At present, in response to the pain point of young people's "difficulty in getting rid of singles", more and more online marriage and dating platforms have launched various marriage matching services. However, some platforms take advantage of consumers' eagerness to "get rid of orders", dig holes and set up tricks, and induce young people to spend money to buy expensive membership services, but in the service, many problems such as lax review of member information, inconsistent actual services and commitments, and unfair standard contracts are exposed.
In the face of online dating platforms with a variety of routines, how should young people avoid "falling into the pit and stepping on thunder"? How can relevant parties strengthen supervision and create a fair, open and friendly online dating platform?
Spend more than 20,000 yuan to buy VIP services
but encountered false blind date information
In December 2023, Wei Ping (pseudonym), who works in a state-owned enterprise in Nanning, Guangxi, registered a personal account on Zhenai with the mentality of giving it a try. Soon, the staff of Zhenai called her to introduce her to a high-quality man and invited her to the local store in Nanning to understand.
On December 23, 2023, Wei Ping came to the store, and a matchmaker said that Zhenai has rich member resources and very professional services, which can find a suitable partner for her in the short term, and said that Zhenai is a serious marriage and love platform, and will check and verify the basic information such as marital status, education, work unit, and income of members through platforms such as academic information network and individual income tax, which is very reliable. Under the strong recommendation of the matchmaker, Wei Ping purchased a 5-month VIP service at a price of 24,960 yuan, which translates to about 4,992 yuan per month.
5 days later, the matchmaker recommended male member Wang Bin (pseudonym) to Wei Ping. Wei Ping saw that the page of Zhenai showed that Wang Bin's personal information had passed dual identity authentication and multiple data audits, and he was a "master's student at the University of the Pacific in the United States" and a "company executive". After the meeting, Wang Bin claimed that he was "a Ph.D. student at Chiang Mai University".
Under the matchmaker's matchmaking, the two began to fall in love. At the urging of the man, the two met with their parents and went to a medical institution for a marriage examination. But in the process of dating, Wei Ping felt more and more that something was wrong, and Wang Bin's words often contradicted themselves, and sometimes there were obvious loopholes, which aroused Wei Ping's suspicions.
After 47 days of getting along, at Wei Ping's request, Wang Bin showed an online verification report of the Ministry of Education's student status, showing that he graduated from a local junior college in Guangxi and is currently receiving undergraduate online education at a university in Chongqing. Through the verification of friends, Wei Ping learned that Wang Bin's position was not a company executive as shown on Zhenai.com, but actually a labor dispatch officer of a certain company.
"At that time, when I purchased the VIP service, the matchmaker asked me to show my ID card, the original academic certificate and the personal income tax information before registering, but this member obviously did not go through a formal review." Wei Ping said that this blind date experience not only caused her to suffer a loss of money and time, but also hurt her feelings.
When Wei Ping defended her rights, the relevant person in charge of the Nanning branch of Zhenai told her that on March 28 this year, Wang Bin made up a master's certificate from an overseas university to them, but this certificate was not certified by the academic information network. The person in charge said that Zhenai will require each member to provide a certificate before receiving the service, but some members do not cooperate, and they have no way to force members to provide it.
Wei Ping learned in a meeting with several other male members of Zhenai that there is a big difference in the VIP service fee of the platform, "The membership service fee for one month is converted, some people are two or three thousand yuan, but I was charged nearly 5,000 yuan, and the sales matchmaker also said that I was given a lot of discounts." Wei Ping believes that Zhenai did not publicize the charging standards according to the requirements of the law, clearly marked the price, and the service charges were based on the customer's income level.
In this regard, the relevant person in charge of the Nanning branch of Zhenai responded that the company's record price of 2,400 yuan/month in the price bureau is the reserve price, and the fee for each member should be multiplied by the difficulty coefficient and service cycle, "not all members are the same requirements, and it is impossible to only charge the reserve price." Wei Ping disagrees with this statement, "When the matchmaker was promoting the service, she said that I was easy to get off the single type, and now I use the high difficulty to excuse the price discrimination, which is really untenable." Moreover, Zhenai charges according to the length of service, not according to the result, and there is no basis for defining the unit price of the service according to the difficulty."
Problems with online dating platforms are frequent
According to the contract signed between Wei Ping and Zhenai, the member shall provide true, valid, legal and complete identity information for Zhenai, and if there is fraud in the member's information, in addition to the victim's responsibility, the member shall compensate Zhenai for liquidated damages of 50,000 yuan. If any loss is caused to the member due to the deliberate concealment or malicious fraud of other members or third parties, Zhenai will provide necessary information support and assistance, but will not assume any consequences and responsibilities arising therefrom.
"If the member cheats the platform, the member has to pay the platform 50,000 yuan; The platform introduces members to blind dates who falsify basic information, but there is no equal compensation. Wei Ping believes that the standard contract of the platform violates the principle of fairness.
In February this year, Wei Ping asked Zhenai for an explanation, and Zhenai said that it would continue to provide matchmaking services during the service period, but was unwilling to compensate for liquidated damages.
On March 15, China Central Radio and Television's "3.15" party exposed the problems of lax data review, opaque prices, and fictional characters to attract members to consume. Wei Ping felt that her experience was very similar to the chaos exposed by CCTV's "3.15" party, and she thought that she had "fallen into the pit", and immediately complained to the local market supervision and administration bureau.
On April 7, with the intervention of the ASEAN Market Supervision and Administration Institute of the Qingxiu District Market Supervision Administration of Nanning City, Zhenai returned the service fee to Wei Ping during the period of interaction with Wang Bin and the remaining service period, but refused to refund the overcharged price difference and did not compensate for liquidated damages.
A reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Network found through the "Tianyan Check" platform that Zhenai was involved in a number of legal proceedings, including labor disputes, entrustment contract disputes, portrait rights disputes, etc.
Courtesy of Visual China
With the rise of online dating and dating, problems with dating platforms are frequent.
According to media reports, in December 2021, a woman in Shaanxi Province swiped her credit card to buy a blind date service of 80,000 yuan on a marriage and dating platform, and was suspected of failing one after another on a "marriage trust" blind date. Subsequently, the platform induced her to buy an image course of 20,000 yuan on the grounds that she had a problem with her image; In October 2022, a woman in Guangdong spent 68,800 yuan to buy the "marriage insurance" service of a marriage and dating platform, and the platform promised to guarantee marriage within one year, but the woman was still not married after one year, and the platform refused to refund; In March 2024, a woman in Guizhou discovered that her photo was stolen by a dating app; In March 2024, the media reported that a blind date dating platform used professional "chatters" to pretend to be single women to attract male users to give tips and brush gifts.
A reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Network found on the black cat complaint platform that there were tens of thousands of complaints against various marriage and dating platforms, involving inducement of consumption, false information, refusal to refund, unequal terms and other content.
The entry threshold for online marriage and love platforms should be raised
In the interview, the reporter of China Youth Daily and China Youth Network learned that some online marriage and dating platforms are suspected of violating laws and regulations in contracts and services, and consumers should bravely take up legal weapons and seek rights protection from regulatory departments and judicial organs when they encounter damage to their rights and interests.
Regarding the issue of the platform form contract reflected by Wei Ping, Yang Zhidong, a partner of Guangdong Nuochen Law Firm, believes that according to Articles 496 and 497 of the Civil Code, this kind of situation that obviously increases the liability of members and unreasonably exempts/ignores the liability of the platform should be invalid.
"Platforms should take the initiative to take responsibility." Yang Zhidong said that on the one hand, platforms cannot ignore their own review responsibilities on the grounds that all information is provided by users independently: platforms should fulfill their basic review obligations, such as refusing to pass or requiring users to correct information provided by consumers that violates laws and regulations or is obviously untrue and contradictory. On the other hand, the platform party has information and resources and is in an unequal position with consumers, and the platform party should uphold the principle of good faith and should not deceive members with false information, and should bear more liability for breach of contract.
Yang Zhidong believes that these practices violate the relevant provisions of the Advertising Law and the Anti-Unfair Competition Law by failing to strictly review the members' information on online dating platforms, which lead to other members being deceived, as well as the platforms fabricating fake characters to trick members into recharging.
Article 8 of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates that business operators shall not make false or misleading commercial promotions about the performance, function, quality, sales status, user evaluation, honors, etc., of their goods, so as to deceive or mislead consumers. Business operators must not help other business operators carry out false or misleading commercial publicity through methods such as organizing false transactions. Article 20 of the Law specifies the penalty standards for the illegal acts of business operators.
On April 15, the Shenzhen Municipal Administration for Market Regulation, in accordance with the law, imposed an administrative penalty of 1.7 million yuan on Shenzhen Zhenai Information Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Zhenai.com, on the grounds of unfair competition.
Regarding the pricing method of the marriage and love platform, Yang Zhidong said that Article 14 (5) of the "Price Law of the People's Republic of China" stipulates that operators shall not discriminate against other operators with the same trading conditions when providing the same goods or services, otherwise they shall be ordered to make corrections, confiscate illegal gains, and impose a fine of less than 5 times the illegal gains in accordance with Article 4 (2) of the "Provisions on Administrative Punishment of Price Violations"; where there are no unlawful gains, a fine of between 100,000 and 1,000,000 RMB is to be imposed; where the circumstances are serious, it shall be ordered to suspend business for rectification, or the business license shall be revoked by the administrative organ for industry and commerce.
"For the legal obligations that online dating platforms should fulfill and the behaviors that should be prohibited, the existing laws in mainland China have relatively clear norms, and the regulatory authorities have not been small in investigating and dealing with violations." Yang Zhidong said that there are still frequent chaos, largely because price discrimination, marriage trusts and other illegal acts are too hidden and difficult to be perceived by the outside. Sometimes, consumers are obviously deceived, but they don't know it, and it is difficult to start supervision and punishment. Even if consumers realize that they have been deceived, it is sometimes difficult for the parties and regulators to identify specific illegal acts, and it is even more difficult to collect evidence for illegal acts.
For the violations of dating websites, the relevant government departments are constantly strengthening supervision and investigation to promote the long-term and healthy development of the industry.
In 2015, the Cyberspace Administration of China took the lead, and the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and other relevant departments jointly carried out a three-month special rectification work on "Serious Violations and Untrustworthiness of Marriage and Love Websites", verifying and handling more than 100 valid reports and leads from netizens, lawfully shutting down 128 marriage and love websites with serious violations and untrustworthiness (including website marriage and love channels), and ordering more than 20 websites to make corrections or suspend the network for rectification through interviews and other means.
In 2017, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and the National Health and Family Planning Commission jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Further Improving the Work of Youth Marriage and Love", proposing to coordinate multiple departments to promote the strict implementation of real-name authentication and real-name registration on marriage and dating platforms, rectify the marriage service market in accordance with the law, and severely crack down on illegal marriage matchmaking behaviors such as marriage trusts and marriage fraud.
In the first half of 2022, in response to the problem of vulgar and pornographic information undermining the online ecology of 8 marriage and love platforms such as Baihe.com, Century Jiayuan, and Zhenai.com, the Cyberspace Administration of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong Province, and Chongqing Municipality respectively interviewed the 8 platforms, ordered them to comprehensively clean up and investigate illegal information, and imposed administrative penalties of fines.
In March 2023, the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau, the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau, the Shanghai Municipal Market Supervision Bureau and other departments issued the "Guiding Opinions on Strengthening the Supervision of Marriage Agency Institutions in Shanghai (Trial)" to strengthen the supervision and management of marriage agencies in Shanghai, standardize and restrain the operation and service behavior of marriage agencies, strengthen departmental linkage, and form a joint regulatory force.
In 2024, after the "3.15" party of China Central Radio and Television exposed the use of anxiety by a number of marriage and love platforms to "harvest" consumers, the market supervision departments in Shenzhen, Zhengzhou and other places immediately investigated the relevant issues of the marriage and love platforms involved, interviewed the persons in charge of the enterprises involved, promoted the integrity management of platform enterprises, and created a safe and secure consumption environment and a fair, standardized and orderly market environment.
Zhang Rong, an associate professor at the Law School of Guangxi Normal University and a consulting expert of the Guilin Marriage and Family Dispute Mediation Committee, suggested that in order to reduce the chaos of online marriage and love platforms, relevant departments should strengthen supervision and strict law enforcement. At the same time, online users should enhance their awareness of prevention and legal awareness, be vigilant in marriage and love platforms, be careful of "blind dates" who continue to ask for money and gifts, and seek legal help as soon as their rights and interests are harmed. In addition, to raise the entry threshold for marriage and love platforms, the relevant departments should strictly approve procedures, and prohibit the online operation of marriage and love platforms that may have the risk of chaos. At the same time, a one-vote veto system is implemented, and for operators who have committed relevant illegal acts, the marriage and love platforms they operate will be ordered to go offline, and in serious cases, they will be included in the "blacklist" of those who are prohibited from operating marriage and love businesses.
How can online blind dates be more reliable
In the face of the huge marriage and love market, some dating platforms are too chasing commercial interests, knowing that they cannot provide the promised services, but they set "psychological traps" to induce young people to consume.
Mu Wei, a full-time counselor at the Psychological Counseling Center of Yunnan University, cracked the common routines of marriage and love platforms:
First of all, the platform creates an ideal partner image, amplifies the emotional needs of consumers, and makes them believe that paid services can find an ideal partner.
Then, the platform uses a sense of urgency and scarcity, such as telling someone who is very suitable for your requirements that you are interested in you and that the opportunity is rare, so as to increase the impulse to spend;
In addition, it will also make consumers' social circles closed, and consumers will rely more on paid services when they feel isolated;
Finally, the matchmaker will gradually lower the expectations of consumers, so that consumers feel that even if the real person they meet does not match the "personality", it is worth it.
"Dating platforms use consumers' emotional needs and psychology to induce them to make high-value purchases, and understanding these means can help us choose and use related services more carefully." Mu Wei said.
Mu Wei suggested that young people should have rational and realistic expectations when choosing a mate, and the perfect characters on the screen are often fictional; In the face of marriage urging, you should stay calm and think twice; Increase social activity and don't rely on platforms to build relationships; Carefully evaluate whether the paid services and prices provided by the platform match the value; Stay vigilant and have more understanding and judgment about relevant service platforms.
Shi Chengsun, director of the Psychological Counseling Center of Jinhua People's Hospital and the first batch of registered psychological supervisors of the Chinese Psychological Association, reminded that young people should establish a correct view of marriage and love. "Some young people have high standards for choosing a mate, and the platform uses this to create anxiety and achieve goals. In fact, love is not simply the attraction of both sexes or appearance, let alone the attachment of money, family, and power. Being in love is about finding a lifelong partner who is like-minded, supportive, and helps each other. Marriage is a kind of responsibility, which requires mutual dedication, understanding and care, and requires two people to continue to learn and grow, and work hard to operate, so that the marriage will be happy and long-lasting. Shi Chengsun said.
China Youth Daily