In recent years, some "prepaid model" gyms, education and training institutions, etc., have successively occurred due to disputes caused by "sudden closure", which is causing concern. In the case of the frequent closure of the "Golden Baby" early education institutions previously reported, many parents said during the interview that there was a "third party" to carry out online and offline communication and coordination.
These third-party groups of traders are known as "professional closed-shop". They often have a complete store closure process in place, intervening when businesses are facing closure or poor management, helping these institutions "get out of their shells" and evade legal accountability.
Are "professional shopkeepers" suspected of violating the law? How many "gray rules" are hidden behind this?
The closure routine of early education institutions is similar
"Professional Closers" surfaced
After a number of stores in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province were closed overnight, parents of Beijing early education institutions Meijim and Newhattan Early Education Center reported to reporters that they encountered the same routine. Searching on social platforms, there are more posts from consumers who may encounter "professional store closures".
These "professional shopkeepers" often appear in the aftermath work as a "third party". A parent of a member of Beijing Gymboree provided the reporter with a recording of the communication with a third-party staff member surnamed Wang:
Closer: We are a third party that specializes in this. The company's current situation has no refund option, and the money cannot be refunded. Because I didn't have any money, I didn't even want to close the store by myself, so I asked us to be responsible.
△ A store in Beijing Gymboree was closed, and the parents reported to the reporter that they were suspected of encountering "professional store closures" / photo provided by the interviewee.
"Professional store closures" refer to groups that help poorly run companies plan their way to close stores and run away, and take over the follow-up rights protection issues. A parent dialed the customer service mobile number on the notice after the Newhatton Early Education Center's Fengtai District store in Beijing suddenly closed. The Newhattan third party they contacted said they were only responsible for communicating with parents, such as providing transfer plans.
Dismissing employees, rebuilding customer service teams, lowering consumer expectations, and inducing acceptance of unfair solutions are important aspects of the work of these "professional store closures". The reporter found the third-party store closure of Nanjing Gymboree, and the other party said that he had handled the closure of more than 500 education and training institutions. "In the case of Nanjing Gymboree, consumers may be more excited in the first week offline, but I will keep telling them to actively recover their losses and let them lower their expectations. ”
△On social platforms, there are many third parties engaged in the business of "education and training closure".
Help the company escape risks and change the legal representative
A store charges more than 10 yuan
If consumers do not accept the plan and file an administrative complaint or civil lawsuit, these "professional closures" will also come forward to deal with the aftermath.
Since the end of last year, after a number of Gymboree stores in Beijing have been closed, some parents have sued the operating entity to the court, and the case is being tried one after another, and the case of the parent Ms. Li has been opened on April 10, she said that the defendant who appeared in court is also a staff member surnamed Wang of the above-mentioned third party.
Ms. Li said that before the trial, the defendant directly had a showdown with the parents, "There is no need to provide evidence, you must have won, we have indeed breached the contract, but we have no money." "This is the unanimous attitude of the third-party team towards consumers.
The reason why "professional shopkeepers" are not worried about consumers filing civil lawsuits is that they will replace the company's legal representative with an insolvent "debtor" within a short period of time after they take over.
This reporter found through inquiries about industrial and commercial registration information that the operators of some stores in Beijing Meijim had replaced the legal representative with a person named Li Zhen, whose identity information showed that he was an elderly man in his 70s in a certain village in Shenyang, Liaoning Province; the operating entities of Beijing Jinbao, Tianjin Jinbao, and Shanghai Jinbao all successively changed their legal representatives to Chen Xiongsheng, a 53-year-old man from a village in Huidong County, Huizhou, Guangdong, in January this year.
The parents of Shanghai Gymboree told reporters that during the closure of Shangjia, Lotus and other store sites, a staff member surnamed "Yang" appeared. On the 12th, the reporter found Ms. Yang as the person in charge of the education and training institution who wanted to close the store with poor management, and the other party admitted that she was a "professional store closure", which could help the company escape the risk, from the change of the legal representative to the closure of the store, a store service charge of about 120,000 yuan.
Nanjing Gymboree closed the store said that their fees are calculated based on the proportion of the company's debt, which is generally about 5% of the total debt. In order to increase profits, many "professional store closure" teams will also run special promotions before the store closes, and make the last wave of top-ups before disappearing.
The third party who handled the closure of many stores in Nanjing Gymboree told reporters that on the one hand, it can help operators escape 90% of legal responsibility, and on the other hand, it can reduce consumers' expectations through communication.
The professional closure routine is mature
"Debt service" intermediaries have become an industry
When the reporter questioned the legal risks of the above-mentioned operation routines, these "professional shopkeepers" said that they would guarantee that the debtor would get out of the way.
Nanjing Gymboree closed the store said that after their operation, the person in charge of the education and training institution will not go to jail 100%, because he will not be held criminally responsible, and back to the level of civil risk, they can not help the institution to avoid completely, but no one makes trouble offline, and the risk will be infinitely low.
Shanghai Gymboree surnamed Yang said that even if a consumer sues the court in a civil dispute, their team will deal with it. "The legal representative and shareholders of the company are not yours, and they have nothing to do with you. ”
A person familiar with the matter told reporters that the "professional shopkeepers" have long been an open secret, and there are also supporting organizations such as "debt intermediaries and financial bridges" behind them to provide qualified "debtors" for the store closure team.
As financial regulations become stricter and stricter, the people who did not take high-speed trains or planes in the past and live in the depths of the mountains have even slowly expanded into "white people" who seem to have better qualifications - groups with no property, no debts, no credit cards, no children, and who specialize in using debt to make money.
On social media, an intermediary who claimed to provide debt carrying services showed reporters the ID photo and video of the debtor of the day, saying that he could cooperate with the disposal of various non-performing assets. "Find a person with better credit to pay the debt, pass the legal representative to this person, and let the legal representative refund the member. The operating cost of this set is 400,000 yuan. ”
△ The circle of friends of the debt intermediary has been publishing a solicitation for "white" debts with good credit.
How to prevent malicious store closure?
There are difficulties in ex-ante governance and ex-post judicial practice
Although both the "professional store closers" and the "debt intermediaries" guarantee that the store will not bear legal responsibility after their own intervention, is this really the case?
In real cases, these "professional store closures" are very cautious, and consumers mostly infer the existence of this role through various information, and it is difficult to catch the "real hammer" in the early stage.
In judicial practice, it is difficult to identify "professional shopkeepers" and "debtors".
Gan Zhibin, a lawyer at Guangxi Liusheng Law Firm, said that some large companies may have completed the change of equity a long time ago. Even when it comes to the litigation stage, there is no way to truly identify the purpose of the equity change - whether it really wants to take over the store and continue to operate, or whether it is for the purpose of closing the store and going into debt.
Can the debtor really get out of the way through trading?
Lu Laiming, a professor at the Law School of Beijing Technology and Business University, believes that from the perspective of debt relations, the transfer of debts should be subject to the consent of creditors, and the debts that should be borne by the original operators cannot be exempted because the store is transferred to a "professional shopkeeper". However, the civil legal liability they may bear is too low, so it is difficult to punish.
Lawyer Gan Zhibin expressed the same view, saying that the current punishment for the untrustworthy is still relatively light. Even if it comes to the last step, through litigation, after the execution is completed, the legal representative has no property available for enforcement, and as the debtor who accepts the equity change, he bears the responsibility for dishonesty, and there is not much loss for the legal representative.
From the perspective of the industrial and commercial registration system, there are also difficulties in the pre-management of "professional closed-shop" operators who "run away overnight". Lu Laiming explained that if there is evidence to prove that the purpose is to "run away overnight", the industrial and commercial registration authority can not change it, but there is no way to predict the purpose in advance, so it cannot refuse to change.
Expert:
Criminals should be taken if they meet the characteristics of fraud
Guo Mingjie, director of the Department of Finance at the School of Finance and Economics of Henan Polytechnic University, has conducted in-depth research on the phenomenon of "debtors", and he believes that the review of the new "Company Law" for the change of legal representative is only a formal change, and does not give a change of actual control, so some people will use the clause to infringe on the public interest.
Guo Mingjie believes that a fund supervision and information review system should be established for specific prepaid industries, so that the company's operations and changes can be traced. In terms of post-remedy, the public security organs should consider cracking down on the criminal offense of "contract fraud" to serve as a warning.
Lu Laiming believes that if it is verified that the time shortly before the closure of the store, a wave of promotions and then run away, there is this core behavior, which obviously involves joint fraud, and should be criminally cracked down. It is impossible to list all the phenomena in the relevant provisions of the crime of fraud, and once the essential characteristics of the behavior are met, the public security department can file a case and deal with it according to the behavior, and only then can it be truly dealt with.