Online shopping, this way has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and its prevalence has greatly impacted the sales volume of offline physical stores many years ago, and has had a great impact on the real economy.
Online shopping in mainland China began in 1998 and has a history of more than 20 years, with the development of e-commerce platforms such as 8848, eBay, Taobao, and JD.com, online shopping has gradually penetrated into our lives.
Comprehensive variety, convenient shopping and cheap price are the biggest advantages of online shopping, but as time goes by, the disadvantages of online shopping have also been exposed, that is, you can't see the goods with your own eyes, and you can't check the quality by yourself, which leads to many friends to buy the goods, which are not in line with your mind, and it is very troublesome to return them.
In order to optimize everyone's shopping experience, the platform has added a review system, allowing customers to leave a message directly under the product, and those who are interested in buying can decide whether to buy by viewing the evaluation.
According to this mechanism, the more positive reviews a product should be, the stronger the recommendation will be, and the higher the sales volume will naturally be. But soon, a new profession emerged: a reviewer – someone who specializes in reviewing products.
Many online store owners pay people to buy their goods and then give them good reviews. In this way, a large number of products that are not so outstanding in themselves have high positive reviews, which attracts a lot of orders.
And since there are good reviewers, there are corresponding bad reviewers, and this is still a larger and faster "money-making" interest chain than good reviews.
As you can recall, when we shop online, we rarely take the initiative to give reviews. Basically, in the end, the system defaults to praise. Under this mechanism, a bad review will deduct points from the store and the product in a particularly large proportion, and it is difficult to offset it with good reviews - especially for customers, other people's good reviews are generally half-believed, but bad reviews will definitely be seriously considered.
Therefore, "giving bad reviews", which was originally the right of customers to protect their own interests, has become a means used by some people to make profits, and it has become a "nightmare" for merchants.
One, thirteen 5-cent orders
In order to maintain the storefront, Xiao Fang and his wife have to go out before 5 a.m. every day in a second-hand van to the Chengbei Clothing Wholesale Market, which is more than 10 kilometers away from their residence, where the couple runs a store of only 5 square meters.
The reason why the doors open so early is because the wholesalers buy the goods before 6 o'clock in the morning, and after they get the goods, they also have to rush to their own shops to decorate. If you miss the morning batch, the transaction volume at the end of the day can only be supported by retail - this profit is definitely not enough.
When they arrived at the wholesale market, the couple had to get out of the car and place them in front of the store for the wholesalers to pick up – the clothes were made in a small workshop owned by the couple.
A few years ago, the husband and wife came to Hangzhou to work hard, opened a garment processing factory, and now employs 15 female workers to make clothes according to the styles they give, and then sell them through this store in the wholesale market.
Of course, if you want to rely on a small façade to support the operation of this small workshop, it is definitely not enough to meet the living needs of the family. Therefore, Xiaofang and his wife also opened an online clothing store on an online shopping platform.
As mentioned above, the sales of online stores pay more attention to word of mouth, so Xiao Fang specially called his younger brother to be responsible for operating this online store, so that he must be enthusiastic and meticulous and try his best to meet the requirements of customers.
As we all know, now online shopping, there will basically be a 7-day no reason to return the guarantee, so many customers will directly initiate a return after receiving the clothes, or find a little flawed, or feel that they do not meet their wishes. Xiao Fang's younger brother will refund as soon as possible and bear the shipping cost to avoid being badly reviewed by customers.
On June 14 of this year, Xiao Fang's family went to the wholesale market to open a store as usual, and her brother also opened the page of the online store at home, and a surprise was ushered in - 13 order reminders appeared at once.
Although Xiaofang's clothes are sold cheaply, because they are produced by themselves, the cost is also low, and one piece can earn at least a dozen yuan. These thirteen orders are a profit of several hundred yuan.
Xiao Fang's younger brother was very happy, but when he took a closer look, he was dumbfounded - these thirteen orders were all to buy a cotton swab from his online store, with a price tag of 0.5 yuan.
This made Xiao Fang's younger brother very surprised, he had never encountered this situation in the two years since the store opened, this cotton swab was originally a small gift for them to buy clothes as a customer, not for sale. And how can anyone run to a clothing store to buy cotton swabs?
If you make a mistake, it's unlikely. Because it is thirteen orders, each from different accounts, and the delivery address is also distributed in various provinces, how can so many people place the wrong order at the same time. What's going on?
2. Mysterious QQ number
In order to avoid misunderstandings, Xiao Fang's younger brother decided to explain the situation to the customers one by one and asked them to cancel the order. After all, if they really want to ship these cotton swabs free of charge, they will not only have no profit, but also lose nearly 100 yuan in postage.
As a result, when Xiao Fang's younger brother contacted the accounts of these customers one by one, they all replied automatically, and the content of the reply was exactly the same - let him contact the same QQ number!
This gave Xiao Fang's younger brother an ominous premonition, and he hurriedly checked the information of the thirteen orders again, and found a strange thing: the addresses left by these orders were very rough, that is, the courier basically couldn't find the specific location.
In desperation, he added the QQ number with apprehension, and this time someone really replied, but as soon as Xiao Fang's younger brother revealed his identity, he didn't say anything specific, and the other party directly sent a sentence: 1000 yuan to solve the problem!
This sentence made Xiao Fang's younger brother stunned, and immediately reacted, these thirteen orders were simply deliberately done by the other party, and their purpose was not a cotton swab at all, but pinched a bigger weakness of their stores - bad reviews.
Sure enough, the other party continued: If you don't pay, then wait for all thirteen orders to give bad reviews! And the other party was also very arrogant and asked Xiao Fang's younger brother to wait for a while, he had to deal with it for others first, because their principle was: pay first, cancel first.
A thousand yuan, even now, is our salary for several days, not to mention that at that time, maybe the money that Xiaofang's family could save in a month was not much more than this.
Xiao Fang's younger brother was angry, but he didn't dare to provoke the other party, so he had to explain to the other party in a low voice, saying that this cotton swab was a gift, and he couldn't place an order, because of the wrong setting, and he hoped that the other party could raise his noble hand. He also complained that his store was just a small shop, and he didn't make any money by working hard in other places, and even rented a house, so life was not easy.
Who knew that the other party was not moved at all, and asked Xiao Fang's younger brother to make a decision quickly, not to waste his time. The unbearable little brother of Xiaofang made an accusation in the QQ chat box, scolding the other party for not being moral and making this kind of black money. And then you don't get a reply from the other side.
When Xiao Fang and his wife came back, they also fell into worry when they heard their younger brother, who was still angry, talk about it. A thousand dollars is not a small amount, but thirteen bad reviews are a fatal blow to their outlets.
In the end, Xiaofang's husband made a decision, the money still had to be given, and it was regarded as protection money, just hoping that it would not affect the future business. However, he also told Xiao Fang's younger brother that if he could negotiate, he would try to lower the money.
The next day, the other party took the initiative to contact Xiao Fang's brother's account and asked him if he wanted to solve the matter, Xiao Fang's brother could only suppress his anger and pull with the other party. He sometimes has a tough attitude, saying that he still has a physical wholesale store, and he doesn't particularly care about these bad reviews, and sometimes he expresses pity, saying that a piece of clothing will earn a few dollars, and the other party wants too much.
Finally, under the soft grinding and hard bubble of Xiao Fang's younger brother, the price demanded by the other party was reduced from 1,000 yuan to 50 yuan per order, and finally reached an agreement with Xiao Fang's younger brother at 30 yuan per order. Finally, the "surprise" brought by these thirteen orders ended with Xiao Fang's younger brother paying 300 yuan to the other party.
3. Huge chain of interests
Although the order incident is over, it has a great impact on the mood of Xiaofang's family. The hard-earned money earned by their family in the morning and in the dark was easily "taken away" by others, and they really couldn't swallow this breath, and they were afraid that they would encounter this kind of thing again in the future. So after several discussions, they decided to report it to the platform.
As a result, after communicating with customer service, they learned that just recently, there have been a large number of malicious bad reviews and malicious orders on the platform, and many stores have been "threatened with bad reviews", and the platform has also received a large number of complaints - it turns out that a huge chain of interests has been formed behind this.
In an interview with reporters afterwards, a department head of the platform said this: At that time, some store owners reported that they were afraid of hearing the prompt sound of the order, because he didn't know whether this was a normal order or a "bad review blackmail".
The method of these malicious orders is basically the same, which is to take a large number of low-priced items in the store, and then threaten the store to cancel the order after asking for money, otherwise there will be a bad review. These people are the so-called "professional bad reviewers".
The accounts they used, through the inquiry of the platform staff, found that they were all non-real-name registration, and they were specially used to place orders for this kind of extortion. Moreover, they will ask the store to contact through QQ, rather than using the platform's special tools, so although the accounts complained by the merchants have been seized, there is almost no impact on the professional bad reviewers.
And there is only one clue left that can be gained, that is, the collection account provided by the other party, such as the small party, their money is called to the other party's Alipay account, and the Alipay account is real-name authentication.
The next investigation was not something that could be carried out by one company, and soon, the platform collected evidence from all the victim stores and reported the case to the Hangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau.
However, here with the police, they encountered some twists and turns: the amount involved in a single case was too small to meet the statutory standards for filing a case!
Fourth, the mastermind behind the scenes
According to the Hangzhou Shangcheng District Public Security Bureau, according to the law, the amount involved in a single extortion case needs to reach more than 1,500 yuan before a case can be filed.
According to the evidence provided by the platform, although there are many similar victims, the amount extorted by the other party is several hundred yuan, at most 1,000 yuan, which is less than the required 1,500 yuan.
However, after careful study, the police finally filed a case and immediately put it into investigation, considering that these extortion cases occurred in a concentrated manner and the means were similar, and it was very likely that a criminal gang was behind them.
There are two clues tracked by the police, one is the collection account information, through the Alipay account provided by Xiaofang, they quickly locked a name - Yang Yulin.
The other is the chat records provided by 17 stores, and these chat records all point to the same person - QQ screen name "Sanmao".
The police immediately investigated the information of this "Sanmao" and found that the name of the platform account he associated with was "Changsha Bailian Counter", and the person corresponding to this name was Yang Yulin!
And through the investigation of Yang Yulin's Alipay account, it was found that he not only has a large number of collection records, but also distributes the money in the account to various accounts every day. The police judged from this that this Yang Yulin is very likely to be the organizer of this gang, at least one of the core members!
Subsequently, the police tracked the login IP addresses of Yang Yulin's various accounts through network technology, and found that he had been logging in Changsha, specifically in the orange garden community.
It was easy to find a specific location, and the police officers who handled the case were in high spirits and quickly rushed to Changsha to investigate in the orange garden community. But the strange thing is that there is no Yang Yulin in the resident registration form of the orange garden community.
Subsequently, the police took the photo and inquired through the property, and really found a person with a similar appearance, named Yang Guilin, and the other information registered by the latter is basically consistent with the information of Yang Yulin in the police's possession, and they are very likely to be the same!
Subsequently, the police divided into two routes, one way to stay in the orange garden community to guard Yang Guilin, and all the way to his hometown Susong, Anhui Province, to investigate and see what the relationship between the two names was.
Soon, the news from Susong, Anhui came back, it turned out that Yang Yulin and Yang Guilin were cousins, and the two were indeed similar in appearance. According to the household registration police at the time, Yang Yulin had been staying in his hometown of Susong, while Yang Guilin had gone to Hunan to work a few years earlier.
It seems that the person who logged in to those Yang Yulin's accounts in Changsha was not himself, but Yang Guilin, who lived in the orange garden community. So the police who were squatting on guard immediately made a decision and arrested Yang Guilin. At the time of his arrest, Yang Guilin was searching for extortion targets who met his conditions on an online shopping platform.
Later, Yang Guilin was escorted back to Hangzhou for interrogation, and in the face of a complete chain of evidence, he also confessed the details of his crime.
It turned out that after working for a few years, Yang Guilin was unwilling to make money through practical work, he envied the life of drunken gold fans in the city, and hoped to make some "quick money". When shopping online, he accidentally discovered that using the power to give bad reviews can make many merchants easily compromise.
Yang Guilin, who felt that he had found a "business opportunity", gathered dozens of people by posting on the Internet to find a part-time job, and set up a QQ group, in which he issued orders to others, and only needed to simply place an order for the goods he specified, set up an automatic reply, cancel the order, or give a bad review.
All other contacts with merchants are carried out by Yang Guilin alone. According to Yang Guilin, after these orders are placed, if the merchant delivers the goods, not only will the postage be lost, but also the right to bad reviews will be handed over to them. If the goods are not delivered, they can complain to the platform, and the merchant loses more.
Through this threat, most of the merchants compromised, and most of the money they got went into Yang Guilin's pocket, and a small part was distributed to the "part-time staff" in the group. In just one month, Yang Guilin collected more than 20,000 yuan in this way.
In the end, Yang Guilin was prosecuted by the procuratorate for extortion, and what awaits him will be severely punished by the law. The platform also learned from the experience of this case and adjusted the positive and negative review system to ensure the legitimate rights and interests of both buyers and sellers at the same time.
Note: The real case, from CCTV's "Today's Statement" - "Unexpected Guest".