"Career Closers" take over educational institutions

Interface News Reporter | Cha Qinjun

Interface News Editor | Wen Shuqi

"I was temporarily notified to go back to the company for a meeting, but the result was a severance meeting, and the person I didn't know was still connected. ”

Xiaomi, from Zhuhai, worked for the local Gymboree for less than half a year and was forced to leave due to poor management of the company. At the severance meeting a few days ago, it was a stranger who informed her to sign the voluntary separation agreement, the so-called "professional shut-in".

"Professional store closure" usually refers to a person who specializes in helping businesses that are in business difficulties, facing bankruptcy or intentionally evading debt liabilities to carry out operations such as store closure, asset transfer, debt avoidance, etc.

"Professional closers don't come to talk to us with sincerity, [but] with a plan. It's not up to us to decide when the salary will come out, it's up to her to decide. Xiaomi wrote about this experience on social media, and she didn't expect that she would end this early education job by calling the police, and the first small team building was farewell.

The "double reduction" superimposed on the impact of the epidemic, a large number of education and training institutions failed to carry the cycle, and some of them maliciously closed stores and sought to run away, but also exploited the legal and regulatory loopholes in the prepaid market and the change of corporate legal persons, and at the same time seized the weakness of the high cost of consumer rights protection, so as to achieve "golden cicada shelling".

Industry insiders with many years of enrollment experience told Interface Education that from the perspective of store closure business alone, there are two main situations: one is to help the campus close the store reasonably, find the undertaking campus, and transfer the unsold classes of the closed school to another campus, forming a win-win situation for the campus, parents and third-party companies.

The second is the illegal operation, a large number of enrollment before the closure of the store, the original price of the class time discount, to absorb the parents' tuition, which leads to many parents just pay the fee may be less than a week, the school will be closed, and there is no compensation measures, and even the legal person is replaced by a professional debtor, which leads to parents have no way to complain, and finally can not be compensated.

"Now public opinion regards store closure as a derogatory term, which is more one-sided, and it is necessary to correctly view store closure, as well as the impact on parents and society, and not simply think that store closure is an inferior business. The above-mentioned admissions source said.

Not only in the education and training industry, but also in the prepaid industries on the market, there are "professional closed-shop" figures.

In July 2022, Gan Zhibin, a lawyer at Guangxi Liusheng Law Firm, represented a beauty salon member rights protection lawsuit, which held a final member recharge activity under the operation of "professional store closures", and then announced its closure shortly after, and more than 40 members' recharge cards could not be refunded and used normally.

"Regardless of the industry, the methods of professional shopkeepers are similar. Gan Zhibin told Interface Education that it was basically a change of legal person, and then the last wave of leek-cutting promotional activities was done, and finally the store was closed.

The "professional store closers" also anticipated the ensuing protection of consumers' rights, and even the results were under their control.

According to Gan Zhibin, "professional store closures" often use relatively cheap solutions, such as three to four discounts on the recharge amount, to force consumers to sign refund agreements. In order to minimize losses and reduce time costs, at least seventy or eighty percent of consumers will accept this discount plan.

"In the end, there are relatively few parents who really choose to litigate to defend their rights. Gan Zhibin told Interface Education that most of the parents can be screened out through this program.

For the remaining "nail households", "professional shopkeepers" are also confident that they will "get out" in court - replacing the legal person with an elderly person who is unable to repay in advance is the most common operation.

Tianyancha shows that in January this year, Gymboree in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and other companies successively changed the legal representative to Chen Xiongsheng. According to CCTV News, Chen Xiongsheng is a 53-year-old man from a village in Huidong County, Huizhou, Guangdong.

Gan Zhibin said that the replaced legal person has two major characteristics, first of all, it belongs to the "white household" without stain on the credit information, which is convenient for completing the change of legal person and shareholders.

Secondly, most of them are rural or elderly people, even if they eventually become legal judgment defaulters, but for them, because they live in rural or underdeveloped areas, there is less need for loans, or taking airplanes and high-speed trains, and high consumption.

"The final punishment for dishonesty does not have much impact on them. Gan Zhibin said.

On social media platforms, these "professional shopkeepers" solicit business in a more covert way, usually with a picture accompanied by captions such as "safe and dignified exit", "timely stop loss", and "low-cost transformation exit".

Interface Education contacted the "professional store closure person" as the manager of the education and training institution, and the other party said that he could come to help the education and training institution close the store, and the fee depended on the specific situation of the unfinished class, and said that he could leave WeChat for detailed communication, but as of press time, the other party had no further action.

Gan Zhibin told Interface Education that the fees charged by "professional store closures" are generally related to the debt scale of the closed store company, and the proportion is between 10% and 15%. This means that if it is a company with a scale of millions of dollars to be refunded, the "professional shopkeeper" can earn 100,000 yuan in a single business.

With such a routine store closure model and leek-cutting traps, how can malicious store closures be prevented in terms of laws and policies? Can the debtor really easily escape the responsibility of coping?

"In judicial practice, it is difficult to determine the identity and true purpose of professional shopkeepers and debtors. Gan Zhibin said, "Even in the cases we have undertaken, it is difficult to distinguish the evidence presented against the other party at the time of the trial." ”

It is difficult to distinguish between the new corporation and the fact that the original owner took over the store because it was not doing well, but it did not do well and then closed down.

"Even if the lawsuit is over, there is no way to tell the difference. Because the court will not make a discernment of his true purpose. Gan Zhibin said, but if the intention of changing the behavior is obvious, through the criminal case of the public security organ, the other party may be investigated for fraud, which may form a certain crackdown.

Judging by the results, the protection of rights is not entirely hopeless. The case of the closure of the beauty salon that Gan Zhibin took over two years ago was concluded a few days ago, and the court finally ruled that the original owner should bear the refund claims of the more than 40 members.

According to Gan Zhibin, the special feature of this case is that the defendant of the beauty salon is an individual industrial and commercial household, and according to the law, the individual industrial and commercial household bears unlimited joint and several liability with all its property. Through the industrial and commercial registration, the information of the receiver and the original boss (defendant) can also be found, so the responsibility for the refund falls on the original boss.

In Gan's view, this is a positive sign. Strictly speaking, according to the contractual relationship or the legal determination of machinery, the ultimate responsibility may not necessarily fall on the original owner, but the court still supported the plaintiff's claim based on the actual situation of the store.