After being exposed by CCTV's 3.15 party, the sales routines and service chaos of the marriage and love platform showed no signs of convergence.
Recently, Nandu reporters have received a number of complaints about the MarryU marriage platform, involving problems such as inconsistent actual services with commitments, vague fee details, difficulty in refunds, and leakage of customers' personal information.
Nandu reporter visited the MarryU Foshan store to understand the specific situation, and the staff who claimed to be the service director of the MarryU Foshan store said, "The company is not forced to buy and sell, and we did not say that we can't refund the fee, and what should be refunded to you is still refunded", "We also admit that there will be some flaws in the service." In addition, the reporter from Nandu also tried to contact the MarryU headquarters to understand the situation, but as of press time, no relevant reply has been received.
Routine 1
Group "Werewolf Killing" Dating Bureau Induces the purchase of membership services
Chen Xiao (pseudonym) from Guangdong, an ordinary worker in the construction industry, downloaded the app after accidentally seeing an advertisement on the MarryU dating platform. Soon after registering, he received a call from MarryU's offline store, saying, "A girl has taken a fancy to you, do you have time to meet on the spot, and register as a member by the way." ”
Chen Xiao told the reporter that he refused at that time, but the follow-up MarryU offline stores still kept calling to urge them to meet. After Chen Xiao agreed to go to the store to learn about the woman's situation, the MarryU matchmaker "Teacher Li" took him to the offline store in Foshan to communicate the details. But in the MarryU store, Chen Xiao did not see the girl who "took a fancy to him" as scheduled, but paid a "service fee" of 35,800 yuan under the persuasion of the matchmaker in the store.
Another female consumer, Lin Yueyue (pseudonym), entered MarryU's offline store under the inducement of a werewolf killing dating bureau. Lin Yueyue introduced to the reporter from Nandu that she first saw MarryU posting "Werewolf Killing, Script Killing Single Outdoor Activities" on Xiaohongshu, and promoted the introduction of "getting off the single with cute people". "Considering that it was a multi-person outdoor activity to sign up", Lin Yueyue said that MarryU contacted him by phone many times to participate in the event, and the introduction content was also outdoor activities such as werewolf killing and script killing.
However, after coming to the MarryU Marriage and Love offline store, Lin Yueyue was told that outdoor activities had become "single precise matching". In the store, a number of MarryU staff surrounded Lin Yueyue for up to 4 hours of sales services, and in order to get out as soon as possible, Lin Yueyue agreed to pay. Subsequently, Lin Yueyue offered a full refund on the grounds that she did not accept any services from the MarryU marriage platform, but was rejected by the store.
In response to this situation, Wang Hao, a practicing lawyer at Shanghai Zhonglian (Guangzhou) Law Firm, analyzed to the reporter that MarryU attracted consumers on the grounds of "outdoor multi-person activities", but after arriving at the scene, it became a "single person accurate match", which is indeed suspected of deceiving consumers. "If MarryU deliberately conceals or misleads the nature of the campaign in its promotional activities, causing consumers to mislead, then such behavior constitutes deception. ”
Nandu reporters searched on the Xiaohongshu platform and found that there are still announcements about the group activities of "Werewolf Killing" under the official account of MarryU Marriage and Love, and the number of applicants introduced by the announcement is "10 people +", the ratio of men to women is not less than 6:4, and the promotional pictures are also shown as group photos of many people. Nandu reporters tried to contact MarryU Xiaohongshu customer service for details of the event, but did not receive a reply as of press time.
MarryU Werewolf Killing campaign promotion page and registration page provided by consumers.
Routine 2
Spent nearly 60,000 yuan and didn't find a suitable object, and the refund was only 3,800 yuan
In August 2023, Chen Xiao signed a 6-month "Platinum Member" service package contract at MarryU Foshan store, and the service fee paid by him was 35,800 yuan. Chen Xiao told the reporter that the reason why he paid tens of thousands of yuan in service fees was that MarryU matchmaker "Teacher Li" promised to be very confident in helping him find a partner on the platform.
However, the actual situation is that during the service period, the MarryU Foshan store did not perform the service in accordance with the content of the contract, and the verbal promise of the matchmaker "Mr. Li" was also disappointed.
The contract provided by Chen Xiao shows that MarryU needs to "recommend or introduce 6 people during the service period", but Chen Xiao reported that only 2 people were successfully recommended to him by MarryU Foshan store within half a year, "There is another person who does not meet his mate selection criteria at all, I clearly stated that I don't want to meet, and I agreed to meet under the urging of the matchmaker, and I didn't add WeChat after meeting." "The store registration form records show that the actual number of referrals is 3.
For this reason, Chen Xiao went to the MarryU Foshan store to complain and asked for a 90% refund, but the store staff proposed that "only 4,160 yuan will be refunded". "The contract says that candidates will be recommended during the service, and it does not say that a meeting must be arranged, which are two concepts," explains the director of service supervision at the MarryU Foshan store. The reporter from Nandu noticed that the two parties agreed in the contract that Party B's recommendation of candidates does not fully meet the standards, but Party A's recognition and completion of the appointment is deemed to provide a recommendation or referral service.
In the end, after repeated arguments between the two parties, MarryU agreed to raise the refund amount to 7,450 yuan, but Chen Xiao insisted that 90% of the refund should be made.
Hu Yu (pseudonym), who also signed a contract at the MarryU Foshan store, also complained to a reporter from Nandu that he signed the first "full marriage and love membership service" contract with the MarryU Foshan store in July 2023, paying 29,800 yuan. "After introducing two, he said that my image needs to be improved, my chat skills are too poor, and I need to improve comprehensively," Hu Yu said, and then the staff of the MarryU Foshan store guided him to sign a second "consulting service" contract with a cost of up to 29,800 yuan. However, after receiving training in emotional counseling, Hu Yu was unable to find a match in the end, and when seeking a refund, Hu Yu was told that he could only refund 3,800 yuan.
Routine 3
Pay the money first and then pay the contract The service fee standard is not specified
At the same time, a number of consumers pointed out that there were many doubts in the process of signing the contract with MarryU, and they were still unclear about the service details after signing the contract.
According to Chen Xiao's recollection, before signing the contract with the MarryU Foshan store, the store staff not only did not give specific details, but also induced loans, and "paid the money for a long time before giving the contract". "They took my mobile phone to see my Alipay balance, Huabei quota, and borrowing quota, and asked me to take out all 20,000 yuan (Huabei quota) in Huabei, which is not enough to borrow again. Chen Xiao said.
In this regard, Wang Hao, a practicing lawyer at Shanghai Zhonglian (Guangzhou) Law Firm, said that the practice of "paying the fee first and then giving the contract" is not in line with the normal contract signing process. According to the provisions of the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China, the parties to the contract shall clarify their respective rights and obligations on the basis of equality, voluntariness, fairness and good faith, and reach an agreement. The payment of the fee first and the contract after payment deprives the consumer of the right to know and the right to choose, which may constitute an infringement of the rights and interests of the consumer. The consumer has the right to request the merchant to provide the full contract content before signing the contract in order to understand and agree to the terms of the contract.
Coincidentally, Hu Yu also raised the issue of the lack of clarity about the specific charges in the contract. Hu Yu introduced that before signing the contract, MarryU did not give a class schedule plan, and the refund was calculated according to the proportion of course completion, Hu Yu was told that there were only 12 classes in the "consulting service" he paid 29,800 yuan, "I have already taken 9 classes, so the course completion rate is 75%." ”
In this regard, Hu Yu asked the "service supervision director" to give a breakdown of the expenses, but the service supervision director only listed the liquidated damages (30% of the liquidated damages need to be deducted for refunds) and emotional service costs. After Hu Yu repeatedly asked for the details of the emotional service fee, the service supervisor could only give a record of the class date, and still did not list the details of the fee.
In addition, after comparing the contracts signed by Chen Xiao and Hu Yu, the reporter from Nandu found that the difference between the two "full marriage and love member service contracts" that are also platinum members is only one emotional counseling service, but the difference in amount is 6,000 yuan. The "consulting service contract" signed by Hu Yu also did not indicate the specific content of the consulting service, and if it is calculated based on 12 classes, it is equivalent to a fee of 2,483 yuan per class.
According to Chen Xiao, in the communication process before the contract was signed, MarryU did not mention any fees except for liquidated damages, but when refunding, the service supervision director listed a number of expenses that should be deducted one by one, "The platform fee includes the platform traffic exposure fee, the filing fee, and the labor cost of post-production PPT." When asked how much each service should cost, they were silent.
Screenshot of the "Whole Marriage Membership Service Contract" provided by the consumer.
"If there is a difference in the contract amount, such as MarryU did not clearly indicate the various charging standards in the early communication and payment process, and the specific details were not explained in the contract, then MarryU's practice is not compliant. Wang Hao said, "According to the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests, consumers have the right to know the true situation of the goods or services they purchase, including prices and fees." The merchant shall clearly inform the consumer of the various charging standards and refund regulations when signing the contract, otherwise it may constitute fraud. In addition, it is not compliant to suddenly mention the filing fee, platform fee, dating service fee, and other fees that suddenly appear at the time of refund, if these fees are not mentioned in the previous communication or contract. Merchants are not allowed to increase or change fees without the consumer's knowledge or consent. ”
scene
Superintendent admits flawed service "Consumers pay for lessons"
Recently, a reporter from Nandu came to MarryU's offline store in Foshan to visit, and when communicating the refund issue, a staff member who claimed to be "MarryU Foshan store service director" said, "The company is not forced to buy and sell, and we did not say that we can't refund the fee, and we should refund you or refund", "We also admit that there will be some flaws in the service." ”
The service director also said, "I think we can help a lot of people, but many people will feel deceived, so according to your words, today is really spending money to buy lessons, right, the next time you sign a contract, see if it's right, next time learn to reject others."
In addition, the reporter from Nandu also tried to ask the director of service supervision of MarryU Foshan store about the details of the charge, and the director of service supervision only said, "See a person close to 6,000 yuan", but still could not give a specific amount. Since then, I have continued to insist that the total amount of "date and meeting costs" in the refund plan is already a "detailed list".
Nandu reporters also tried to contact MarryU headquarters "Hangzhou Maiyou Brand Management Co., Ltd.", but as of press time, no reply has been received. Nandu reporter registered the MarryU marriage app and tried to ask customer service from the inside, but the account was blocked by the platform.
Doxxing company
Involved in a number of disputes, it has been reported that information was collected in violation of regulations
According to public information, MarryU Marriage and Love is positioned as a new generation of high-end marriage and love platform, which belongs to Hangzhou Maiyou Cultural and Creative Co., Ltd., which was established in 2015 and has the legal representative of Huang Zhen.
Tianyancha shows that Hangzhou Maiyou Cultural and Creative Co., Ltd. has been involved in a number of civil cases, including service contract disputes, personality rights disputes, unfair competition disputes, and so on.
Nandu reporters searched and found that there were 1572 complaints related to MarryU marriage and love on the black cat complaint platform, including "difficult to refund", "false publicity", "inducing loan consumption", "forcibly opening Alipay's quota and credit card limit to see Huabei", "closing the small room to coax brainwashing consumption, and only releasing people after consumption", "three-day trial period, directly cancel the probationary period, expire or automatically deduct" and other issues.
It is worth noting that after applying for a refund on the MarryU platform, some consumers encountered personal information leakage and were pulled into a QQ group suspected of fraud.
A consumer revealed to a reporter from Nandu that after he applied for a refund on the MarryU marriage platform, he received a call from a person claiming to be the "MarryU refund group", saying, "I have received many complaints recently, and I am currently forced to refund in full, and I need to add a QQ account '378****373' to deal with refund-related issues." But then he was induced into a QQ group to buy funds, and the group announced that it was necessary to download the "Invesco General Office APP" first, and "buy bonds first and then refund".
Screenshot of the announcement of the "Invesco General Office" refund QQ group.
In this regard, the reporter from Nandu contacted Invesco Great Wall Fund to understand the situation, and its relevant staff replied, "Our company has never authorized any third-party application or individual to carry out the so-called 'refund' and 'payment' operation in any form, and our company has and only one APP called 'Invesco Great Wall Fund', the so-called 'Invesco General Office' and 'Invesco Fund' and other names of the APP are counterfeit, please be vigilant and screen, do not trust and download and use, to avoid personal information leakage and property loss." ”
The reporter from Nandu noticed that in November last year, in accordance with the "Personal Information Protection Law" and "Methods for Determining the Illegal Collection and Use of Personal Information by Apps" and other laws and regulations, the Zhejiang Provincial Cyberspace Administration investigated and dealt with 156 illegal and illegal apps such as "MarryU Blind Date and Friends" in accordance with the law, and there were problems such as failure to disclose the rules for collection and use, failure to clearly indicate the purpose, method and scope of collection and use of personal information, collection and use of personal information without the consent of users, and collection in violation of the principle of necessity, and ordered to complete rectification within 15 days.
The Zhejiang Provincial Cyberspace Administration investigated and dealt with the details of "MarryU blind date and friends" in accordance with the law.
Industry chaos
The marriage and love platform has deep routines, and the problem is still the same after many institutions are reported
Looking back at the domestic online marriage market, which started in 2003, China's first marriage and love website "Century Jiayuan" was established, and during the same period, two other marriage and love giants, Lily and Zhenai, were also born. Since then, the three major marriage and love giants have continuously improved the business model of the marriage and love website, and in 2009, they have achieved profitability one after another, and the core business model is matchmaking and membership fees.
However, after two decades of development, the market has not become more mature and standardized, but has become more and more chaotic. Among them, the Su Xiangmao Zhai Xinxin incident that caused a lot of uproar in 2017 made the public's trust crisis in online marriage and love platforms completely erupt, and the founders of the three major platforms cashed out one after another.
At the same time, the emerging stranger dating platform continues to rise, grabbing the market of traditional dating platforms. But whether it is a traditional dating platform or an emerging dating platform, problems emerge one after another.
According to the statistics of Nandu reporters, the current largest marriage and dating platforms in China include Century Jiayuan, Zhenai.com, Youyuan.com, Lily.com, NetEase Huatian, Yipair, Confidant.com, My Lord Liangyuan, Soul, etc., and more than a dozen companies have had varying degrees of violations.
As early as 2015, the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other departments jointly carried out a special rectification of "serious violations and untrustworthiness of marriage and love websites", closing 128 marriage and love websites with serious violations and dishonesty (including website marriage and love channels) in accordance with the law, and ordering more than 20 websites to rectify or suspend the network for rectification through interviews and other means.
On September 26, 2021, the Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Commission released the "Survey Report on the Service Status of Marriage and Dating Platforms", which found that platforms such as Jiayuan, Baihe.com, Zhenai.com, NetEase Huatian, and My Lord Liangyuan have problems including but not limited to unclear refund rules, unfulfilled publicity promises, and virtual membership information review, which seriously infringes on the legitimate rights and interests of consumers such as the right to know, the right to fair trade, and the right to information security.
In December of the same year, the Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Committee interviewed Baihe Jiayuan, My Lord Liangyuan, and Zhenai online, and the above-mentioned platforms all detailed the rectification situation and the next rectification measures for the problems found in the report. In the same month, in response to the infringement of personal privacy, deceptive consumption, malicious marketing, and ambiguity in terms of service by individual marriage agencies, the Shanghai Marriage Agency Management Association also interviewed four marriage agencies, including Baihe Jiayuan, Zhenai.com, My Lord Liangyuan, and Yijiayuan.
After being exposed to malicious marketing, inducing payment, providing false information and other problems, in the first half of 2022, the marriage and love platform was interviewed by the Cyberspace Administration of China for vulgar and pornographic information. In response to the problem of vulgar pornographic information undermining the network ecology on 8 marriage and love platforms such as NetEase Huatian, Baihe.com, Century Jiayuan, and Zhenai.com, the Cyberspace Administration of Beijing, Shanghai and other places separately interviewed the platforms, ordered them to comprehensively clean up and investigate illegal information, and imposed administrative penalties of fines.
In the "Analysis of Complaints Accepted by the National Consumers Association in 2022", the China Consumers Association continued to name the chaos in the service of members of the marriage and love platform. Some marriage and love platforms charge high service fees, but the actual service does not meet the agreed standards, and some do not strictly check the review of member information, and even provide "marriage trust" to deceive consumers by fictitious dating and marriage needs.
In March 2023, a survey on the consumption of matchmaking services jointly conducted by the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Consumer Association showed that some matchmaking service agencies had problems such as lax information review, "matchmaker" qualifications to be standardized, actual services inconsistent with commitments, difficulties in refunds, and hidden dangers of personal information leakage.
On this year's 3.15 Consumer Rights Day, CCTV once again exposed that many marriage and love platforms used anxiety to harvest consumers. The reporter has successively passed the interviews of many marriage and love companies such as Zhenai.com, Century Jiayuan, and Love Class, and has become a "marriage matchmaker". In the professional training of these marriage and love companies, the lecturer emphasized the need to "throw bait", screen the customer's property status, let customers regard the marriage and love platform as the only hope, and use pain points such as age anxiety, birth anxiety, and the feelings of children after divorce to induce consumers to buy membership services with a price of tens of thousands of yuan. Subsequently, Century Jiayuan and Zhenai both issued official apology statements, saying that they would rectify offline stores. But the public apparently isn't buying it. "I've been a repeat offender for many years, and I can't change the apology template. Some netizens commented.
Lawyer advice
Wang Hao, a practicing lawyer at Shanghai Zhonglian (Guangzhou) Law Firm:
First of all, consumers should carefully check the contract with MarryU and pay attention to the specific terms of the contract regarding the referral service. In particular, the part about "Party B's recommendation of the candidate does not fully meet the criteria, but Party A's approval and completion of the appointment is deemed to provide a recommendation or referral service", this will be one of the key evidence. If it is found that the service does not match the content of the contract, relevant evidence can be retained, such as chat records, emails, text messages, and if any fees or payments have been paid in the contract or service process, relevant payment vouchers, such as bank transfer records, invoices, etc., should be retained. Further communicate with the merchant to express their dissatisfaction with the service and the inconsistency of the contract. Ask the merchant to explain why and provide a reasonable solution. If the merchant is unable to solve the problem or has a negative attitude, he can complain to the local consumer association or market supervision department, or file a lawsuit.
MarryU's "precise matching" should be based on its commitment to consumers based on its service content and professional capabilities. If, in the actual service process, the consumer cooperates with all the service links in accordance with the requirements of the contract, but still fails to achieve the purpose of the contract, then there may be a problem of false publicity on the part of MarryU. Secondly, although there is no written record of the verbal promises made by MarryU to consumers in the early communication, such as "it is impossible, we will also eat" and "I hope to believe them once again and guarantee that he will find a satisfactory partner", etc., if the consumer can provide witness testimony or other forms of evidence to prove the existence of these promises, then these oral promises also have certain legal effect.
Lawyer Yan Chuang of Beijing Zhongwen Law Firm:
The normal situation is that the consumer should be allowed to read the contract first, and the terms of the contract should be reviewed by the consumer, and the fee will be paid only after the consumer has reviewed it.
With regard to issues such as inconsistent charging standards, inducement of consumers to consume through loans, inconsistency between services and contracts, and false publicity, as consumers, the first thing to do is to complain to the market supervision and administration department for resolution, and consumers should firmly advocate an attitude of rights protection. In addition, it is recommended to resolve the dispute by way of litigation, which is a service contract dispute, and the consumer can provide evidence to prove that the platform company failed to perform the obligations agreed in the service contract, failed to meet the expected interests of the consumer or met the consumer's expectations, etc., so that the platform company can claim that the platform company refund the service fee paid.
Producer: Southern Metropolis Daily, Political and Business Data News Department, Shanghai News Department
Written by: Nandu reporter Ma Ningning, Wang Chenchen, intern Zhu Kexuan