Recently, some online serious illness fundraising platforms were exposed to collect 3 yuan of "support fees" and other service fees from donors, causing controversy, and some users questioned why their donations to seriously ill patients were deducted by the platform of 3 yuan? Nandu reporter actual measurement found that at present, the relevant options of the easy fundraising platform are closed by default, while the safe fundraising and initial heart fundraising platforms are opened by default.
In addition, in addition to some platforms charging "support fees", Waterdrop Chip announced on April 7 that it would charge a service fee of 3% of the withdrawal amount of a single fundraising project, and the maximum amount of a single fundraising project would not exceed 5,000 yuan.
After bidding farewell to the free era, how to determine the relevant charging standards of the online fundraising platform that has been declaring "0 handling fees" since its inception, and is it reasonable? How should such charges be regulated? Are the profit models of these online fundraising platforms clear? Nandu and N video reporters launched an investigation into this.
No longer free: Online fundraising platforms start charging donors
Recently, Easy Fundraising was exposed to charging "support fees" to donors, and even donations of 1 yuan were also charged 3 yuan.
Nandu reporters noted that on social media and black cat complaints, many complaints about this matter can be searched. Some users complained, "Seeing that others need help in the circle of friends, they donated 10 yuan out of kindness, 13 yuan when paying, and the recipient only received 10 yuan." They use very small words to pay by default to deduct 3 yuan more, which belongs to the compulsory consumption of hidden consumption, using everyone's love. I recognize the donation, and I don't recognize the extra 3 yuan. ”
There are also user complaints that "in the process of donation, the "User Funding Instructions" is a pre-check option, inducing users to pay 3 yuan for patients to enjoy services such as fast withdrawal, technical support, and exclusive consultants." The user also questioned why the platform charged 3 yuan for publicity without service fees. What are the fees? How are these services available after a fee?
Nandu reporter noted that in response to many complaints about this matter, the reply to the easy fundraising aspect is completely consistent, the reply content is, "The platform does not charge any service fees, and there is no misleading payment, if you have the heart to help the platform continue to operate, please leave you to help us the fee, of course, if you need to refund, please apply for a refund at the easy fundraising public account - personal center - my donation - funding platform." ”
Some users said that understanding the operation of the platform requires costs, but they are very disgusted with the way to charge. "Such a forced collection chills the goodwill of helping others."
On April 14, Nandu reporters found that after clicking on the link to enter the easy fundraising, there will be a column below the option to ask users whether they have read and agreed to the "Green Channel Service Instructions" and "Health Notices". He also explained, "Easy Fundraising has provided free fundraising services to more than 2 million seriously ill families in financial difficulty." Support 3 yuan to receive six health services such as inpatient housekeeper, surgical arrangement, remote consultation, etc. ”
This option is currently turned off by default, but after entering the donation amount and clicking Confirm Payment, there will be a pop-up window at the bottom of the screen, and the above explanation will appear again, with two options: confirm and cancel. If you click Confirm, you will still need to pay an additional 3 yuan, if you click Cancel, you will only need to pay the actual donation amount.
In this regard, the easy fundraising staff responded to the Nandu reporter that the "support fee" is the operating cost of the platform, and the platform page also has a detailed description, and the donor has the right to choose, not a mandatory behavior. "If the donor repents, the platform will refund the 3 yuan 'support fee' after the application." This initiative is to facilitate the better operation of the platform and maintain operating costs. ”
Nandu reporter actual measurement found that the 3 yuan "support fee" option of the initial fundraising platform is the default open state.
In addition to easy fundraising, Nandu reporter actual measurement found that when donating on the anxin fundraising platform, there will be a "join the reassuring everyone help" option below, and the platform explained that it is limited to 3 yuan to join the reassuring everyone help (refundable at any time), and the maximum 300,000 major illness relief funds can be obtained. This option is enabled by default, if the user does not cancel manually, the donation amount will be increased by 3 yuan. When donating money on the Chuxin fundraising platform, there is a "support platform 3 yuan" option, which is also opened by default.
Basis for charging: "The platform is essentially a commercial enterprise entity"
Nandu reporter noted that in addition to the fees for donors, some platforms have begun to charge service fees to fundraisers.
The staff of WaterDrop Chip told Nandu Reporter that from April 7, Water Drop Chip began to implement a unified charging policy nationwide, charging a 3.6% handling fee from the fundraiser on the platform. Among them, 3% is the handling fee charged by the platform when withdrawing cash, and the maximum amount of a single fundraising project is not more than 5,000 yuan. And 0.6% is the payment channel fee as a third-party payment platform.
The staff member said that since its establishment in 2016, Waterdrop Chip has helped many families raise funds successfully, but the fundraising sector has been in a state of loss for a long time, and other business sectors that maintain the company's operating costs, such as insurance business, are not enough to support the operating costs of the platform. As a result, the company chose to break the free model it has adopted since its inception and charge fundraisers to provide services.
Waterdrop Chip issued an announcement and charged the fundraiser for the platform service fee for the trial run.
Nandu reporter noted that on April 7, The company also issued the "Announcement on the Trial Operation of the Service Fee of the Droplet Chip", which mentioned that in order to ensure that the fundraiser is fully aware of the rules of the platform service fee, the platform will inform and obtain the consent of the fundraiser before initiating the fundraiser, and prompt again when the fundraiser withdraws.
For the 3% charging standard, the platform said that the service fee is not for profit, only to ensure the continuous and healthy operation of the platform, after internal careful accounting, it was decided to charge a small amount of service fee to cover part of the operating costs of the platform.
In this regard, Zhou Runan, associate professor of the School of Communication and Design of Sun Yat-sen University, told nandu reporters that this is the embodiment of the maturity of the platform. "When many non-profit organizations raise public donations for a project, they will charge a handling fee of less than 10%, and only a few do not charge a handling fee. The fundraising platform is not a public welfare charity, and according to the Charity Law, it is a private remedy for individuals seeking help. “
Zhou Runan told Nandu reporters that if the fundraising platform clearly informs users that there is a cost to public welfare, there will be no moral hazard and business risk of the business model.
Chen Yinjiang, deputy secretary-general of the Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Law Research Association of the China Law Society, pointed out to the Nandu reporter that these platforms are essentially commercial enterprise entities, and some costs and expenses will indeed be generated in the process of operation. If the enterprise charges a certain fee to make up for the cost according to the actual situation of the operation, as long as it does not violate the law and is effectively notified in advance, (whether to pay or not) is entirely up to the user to choose, there is no obvious problem in law.
"But these enterprises actually carry out business with public welfare attributes, and I think that while carrying out public welfare attribute business, they are also mixed with business projects, which may be difficult to say from a legal point of view that it is illegal, but the project itself is really not pure." Chen Yinjiang said that it is understandable for enterprises to pursue interests, but enterprises that provide public welfare or love services should deduct a part of the handling fee from the love of others, which will make it more difficult for some people to accept emotionally, and will also affect people's willingness to donate love and donations, and even affect the results of fundraising.
"Therefore, I think that as long as it is a project related to public welfare, we should also try to maintain the purity of public welfare, and we should not use public welfare as a tool for making profits, and use the guise of public welfare to earn benefits, which desecrates the original intention of public welfare." Chen Yinjiang said.
Profit model: drain the public welfare sector and monetize the commercial sector
The relevant person in charge of water drop chip said in an interview with the media that the water drop chip platform is often considered a public welfare organization, and in essence, the platform itself is a commercial company. "We don't want to achieve so-called profitability by charging service fees, but we want to be able to maintain reasonable operating costs."
However, over the years since its establishment, most online serious illness fundraising platforms have declared "0 service fees", and before breaking the free model, how these commercial companies that do "free public welfare" can maintain their operations has always been a doubt in the minds of many people.
Zhou Runan told Nandu reporter that the fundraising platform is basically an operating model for public welfare first commercial follow-up, which is divided into two sections: public welfare and commerce. The commercial sector realizes monetization and makes profits by doing business in commercial insurance or financial products related to medical risks.
According to its introduction, studies have shown that ordinary people will pay more attention to medical insurance when they have experienced the risk of major diseases or corresponding fundraising behaviors of relatives and friends around them, and the behavior conversion rate is higher, and the fundraising platform has achieved traffic user precipitation and commercial conversion through this operating model.
Zhou Runan said that fundraising platforms ensure market share through "burning money" in the early stage, and realize monetization in the later stage, so the cost is borne by their profit part. Since then, when this "money-burning" business model has been favored and recognized by capital, there will be a continuous venture capital to raise funds to ensure their market share. When this market share is formed and the business model is opened, a sustainable business model will be realized in the future.
Nandu reporter learned to find that taking the water drop chip company as an example, the water drop company previously used the business model of "crowdfunding + mutual aid + insurance", and after the mutual aid business was shut down in March 2021, there were only two major businesses left, "insurance + crowdfunding", attracting traffic through the water drop fundraising crowdfunding platform, and the water drop insurance business obtained income.
In May 2021, Waterdrop was officially listed on the New York Stock Exchange. According to its prospectus, the market revenue of Waterdrop Insurance is the main source of revenue of Waterdrop Company, which is significantly affected by the number of consumers in the Waterdrop Insurance Market, while insurance consumers mainly come from the internal flow brought by Waterdrop Chip and Waterdrop Mutual Aid, third-party channel traffic and organic flow.
From 2018 to 2020, the marketing expenses of user acquisition and brand building of Waterdrop Company were 86.299 million yuan, 793 million yuan and 1.743 billion yuan, respectively.
Relying on the development of "Internet +", the water drop company follows the same traffic play method as other Internet companies, "burning money" to obtain customers. From 2018 to 2020, the marketing expenses of user acquisition and brand building of Waterdrop Company were 86.299 million yuan, 793 million yuan and 1.743 billion yuan, respectively. Behind the rising investment in sales and marketing expenses, the losses of water drop companies have increased year by year. From 2018 to 2020, the net loss of water droplets was 209 million yuan, 322 million yuan and 664 million yuan, respectively.
It wasn't until the fourth quarter of 2021 that Waterdrop turned its previous losses around. According to the unaudited financial report data released by Waterdrop for the fourth quarter of 2021 and fiscal 2021, the company's adjusted net profit in the fourth quarter of 2021 was about 5.9 million yuan, compared with the previous adjusted net loss of 453.6 million yuan in the third quarter and the adjusted net loss of 191 million yuan in the same period of 2020.
From the perspective of revenue data, the improvement of the profitability of water drop companies mainly relies on not increasing revenue, but controlling costs. Waterdrop's net operating income for the fourth quarter of 2021 fell to 603.9 million yuan from 830.3 million yuan in the same period of 2020, down 27.3% year-on-year. However, in the fourth quarter of 2021, Waterdrop's sales and marketing expenses fell by 69.2% compared with the previous quarter, and total operating costs and expenses fell by 47.5%, so the net loss ratio narrowed from negative 61.2% to negative 11.8% compared with previous quarters.
Regulatory focus: How to calculate the charging rate and how to determine the proportion
The online serious illness fundraising platform has attracted much attention since its inception, and there has been controversy from all walks of life. Judging from the data, there are indeed many troubled patients and families who have received help as a result. According to waterdrop financial report data, as of December 31, 2021, about 394 million people have helped nearly 2.4 million patients through waterdrop fundraising, with a total donation of more than 48.4 billion yuan. According to the official website of Easy Fundraising, Easy Fundraising has raised more than 25.5 billion yuan in total.
However, in recent years, in addition to helping many families solve difficulties, the lack of fundraising audits of help-seekers, fraudulent practices, and the phenomenon of crowdfunding platforms "sweeping the building" for patients have affected people's evaluation and trust in online crowdfunding.
Nandu previously reported that in May 2018, Nandu reporters had measured the three major platforms of water drop chip, love chip and easy chip and found that with false diagnosis certificates and hospitalization certificates, it was easy to pass the identity certificate audit and medical certificate review of the three platforms, and successfully launched a fundraising help. After colleagues made small donations separately, Nandu reporters successfully withdrew cash on the three platforms.
On April 8, 2019, cross-talk actor Wu Hechen was hospitalized for sudden cerebral hemorrhage, and his family launched a fundraising on the "Water Drop Chip", with an amount of 1 million yuan. Subsequently, some netizens found that the Wu family had two properties and a car in Beijing, but they checked the "poor household" label during the crowdfunding, which triggered a heated discussion. Subsequently, the "WaterDrop Chip" platform closed the project.
In April 2020, it was revealed that the employees of Easy Fundraising were beaten in the hospital by employees of Waterdrop Fundraising.
On November 30, 2019, It was exposed that Waterdrop Chip was stationed in hospitals in more than 40 cities, and these push personnel guided patients to initiate fundraising in multiple hospitals, templated the story of the helper, and did not review or even conceal their property status. In April 2020, there was also an incident in which the employees of Easy Fundraising were beaten in the hospital by employees of Waterdrop Fundraising.
In addition, since its inception has been declared "0 fees", and now that major platforms have broken the free model, how should online crowdfunding platform fees be regulated?
Lu Benfu, a professor at the School of Economics and Management of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, told Nandu reporters that the commercial operation of the online crowdfunding platform requires certain operating costs, and the state does not clearly stipulate that commercial platforms are not allowed to charge, and it is reasonable to charge maintenance fees. But "the key is how are the rates charged calculated?" Who determines the proportion of this charge? ”
"Because of the nature of fundraising, whether the rate charged by the platform needs to be approved by the relevant departments, or let the market automatically adjust, or let all fundraising platforms achieve industry self-discipline." Lu Benfu explained that the automatic adjustment of the market depends on the lower rates given by several major platforms, and there may be more users who choose to donate and raise funds on the platform, so that the platform can compete freely, but the competition should be transparent. Industry self-regulation requires industry platforms and experts to agree on fee rates.
As for how to supervise online crowdfunding platforms, Lu Benfu believes that it is first necessary to clarify the nature of fundraising platforms. The fundraising platform requires multiple departments such as civil affairs, finance, market management and health commissions to coordinate and cross-manage. In addition, the industry wants better healthy development, and the most important thing is transparency. "Only by establishing a good reputation in the industry can we achieve benign and healthy development."
Chen Yinjiang believes that in order to promote the healthy development of this new business format, it is necessary to establish and improve relevant legal provisions. "With the rapid development of emerging Internet formats, relevant laws and regulations are lagging behind for Internet donation platforms like Waterdrop Chip." He said that the establishment and improvement of relevant legal provisions can provide a basis for law enforcement by regulatory authorities and draw legal red lines for relevant enterprises.
Zhou Runan suggested that in order to better supervise, it is first necessary to quickly introduce relevant legislation to standardize the fundraising platform. The second is that the government should strengthen supervision and control and hand it over to the relevant responsible departments for management. The third is that the industry needs self-discipline, in addition to the corresponding industry consensus and conventions, more perfect the relevant provisions of the industry, so as to form a binding force on the industry. The fourth is media supervision, and the media can realize the behavior constraints on fundraising platforms through public opinion supervision. The fifth is public supervision, which can form a team to verify fundraising projects and avoid counterfeiting and impact on social morality.
Producer: Nandu Instant
Coordinator: Nandu reporter Xiang Xueni
Written by: Nandu reporter Ma Minglong Intern Zhang Chunchun Wu Daiya Ma Xuan