaching content, and reducing teaching points, but due to unauthorized changes in service content, consumer dissatisfaction has been caused. Many institutions have chosen to end their business and close their doors, which has damaged the rights and interests of many consumers who have paid tuition fees in advance. Although the education department repeatedly asked relevant institutions to do a good job in consumer pacification and refund, due to the wide range of consumers and the large number of consumers, it still triggered a large number of complaints involving refunds, resulting in a significant increase in the number of related complaints.
The number of complaints about live streaming has increased sharply
The success rate of case mediation is low
According to the Guangzhou Municipal Consumer Commission, in 2021, the city's Consumer Committee accepted a total of 2106 consumer complaints with live streaming, an increase of more than three times over 2020. Compared with shopping on traditional e-commerce platforms, consumers who have disputes through channels such as short videos or social platforms generally face difficulties such as difficult to find subjects, difficult to find evidence, and poor channels, and the success rate of mediation in such cases is also low.
The Municipal Consumer Commission found that there are three main modes of live streaming through short videos or social platforms: First, during the live broadcast process, the anchor recommends relevant goods and purchased e-commerce platforms and directly leads them to the e-commerce platform; second, the shopping cart is attached to the bottom of the short video or live screen, and consumers click on the link to jump to other platforms to shop; third, the anchor attaches a private contact information to the video and comments, bypasses the e-commerce platform, diverts to other URLs or directly trades through WeChat. Because these modes of carrying goods have become very common, some consumers are accustomed to it, but it is easy to ignore the risks and hidden dangers. Once you jump to other links and then trade, the relevant behavior is out of the supervision of the platform, and the after-sales service and capital security are extremely risky.
The Council believes that the act of carrying goods on short videos or social platforms should also comply with the provisions of the law, and should not infringe on the legitimate rights and interests of consumers at will, let alone be outside legal discipline and administrative supervision. At present, the state's management of online sales behaviors such as live streaming with goods is becoming increasingly strict, and relevant laws and regulations are also being revised and improved, and the Council advises platform operators and anchors not to stay in the stage of "only enjoying dividends and being irresponsible", but to change their views as soon as possible, attach importance to consumers' rights protection demands, actively fulfill their statutory obligations and responsibilities, and jointly build a positive, healthy and clean network environment.
Written by: Nandu trainee reporter Feng Jiaju Correspondent Sui Xuanxuan