Previously, the Shijiazhuang Yuhua District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau publicly disclosed the daily chemical brand TST in the form of a "Reply to the Verification Letter", the brand operator Shanghai Darway Trading Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Darway") suspected of using the Network to engage in pyramid schemes and was investigated and punished.
The founders of TST are the celebrity couple Lin Ruiyang and Zhang Ting, and for a time they were pushed to the cusp of the storm. Later, the determination of whether TST is a pyramid scheme is also a matter of public concern.
A few days ago, an insider revealed to the first financial reporter that the Hubei Baokang County Market Supervision and Administration Bureau, after investigation, believes that the bonus system formulated by "Darway" distinguishes members into blue card members and red card members, of which blue card members are general consumers, and the bonus system for blue card members is in line with commercial practices and has no illegal situation. However, the bonus system implemented by the Red Card members requires the developed personnel to develop other personnel to join, form a relationship between the upper and lower lines, and calculate and pay the online remuneration based on the sales performance of the lower line, which is the situation referred to in the relevant provisions of the Regulations on the Prohibition of Pyramid Schemes, which is a pyramid scheme and constitutes an illegal act of organizing and planning a pyramid scheme, and the illegal gains of 19.2799 million yuan are confiscated according to law and a fine of 1.7 million yuan is imposed.
Some media asked the Hubei Baokang County Market Supervision and Administration Bureau for verification of this matter, and some staff members said that they were not clear about the specific circumstances of the case, such as the confiscation of illegal gains and the amount of fines, "but it seems that there is such a thing." At present, it is temporarily impossible to find information on administrative penalties related to Delwei Company in the national enterprise credit information publicity system.
It is worth noting that the time disclosed by the insider that the Hubei Baokang County Market Supervision and Administration Bureau determined that TST constituted an illegal act of organizing and planning pyramid schemes was in September 2021. After that, the Shijiazhuang Yuhua District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau began to intervene in the investigation of TST's suspected use of the network to engage in pyramid schemes, and in December 2021, the TST Court secretly said: "Shanghai Darway Trading Co., Ltd. is a legally operating company, and since its establishment, it has always followed the guidance of the government, adhered to legal operation, and paid taxes according to law." Thank you very much to the Shijiazhuang Yuhua District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau for guiding our company to check the risks, the company's current operation is normal, our company will actively cooperate with the relevant departments. Zhang Ting and Lin Ruiyang also forwarded the Weibo response.
That is, after being determined by the Hubei Baokang County Market Supervision and Administration Bureau that TST constituted an illegal act of organizing and planning pyramid schemes, Zhang Ting and his wife and TST officials still insisted that Dalway was a legally operated company.
According to public information, Dalway registered capital of 231.8 million yuan, the legal representative is Lin Jirong (that is, the well-known actor Lin Ruiyang), the company owns the daily chemical products brand "TST Ting Secret", founded by Lin Ruiyang and Zhang Ting in 2013, with cosmetics and skin care products as the main category, and mainly through the online mall "Ting Secret App" and offline physical store O2O way of product sales.
The first financial reporter looked at the official Weibo, Douyin and Kuaishou social platforms of TST, Zhang Ting and Lin Ruiyang and found that their social platforms were basically banned, and they did not respond further after the statement in December last year. At present, the TST official has been contacted, and there has been no response.
A close person revealed to the first financial reporter that even if there is a storm of suspected pyramid schemes, the sales of TST have not stopped, and as of March this year, there are still a group of very "loyal" salespeople who continue to sell goods, and even claim or advertise.
According to the Tianyancha App, Dalway was sentenced to 150,000 yuan in damages for commercial defamation disputes. According to the relevant documents, the appellant Muji Company claimed that the Weibo named "Ting Secret Micro-business Lin Big Brother" reprinted the picture and text Weibo of "the live yeast produced by Muji Company are fakes", and Darway Company and Lin Ruiyang disseminated false information for the purpose of suppressing similar products of competitors, which seriously affected the reputation of Muji Company. The court of second instance found that Darway Company's behavior had constituted commercial defamation and should stop the infringement and compensate for losses, and finally the second instance revoked the original judgment and ordered Darway Company to compensate Muji Company for 150,000 yuan.
Tianyancha App also shows that the industrial and commercial change information of Darway occurred, the original shareholder Shanghai Darway Trading Co., Ltd. (TST affiliated company) withdrew, adding 6 enterprises such as Zhanli (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Shangyang Investment Management Consulting Co., Ltd. as shareholders, and the type of enterprise was changed to a limited liability company.
"A lot of people can't tell the difference between direct marketing and MLM, and there are a few significant differences here. Direct sales require a formal direct sales license, and direct sales have specific products, and product quality is more guaranteed. Most importantly, direct selling relies on buying and selling goods to earn reasonable commissions, and does not multi-level team remuneration. MLM usually does not pay attention to the quality of goods, or even has no specific goods, it is purely a concept. MLM usually has an entry fee, team remuneration, multi-level fees, the so-called 'head fee', relying on the development of the downline to make money instead of selling goods to make money. To put it more intuitively, A sells goods to B, you can get a reasonable commission, B sells goods to C then A should not get a commission, if A can also get C or even more buyers after the transaction, it is a pyramid scheme. Li Xu, the main initiator of the "Li Xu anti-MLM team", told the first financial reporter.
Yang Jun, a lawyer at Shanghai Tongjian Law Firm, analyzed the first financial reporter: "If in the end, Dalway is officially identified as a pyramid scheme, and if there is a large amount of evidence to prove that Lin Ruiyang and Zhang Ting did participate in the pyramid scheme, then they should bear the corresponding legal responsibility." ”