"No traffic in the new store? No orders in the old store? Hardware Crown operation team to help you make the 'dead shop' work. "This is a propaganda slogan played by a substitute operator.
In reality, it is not uncommon for such businesses to claim that they can operate e-commerce and self-media accounts well. With the development of the Internet economy, more and more people have opened online stores and registered self-media accounts, but it is difficult to improve due to limited energy or few materials. Some merchants have seen the business opportunities contained in them, focusing on helping others to carry out online sales and other operational activities, and the agency operation industry came into being.
However, a recent investigation by a reporter from the Rule of Law Daily found that some agency operating companies have many violations of laws and regulations when providing services, such as false publicity, setting overlord clauses, hiring water soldiers to brush orders and even suspected fraud.
A number of experts interviewed by reporters pointed out that agency operation is a new business model under the market mechanism, and its healthy development should be encouraged, but in view of the current irregularities, it is necessary for relevant departments to supervise in a multi-pronged manner.
The contract implies a overlord clause
Various obstacles to rights protection are encountered
E-commerce platforms, social platforms, short video platforms... The scope of services operated on behalf of them is quite extensive, some of them are widely publicized, and some of them lurk in some post bars, in which they publish relevant operational information.
The reporter contacted several agent operators, according to one of the company's customer service staff, its company specializes in providing customers with agency operations, including short video platform operations, live broadcasting, etc., "We have been doing this business since 2013, qualifications and strength, you can rest assured, the service content is everything."
Then, the reporter told the customer service about his short video platform account. Soon, the other party began to plan how to operate the account after that, and said that it would be operated by a team of 8 people, and a detailed operation plan would be given after 3 days. In addition, the other party also promised that if the short video and live broadcast are operated at the same time, the exposure rate can reach more than 100,000 times in a single month, and the number of fans will reach about 20,000 people.
The basic service fee for live broadcast operation is 10,000 yuan a month, plus short video operation, which is charged 15,000 yuan per month. After placing an order, the contract is generated by the order number and subsequently completed.
In the sample contract sent by the other party, the reporter noted that Party A, the account owner, has no right to unilaterally terminate the transaction, and the basic service fee is not the full cost of the operation. If Party A requests the suspension of a related service due to Party A's subjective reasons, Party A shall bear the responsibility, and Party B shall not bear any responsibility and will not refund the service fee it has collected.
Wang Dan, who does e-commerce, signed such a contract with the above-mentioned agency operating company, and it is currently difficult to ride the tiger.
Wang Dan told reporters that the company promised him a performance of 100,000 yuan in 3 months before signing the contract, but the actual operation only reached 2332 yuan. According to the contract, part of the 30,000 yuan he had previously paid in advance should be refunded, but the other party said that the two parties signed a VAM agreement, and he either chose to terminate the contract and terminate the contract, but could not refund the service fee, or suspended the service or continued to sign the contract renewal.
The reporter checked the contract signed by Wang Dan and found that the place where the contract agreement was signed was "Xiongfei Center, No. 1, Titu Street, Qingyang District, Chengdu", and it was clear that "if the consultation cannot reach an agreement, either party may file a lawsuit with the people's court where the agreement is signed." "But I don't live in Chengdu, so how easy is it to defend my rights?" Wang Dan was helpless.
Sun Lei, who runs a restaurant, has encountered similar problems. Because the order volume did not go up, he found a agency operating company through an e-commerce platform to order relevant services, and then communicated through a social platform and signed a contract. According to the contract, the company is responsible for giving the store a monthly sales of 3,000 and 2,000 orders on two well-known e-commerce platforms, respectively, and promises that the effect is not satisfactory and can be refunded at any time.
In the first month after the start of the operation, the company told Sun Lei that the first month was the "debugging period", and the team would do a full range of research for its store, so there was no actual operation service in the first month, and it was once again promised that the order volume in the second month would rise to the amount previously agreed.
By the second month, Sun Lei's store orders had not risen, but had declined. He looked for the company's theory, and as a result, the other party shirked responsibility for various reasons, and took out the content of the contract "the customer does not have any reason and power to request termination of cooperation and refund" to refute it, saying that Sun Lei's request to terminate the contract in advance is a unilateral breach of contract.
Sun Lei went to the customer service of the order platform to complain, and was told that his order platform and the daily communication platform of the two sides were inconsistent, so the supporting materials he provided could not be used as evidence. "I'm really dumb, and I can't say anything." Sun Lei was annoyed and regretted that he did not look at the contract carefully, but fortunately, after repeated negotiations, the company refunded part of the operating fee.
False propaganda induces placing orders
Mercenary water troops secretly brush traffic
In addition to contract issues, some agency operating companies also have false publicity, illegal billing and other behaviors.
Li Yang, from Anqing, Anhui Province, recently purchased a short video agency operation service at a company. The company promised to provide 150 original video transcripts, including post-editing, which were later used to attract traffic and increase fans. After consultation, Li Yang purchased a full set of services at a price of 7,000 yuan a month.
But a week later, he discovered that the video script provided by the company was plagiarized and the video clips were crude. Li Yang then proposed to the company to terminate the contract, but the other party denied the fact of plagiarism, and refused to negotiate and refund.
The reporter noted that many generation operating companies will mention a point when publicizing that the traffic involved is attracted through legal channels, and there is no hiring of water troops, brush praise and other behaviors. But is this really the case?
In a social group, the reporter found that someone posted an advertisement suspected of being a water army, and after adding it as a friend, he learned that the other party was specially providing water army services for the agency operating company, and the main business was to brush comments on the new store, creating the illusion that the store's products were popular.
"At present, many people are bloggers, and the agency operating company is also eyeing this 'fat meat', so I often deal with the agency operating company." Usually the agency operator will send me the request, and I will be responsible for recruiting the water army in the water army group, and then these water troops will pour into the blogger account that is being operated on behalf of me and start to read comments. The above-mentioned person responsible for brushing comments on the agency operating company told reporters.
Such phenomena are not isolated. In October 2021, law enforcement officers from the Market Supervision Bureau of Huqiu District, Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, based on clues, found that a generation operation company in Suzhou High-tech Zone, in order to improve customer satisfaction with the operation of the agency, expand the operation business, help the online store stores it operates to increase the traffic and transaction volume in the e-commerce platform, and suspected of helping the online store operator to brush up on the single speculation in the process of operation.
After investigation, the parties have helped the online store operator to brush the single speculation since 2018, and the main steps of the brushing order are: tailor-made a targeted brushing plan, the company's professional brushing operators purchase "empty orders" through the brushing platform, generate express delivery information in the form of "empty parcels" or find brushers to take the "shoot A hair B" mode to generate express delivery information for brushing order operations, after the brushing operation completes the goal, the brushing single operator then hands over the brushing commission part to the platform or brushing hands, and the commission difference is handed over to the main responsible person of the company for settlement and profit. From 2018 to the occurrence of the case, the parties completed more than 121,000 false transaction order records. For violating the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, the parties were fined 300,000 yuan.
Packaging beautification to defraud property
Trying to get rich and fall into a trap
The reporter combed and found that there are also agency operating companies suspected of fraud.
Recently, the police in Linyi, Shandong Province, smashed a huge fraud criminal group and arrested 133 people at the scene. The gang specifically looked for online stores with low sales, falsely claimed that they could increase sales on behalf of the operator, defrauded the victims of their property, and committed more than 350 frauds since 2019, involving an amount of more than 20 million yuan.
Coincidentally, not long ago, the police in Tai'an, Shandong Province, reported that in January 2022, Xie reported to the police that because of the poor sales of his online store, he found a proxy operating company on the Internet to package and beautify his store to increase sales. After spending more than 7,000 yuan, the store not only did not increase sales but was also banned, and the agency operating company also required to pay drilling and drainage fees. After investigation, the police arrested Gao and other criminal suspects, and Gao and others confessed to the facts of their crimes. At present, Gao and others have been criminally detained.
Hualin from Cixi, Zhejiang Province, was also almost "pitted" by the agency operating company.
It turned out that he registered a store on an e-commerce platform in June 2021, and due to his lack of operating experience, the store sales were dismal. Just when Hualin was desperate, the self-proclaimed "operation officer" contacted him through a private message, claiming that his company was an entity company that had been operating for 11 years, one-stop custody, and specially created explosive models for customers. Soon, the other party sent a "company business license" and a "sample legal contract".
Hua lin looked at the license and contract, reassured his doubts, and quickly paid 11999 yuan for the operation fee.
In the following week, the other party repeatedly analyzed the account for Hualin and frequently sent the "success cases" operated by the company, but did not actually operate Hualin's account. At this time, Hualin was still looking forward to "earning more than 10,000 yuan a month and making money lying down." It wasn't until his friend reminded him to check on the company that he found that he couldn't find the company through all channels.
When Warin questioned the other party with various evidence, he found that he had been blocked by the other party and deleted all contact information.
Strengthen supervision in a multi-pronged manner
The client must polish his eyes
If the operating company commits the above acts, what legal liabilities do I need to bear?
Zheng Ning, director of the Law Department of the School of Cultural Industry Management of the Communication University of China, analyzed that the contractual relationship between the operating company and the entrusting party is constituted, and the corresponding obligations should be performed in accordance with the provisions of the law and the contract. However, in practice, some agency operating companies have insufficient qualifications, false publicity behavior, fictitious or exaggerated their own operational capabilities, and neglect to provide services after collecting high operating fees, which violates the relevant provisions of the Civil Code, constitutes a breach of contract, and should bear the liability for breach of contract.
Regarding the act of hiring water troops to brush traffic on behalf of the operating company, Zheng Ning believes that this move disrupts market order and violates the Anti-Unfair Competition Law.
The Anti-Unfair Competition Law stipulates that business operators must not make false or misleading commercial publicity about the performance, function, quality, sales status, user evaluation, and honors they have won on their goods, so as to deceive or mislead consumers. Where business operators violate regulations by making false or misleading commercial publicity about their goods, or help other business operators to conduct false or misleading commercial publicity by organizing false transactions, the supervision and inspection departments shall order them to stop the illegal conduct and impose a fine of between 200,000 and 1 million yuan; if the circumstances are serious, a fine of between 1 million and 2 million yuan may have their business license revoked.
Zhao Zhanzhang, a lawyer at Beijing Yunjia Law Firm, also reminded that if the operating company engages in illegal activities in the course of operation, taking the infringement of others' right to reputation or privacy as an example, the infringing party will pursue the legal responsibility of the account registrant, not the legal liability of the operating company, which requires the account registrant to make an agreement in advance on some situations that may affect its own rights and interests when signing the operation contract to protect its legitimate rights and interests.
"If you really need to find a substitute operating company, you should polish your eyes and choose a regular company." After handing over the account to the agency operating company, it is also necessary to track the progress frequently, and once the illegal information is found, the agent should be immediately requested to delete it. Zhao Zhanzhan suggested that when signing a service contract, the entrusting party should carefully read the content of the contract, and when it is found that it is unreasonable, it should consult with the operator in time to modify it, and beware of contract fraud.
In Zheng Ning's view, agency operation is a new business model under the market mechanism, which should be encouraged to develop healthily, and multi-pronged supervision is needed for the current irregularities.
"It is recommended that regulatory departments or industry associations formulate service standards for agency operation, clarify service content, and provide standardized format contracts." At the same time, a linkage mechanism is formed with the judicial organs to promptly investigate and deal with illegal acts. Zheng Ning said.
(Rule of Law Daily)
![In the live broadcast room, I have brushed out tens of millions of sales for the stars with goods[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)