Introduction
In recent years, the prepaid model has been widely used in various industries such as education, beauty, and fitness, and how to make prepaid better incorporate into supervision and protect consumer rights and interests has also become a topic of concern from all walks of life. At this year's two sessions, a number of committee members put forward opinions and suggestions on the issue of prepayment.
Member Li Xiulei: Clarify rights and responsibilities and strengthen linkage
In 2022, the "Beijing Single-Purpose Prepaid Card Management Regulations" was released: from 2023, the competent departments of sports, cultural tourism, education, childcare and other industries will successively issue regulatory rules on prepaid consumption to regulate the development of the industry. However, in practice, the implementation of "regulatory accounts" in various industries is not in place, and ultimately harms the rights and interests of consumers. In response to these problems, Li Xiulei, a member of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and deputy editor-in-chief of Beijing Radio and Television, believes that to promote the implementation of prepaid supervision, it is necessary to clarify the responsibilities and authority of various functional departments and strengthen industry linkage.
Li Xiulei: The reason why this matter has been repeatedly banned is not that relevant regulations have not been issued. In fact, there are several problems here, such as the regulatory departments, now (training institutions) are under the management of various committees and bureaus, such as the cultural and tourism departments, and the prepayment of cultural tourism belongs to him, but in fact, these departments do not have the right to punish, it only has the power to go to the door to talk to you, discuss and negotiate with you, but this strength is obviously not enough. So I thought, can we sort it out at the legal level, and who is responsible for this punishment?
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Committee and bureau staff: included in the normalized governance
Taking the sports industry as an example, in April 2023, the trial version of the "Implementation Rules for the Supervision of Funds in the Field of Prepaid Consumption in the Sports Industry of Beijing" was released. When it comes to how to promote the supervision of prepaid issues in the sports industry, Zhou Jie, deputy director of the Industry Division of the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau, who came to the scene of the CPPCC as a staff member of the committee and bureau, said that in view of some problems in the previous practice of prepaid supervision, the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau will incorporate prepaid supervision into the normalized governance work and promote multi-departmental supervision.
Zhou Jie: This year, the prepaid governance of our sports industry and the improvement of sports and fitness service levels have been included in our "one question per month", so we are also preparing to use this year's time, from September to November 2024, to form a centralized governance period to increase relevant governance efforts. In this process, we are also strengthening two aspects of publicity, one is the publicity of the enterprise, that is, the enterprise is required to cooperate with our territorial departments, financial departments, and banking departments to implement the establishment of our regulatory accounts, on the other hand, we also hope that through our publicity, we can increase the warning of consumers, and put an end to this large amount of this kind of package, as well as this long-term card.
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Member Li Xiulei: Supervision must be "blocked" and "sparse"
On the other hand, the prepaid model can reduce the cash flow pressure of small and medium-sized businesses and promote the vitality of industry consumption. How to strike a balance between reducing consumer risks and encouraging the development of the industry? Committee member Li Xiulei held that the supervision of prepaid fees should not only be "blocked" but also "slackened."
Li Xiulei: We always say that we must be strict and loving. For example, why is the merchant unwilling to put the account in this regulatory account to supervise? That is, if my money is put in you, it may be like a pool of stagnant water, and it will not be able to move. So in this case, if we give him more outlets, some methods, such as a regulated account, if you enter, I will give you a certain reward, or give you a certain discount in some aspects; on the other hand, if you are not supervised, you may face very severe penalties.
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Member Liu Donghui: Implement multi-departmental coordinated supervision
In the view of Liu Donghui, a member of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and director of the Private Enterprise Committee, the implementation of prepaid consumption supervision requires multi-departmental coordinated supervision on the one hand to straighten out the classification of prepaid consumption;
Liu Donghui: These prepaid cards, in the past management actually did not fully realize the unification of the department, now we are also doing, the departments have begun to have linkage, I hope in this regard, in the future, more delicate, all these consumption categories, do not have some loopholes. The other is that as a consumer himself, he must also have some rational judgment. It does not violate the principle of prepaid consumption, but it cannot completely restrict him, and he should be encouraged. At this time, we should consume in stages in the consumption process, rather than consuming in large amounts.
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Member Liu Donghui: Shopping malls should become hubs for resolving disputes
Nowadays, many businesses that use prepaid consumption have settled in business districts or large-scale cultural and tourism complexes, and once the merchants close their stores, the shopping malls, as venue lessors, have also become hubs for resolving consumer disputes. In this regard, Liu Donghui believes that shopping malls or lessors can actively undertake the obligation to remind and cooperate with relevant departments to implement the work.
Liu Donghui: In this process, Party A is like the beads that play a role in connecting the belts. For example, in the process of customer consumption, he can think of it for customers in advance and make some business tips. If the situation of the third party really occurs, then we must fully and actively cooperate with the relevant departments to deal with the work well as soon as possible. Try to prevent it from happening, and even if it happens, we must always be the bead and the thread in the middle, help and then play a good role in it, so that consumers do not suffer.
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Member Shen Teng: It is necessary to increase post-event relief and accountability
Shen Teng, a member of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, deputy director of the Social and Legal Committee of the Central Committee for Promoting Democracy, and chief lawyer of Shuai He Law Firm, believes that for illegal acts involving prepayment, it is necessary to increase the intensity of post-event relief, post-event punishment, and post-event accountability, so as to fully protect the rights and interests of consumers.
Shen Teng: It is necessary to increase the intensity of so-called post-event relief, post-event punishment, and post-event accountability, so that these people can't run away and can't hide. Whether it is a company or a shareholder or operator of a company, a blacklist system should be added. Once the shareholder of the operator commits a similar breach of contract or infringement of consumer rights and interests, he will be blacklisted, and he will not be restricted from engaging in similar activities for at least a few years. In addition, it is necessary to increase the punishment of false registered shareholders and false managers. Some people, he made the company an unrelated person as a shareholder and legal representative, and the actual beneficiary was secretly happy behind the scenes, enjoying the illegal happiness of this kind of infringement, so that these people would also surface behind the scenes and be dealt with and punished as they deserved.
Xiao Q said
Strengthen the supervision of prepaid payments
Multi-party linkage is required
Original manuscript reprinting requires authorization, otherwise it will be reported
记者 | 木子 肖赛（实习）
Editor丨Mu Zi Xiao Sai (Intern)
Editor-in-Chief on duty丨Tang Yan
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