The "love sale" failed, and a fine exposed the big scam!
Recently, Jiayuan, which claims to have "220 million members and 15 million people who have found true love here", was fined 200,000 yuan by the Shanghai market supervision department for defrauding service fees!
This incident quickly aroused widespread concern in society and became the focus of public opinion.
The fine of 200,000 yuan may be just a drop in the bucket for Jiayuan, but it is a heavy price for consumers who have been deceived. Because what they have lost is not only money, but also trust and expectation of love.
Source: Qichacha
Only when the truth is revealed, do they realize that the love they once believed in turned out to be just an empty game.
01
According to the administrative penalty decision of the Shanghai Yangpu District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau, Shanghai Huaqianshu Information Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Huaqianshu"), the operator of the "Jiayuan" platform, induces consumers to pay high fees in the name of "customized services", but greatly discounts in the service cashing process, or even completely defaults.
From June to September 2023, a number of consumers failed to provide services in accordance with the pre-sales agreement, and even concealed key information such as the quantity and quality of services when selling paid membership services to some consumers. After paying the double price of money and emotion, consumers can only face empty service promises and cold customer service responses.
This kind of behavior is undoubtedly a naked infringement of consumer rights and interests, and it is also a fatal blow to the brand image of "Jiayuan".
Source: Penalty letter of the Municipal Supervision Bureau
Imagine, when you open the "Jiayuan" APP with great expectations, an enthusiastic salesperson takes the initiative to connect with you, promising to tailor a set of "high-end customized membership services". You may be so impressed by its fanciful description that you willingly pull out your wallet and sign a service contract.
However, the reality after payment is a different story. After charging a high service fee, Huaqianshu Company did not fulfill its promise as promised. Those so-called "quality objects" disappear like a mirage, and you can only be saddened by the empty chat interface.
Source: official website
What's even more infuriating is that you don't even know what exactly the services you have purchased include, and the promised quality assurance and service period are like castles in the air, out of reach.
This is the consumer trap carefully woven by Huaqianshu: inducing consumers with false promises, and then playing "hide and seek" to put consumers in a dilemma of rights protection.
It is worth noting that since 2024, Jiayuan has received three fines in a row, with a total fine of 850,000 yuan.
Source: Qichacha
A month ago, it was exposed by this year's CCTV 3.15 party. It is suspected of using high-quality resources of the opposite sex, tempting advertisements with 0 thresholds, and conclusive success cases as gimmicks to deceive consumers.
Source: CCTV Finance
After being named, although Jiayuan issued a statement through Weibo and said that it would investigate thoroughly, netizens didn't seem to buy it.
Source: Weibo
According to reports, a number of Jiayuan's stores in Shenzhen have been closed, and some stores have even been "remodeled" under other names, such as "Aimer Love Culture Communication Co., Ltd.", but the staff are still allegedly former Jiayuan employees, and claim to be able to provide online services.
The frequent "overturning" of Jiayuan has completely torn apart the bad deeds under the gorgeous coat of the marriage and love platform.
02
As a veteran player in the domestic marriage and love market, Jiayuan has attracted countless singles with its huge user base and rich service items.
In the past, Jiayuan was once a high-profile star start-up enterprise. Its founder, Gong Haiyan, started with 1,000 yuan after being deceived twice by unscrupulous matchmakers.
As the earliest real-name membership dating website in China, Jiayuan has established a good reputation in the industry with a serious attitude towards marriage and love. Later, through the cooperation with the popular variety show "If You Are Honest, Do Not Disturb", the popularity was pushed to a new height.
At that time, Jiayuan, with more than 50 million members, was unbeatable in the domestic marriage and love market.
However, in the process of pursuing profits, Jiayuan gradually lost its way, and the problem of excessive commercialization became more and more prominent, riddled with negativity, and its reputation declined year after year. It has been exposed one after another that senior executives have lost contact with each other, privatization and delisting, non-provision of services, false propaganda and other problems.
"High-quality member recommendation" and "precise matching" ...... These seductive words are like sweet sugar-coated cannonballs, hitting the hearts of single men and women who yearn for love. However, when you spend a lot of money in anticipation and become a paid membership, the reality is a cold slap in the face.
Source: official website
Those so-called "high-quality members" either have falsified information, and key information such as education, income, and real estate is far from the actual situation, or they have already "dived" and cannot communicate effectively at all.
Ordinary members cannot view the contact information of the other party, and can only communicate with the other party through the station message. In order to get more contact details, many users are forced to purchase premium membership services. In addition, Jiayuan has also launched a variety of value-added services, such as "priority recommendation" and "love insurance", so that users can unknowingly empty their pockets.
"Love is not a commodity, but some people treat it as a business. This sentence was brutally confirmed in the "Century Jiayuan" incident.
Those who once found "true love" here may have only been deceived by the elaborate deception and become innocent victims of the "pig killing plate".
Jiayuan's "deception door" is just the tip of the iceberg of the chaos of the marriage and love platform. As far as the eye can see, this seemingly romantic marriage and love rivers and lakes are actually full of all kinds of chaos and traps, with undercurrents surging and crises.
03
The Jiayuan incident is not an isolated phenomenon, but a microcosm of the problems in the marriage and love platform industry.
In recent years, the number of complaints about marriage and dating platforms has remained high, among which "fabricating virtual objects", "inducing consumption", "lax information review", etc., have long become the hardest hit areas of marriage and love platforms.
While the marriage and love market is developing rapidly, it is difficult to guarantee the authenticity of information and excessive marketing. On the one hand, due to the platform's lax review of user information, fake photos and fake materials are proliferating.
You never know if the "Prince Charming" or "Snow White" on the other side of the screen is real or a carefully woven lie. The authenticity of information is like seeing flowers in a fog, which makes people confused.
Source: CCTV Finance
On the other hand, marriage and love platforms do everything in order to chase profits. Advertisements poured in, paid campaigns followed, and even phone harassment became the norm.
At present, most marriage and love platforms mainly rely on traditional methods such as user payment and advertising to make profits, and lack innovative business models, which makes them easy to deviate in the process of pursuing profits, and evolves into a frightening consumer trap.
The originally beautiful journey to find love has also become a marketing battlefield for merchants.
In addition, when consumers encounter fraud on dating platforms, they often face problems such as difficulty in adducing evidence and high costs for rights protection, resulting in many victims choosing to swallow their anger and further conniving at the platform's violations.
When love is clearly priced, sincerity becomes the most expensive luxury.
In the shadow of "love trading", for marriage and love platforms, every illegal operation is a ruthless trampling on user trust. Once the user's trust in the platform collapses, no matter how luxurious the advertisement and the most attractive offer are, it will not be able to recover.
After all, once Pandora's box is opened, it's hard to change.