Xu Fang did not expect that he would need to spend 199 yuan one day to buy an ordinary charging treasure.
From Hangzhou to Shanghai, Xu Fang borrowed a shared charging treasure for incoming calls at the departure station, but after arriving, he walked around the station for an hour according to the guidance of the official mini program, and did not find the return point, and did not give an actual solution by calling customer service. Because she forgot about it in a hurry to leave, she had to pay 199 yuan for it until she received a deduction text message for the incoming call 10 days later.
The first financial reporter's investigation found that the call cap buyout fee is not uniform. The same type of charging treasure, the maximum price of incoming calls in ordinary places in the city is 100 yuan, but in areas where emergency demand is triggered by high frequency such as stations, there is a buyout price of 199.
In terms of black cat complaints, the number of complaints about incoming calls is as high as nearly 4,000, and the high cap amount, difficulty in borrowing and repayment, and arbitrary deduction of fees are high-frequency complaint phenomena. Borrowing and repayment difficulties, arbitrary deductions are not only available for incoming calls, but the capout cost of 199 is currently appearing on the caller platform, and the total cap of most other charging treasure platforms is 99 yuan. A shared charging treasure practitioner told reporters that the buyout price of the charging treasure industry is basically a unified price of 99, and only a few brands have the so-called fast charging treasure buyout price is more expensive.
You Yunting, a lawyer at Shanghai Dabang Law Firm, told First Financial Economics that if the return of the charging treasure has nothing to do with supply and demand, no matter where the charging treasure is borrowed, the price of the buyer should be consistent because the consumer has used it for too long.
He said that providing consumers with a way to return is a contractual obligation of shared charging treasure service providers, and if the buyout price is different, moral hazard will occur, that is, the charging treasure service provider may use information asymmetry to deliberately delay the emptying of the charging warehouse that has been full, resulting in consumers being unable to return. In addition, according to the price law, business operators should follow the principles of fairness, legality and good faith in setting prices, and charging treasure service providers that set different buyout prices in different regions obviously violate the provisions of fairness and good faith.
Complaints were made of high cap fees
On the black cat platform, a consumer reflected a situation similar to Xu Fang, the charging treasure borrowed at Guangzhou South Railway Station, because of forgetting to return and triggering a cap deduction of 199 yuan, angrily complained to the black cat platform, the consumer questioned the charging treasure indiscriminately charged.
The cap amount is the buyout amount of the shared charging treasure, and it is also the deposit of the charging treasure. However, because of cooperation with digital payment platforms, after the credit score meets a certain foundation, most shared charging can be rented without deposit, so in most cases, consumers will not have the trouble of high deposits. However, once the consumer forgets to return or cannot find the return site, the cap deduction will be triggered to buy out the shared charging treasure.
The reporter learned that the maximum cap amount of most charging treasure platforms on the market such as monster charging, street electricity, and small electricity is 99 yuan, and the cap amount set by incoming calls in ordinary places in the city is 100 yuan, which is not much different. However, in areas where emergency demand is triggered by high frequencies such as stations, the amount of buyouts for incoming calls is mostly 199 yuan, and in black cat complaints, the lending location of high deductions occurs at stations.
The capacity of the shared charging treasure is around 5000 mAh, and the price of the new charging treasure of this capacity on the e-commerce platform is mostly in the range of 30-60 yuan. There is no official flagship store for incoming calls, but the reporter found that on the e-commerce platform, the price of a new call charging treasure sold in a cyber city ranges from 45-55 yuan.
On the idle fish platform, the price of the call charging treasure is mostly 15-20 yuan free shipping, and other brands are more in the range of 15-40 yuan according to different degrees of newness and oldness. Taking the cap amount of 99 as the standard, the value of the "second-hand" shared charging treasure bought out by consumers may be less than one-fifth in the market, and if it is bought out with 199, the market value may be less than one-tenth of it.
99 yuan to buy out a charging treasure may be said to be to pay for their own negligence, but is the cap amount of the caller charging treasure 199 reasonable? In addition, most consumers will forget to return, is the deduction prompt sufficient?
Xu Fang told First Finance that after the deduction, he called the customer service and asked why there was no advance prompt to return, but ten days later, he prompted the direct deduction of 199, and the customer service said that he had a prompt. However, Xu Fang told reporters that he carefully checked the Alipay Mini Program and the information box and did not prompt any information.
For the price problem, the first financial call to call the after-sales customer service of the charging treasure, customer service said that the price of the call is a very reasonable charging standard given after the internal assessment, the charging standard is not the same in different places, the deposit is also different, so the user needs to pay attention to the time of renting the charging treasure, and there will be a detailed charging standard before determining the use.
According to the reporter's understanding, the rental fee of the shared charging treasure has always been a separate pricing for special scenarios, and different rental prices are often set according to the flow of people and frequency of use in different places, which will generally float in the range of 2-10 yuan / hour.
Lawyer You Yunting told First Financial Economics that there is no problem in adjusting the rental price because of the supply and demand relationship, but the return of the charging treasure has nothing to do with the supply and demand relationship, no matter where the charging treasure is borrowed, the consumer should be consistent because of the long use time.
In addition, the cap deduction of 199 mostly occurs at the station, in this regard, You Yunting lawyer believes that if the charging treasure service provider takes advantage of the asymmetry in information, knows where the charging treasure is more difficult to return, and therefore increases the price of the buyout charging treasure, it will violate many laws.
Site coverage is not enough to return difficult
In addition to forgetting the factor of return, many consumers also reported that it was difficult to return due to factors such as the distribution of the site and the inaccurate display of the platform, which triggered the cap deduction.
"I followed the instructions and went around a large circle, including out of the high-speed rail station, then into the high-speed rail station, and then went through the security check, and then went to the departure level, to find the location of the return station indicated by the caller mini program, and then found that there was no caller machine in the place it showed." After walking around the high-speed rail station for more than an hour, Xu Fang did not find a place to return the charging treasure.
Xu Fang said that after he contacted the customer service for the first time, the plan he provided was still to find outlets according to the map indicators, but after Xu Fang reflected that there was no call on the equipment, the customer service replied that it may be the machine withdrawn, and said that the follow-up will be strictly checked.
Another consumer on the black cat complained that after he reflected the false positioning of the site to the customer service, he has been still behind. When the consumer returned the call, he found that the card slot of the station that was slightly closer was full, so he could only go to the farther site, but found that there was no such point at all, and the nearby staff also said that there was no charging pile for incoming calls nearby.
The site is not dense, coupled with the wrong positioning information, invisibly increases the user's return costs. Lawyer You Yunting said that according to the Civil Code, providing consumers with convenient conditions to return the charging treasure is an accompanying obligation of the charging treasure service provider's contract to provide services, on this basis, knowing that the consumer is difficult to return, and raising the operating price is a typical dishonest behavior.
In fact, when difficulties cannot be returned, consumers can contact customer service to suspend billing. After contacting customer service, one of the common problems is "the machine is full / the store is closed and cannot be returned", and the solution provided is "contact online customer service or call the hotline to suspend the order, and go to the nearby outlets as soon as possible to return the charging treasure". It is understood that after the suspension of billing, it must be returned as soon as possible within 12 hours.
But the problem is that the measures to suspend billing are not publicly informed to consumers, and only when consumers take the initiative to contact customer service do they know that they can also suspend billing. Some consumers reported that although the customer service also wrote 24-hour labor, their previous two emergency contacts did not respond in the slightest.
The problem is more about point overrides. As far as a single charging treasure brand is concerned, its coverage is not comprehensive, which also leads to consumers not daring to move in a wide range, because once the location is changed, it may not be able to find the return point, and there may be no excess card slots to return in places with high crowds.
In terms of market equipment concentration, according to the "China Shared Charging Treasure Industry Market Pattern Insight Report in the First Half of 2021" jointly released by Sullivan and The Leopard Research Institute, the CR5 of the industry market equipment concentration in the first half of 2021 includes Zhumang Technology, Monster Charging, Xiaodian Technology, Caller Technology and Meituan.
Combined with data such as financial reports and prospectuses, the number of points of Zhumang Technology after the merger of Street Power and Sodian exceeded one million in September last year; the number of points of Monster Charging reached 840,000 at the end of 2021; the number of points of Xiaodian Technology at the end of 2020 was 710,000; the number of points did not announce its point numbers, but it ranked in the top three in the industry, and the number of sites is expected to be lower than 710,000.
The shared charging treasure industry has come to the second half, and the market concentration will be further improved. At present, the head enterprise monster charging listing, street power and sodian merger into Zhumang Technology, small power sprint listing. The industry report released by Sullivan and the Head Leopard Research Institute shows that the shared charging industry is gradually changing from the pattern of "four electricity, one cluster and one beast" to the pattern of "small bamboo beast".
With the gradual enhancement of the strength of the leading players in the industry, in the case of funds, brands, and operations are not dominant, the market share of the laggards in the process of industry reshuffle will be squeezed, and more problems will follow.
(Xu Fang is a pseudonym in the text)