The merchant is going crazy: scolding the customer for being compensated for 3,000 yuan, and the turtle biting the child will pay more than 8,000 yuan......

Paidai said

2024-05-24 21:01Published in Guangdong science and technology creators

Author | Poru

Edit | Lin Xia

After several years, the services of the e-commerce platform have become more and more perfect. Among them, "refund-only" has sparked the widest concern and long-lasting debate.

 In 2021, Pinduoduo was the first to launch a "refund-only, no return" service, and since then, it has attracted a large number of consumers with this service. Two years later, at the end of 2023, Taobao and JD.com also began to follow suit and introduce "refund-only" related terms.

The original intention of the e-commerce platform is to better serve consumers, but due to human nature, a group of "wool-picking" consumers have appeared on the platform.

Among these consumers, there are those who ask for compensation for the bite of a child in the family because of the purchase of pets, sometimes complain about the quality of the goods after a few years and ask for a refund, and some even if they buy regular goods, they have to apply for a "refund only...... All kinds of strange events make people laugh and cry.

So from a legal point of view, how should these events be interpreted? How should merchants protect their rights when they encounter incidents such as "malicious compensation" and "refund only"?

The seller drove for eight hours to seek justice

Recently, Pai Dai received news from a merchant that a consumer complained to the platform's customer service, saying that he was abused by the merchant and asked the merchant to provide 3,000 yuan per month for compensation. Another seller revealed that a user bought a power strip in 2019, and in 2024 he told the customer service that it was broken and asked for a refund.

A merchant also said that it had received a pending order showing "high risk", which showed that "the child in the family was bitten by a turtle purchased from you, and asked you to compensate 8,038 yuan, please solve it as soon as possible." A seller joked, "You have to deal with it quickly, in case it drags on for a few more minutes, the child's wound will recover." ”

In addition, there is also a seller who sells hemorrhoid cream said that the customer who used up the hemorrhoids cream said that his butt was rotten, and he went to the hospital to do the operation of cutting hemorrhoids, and the certificate approval test report was complete, and finally it was falsely accused of 6000 yuan, and the platform froze the 230w payment of the associated store, and finally negotiated with Xiao Er to solve it, and it took about half a year to unfreeze.

There are numerous similar incidents, and there are even cases where the situation has escalated to the courts.

In September 2022, the Haidian District People's Court of Beijing Municipality announced the first-instance civil judgment in a dispute over the right to life, the right to health, and the right to body. The details of the case show that in June 2018, in Weinan, Shaanxi, a consumer named "Yi" on the transfer platform contacted Shao and bought the silver krait twice. In July, Yi was bitten by a krait, and his mother sent Yi to the hospital for treatment, where he was later assessed to be brain dead.

Afterwards, Yi's parents sued the transfer platform, the seller of the silver snake, Shao, Yang, and Wang, as well as Shentong and Baishi, demanding compensation of more than 1.5 million yuan. In the end, the judgment resulted in a total compensation of about 336,900 yuan for the six defendants. Among them, the three sellers of the silver snake were compensated 252,700 yuan, the transfer company was compensated 33,700 yuan, and the two express companies were compensated 50,500 yuan.

Since the beginning of the e-commerce era, buyers and sellers have been in constant conflict. There are also cases where consumers apply for refunds for various reasons, but are unwilling to return them.

According to the Shanghai Municipal Consumer Protection Commission, in January 2023, Xiao Qi, a citizen of Huainan, Anhui Province, spent 10 yuan to buy three pairs of earrings at Mr. Li's online store. After receiving the goods, he felt that the quality was not good, and Xiao Qi applied for a "refund only" on the platform on the grounds that he didn't want it, and the platform automatically refunded it, and Xiao Qi has not returned it since then.

The indignant Mr. Li decided not to get used to it and sued Xiao Qi to the court. "Judge, I came from Yiwu and drove for almost eight hours, just to seek justice, it is not easy for us to open a store and do business, she is clearly doing this to see that our business is easy to bully, I must ask for an explanation." Mr. Li said.

Refund-only judgments are more dependent on the terms of the platform

In order to meet consumers' demand for after-sales service, e-commerce giants are racing to launch "refund-only" services in fierce competition. Under certain conditions, consumers can initiate a returnless refund application to the merchant. The original intention of the e-commerce platform is also to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.

However, as soon as this provision was issued, it also gave rise to many disputes over online sales contracts, so from a legal point of view, what legal provisions are the current courts based on when accepting "refund without return" cases?

The Hunyuan County People's Court commented that since the two parties to the dispute are in an information network sales contract, and the contract is legal and valid without violating the mandatory provisions of laws and administrative regulations, whether the plaintiff's (consumer's) claim should be supported should be specifically determined according to the application of the platform's "refund only" rule.

In addition, for those who do not meet the conditions for refund-only, the platform shall apply for a compulsory refund according to its application, because it does not enjoy the right of "refund only", and the consumer shall request a return at the same time as applying for a refund in accordance with the law, otherwise it shall bear the liability for breach of contract, so the merchant's claim for the defendant to pay the price and compensate for the loss is reasonable.

To put it simply, at present, the "refund contradiction" between sellers and consumers is more dependent on the terms of the e-commerce platform to solve, and generally speaking, it has not reached the point of illegality. So whether the refund is only approved or not depends mainly on the judgment of the platform. But in today's era of "consumers are king", platforms are often more consumer-oriented, and merchants are forced to accept "refund-only" situations.

In addition, many sellers also encounter consumers applying for refunds, and the platform has ruled on a refund before they have responded and presented evidence, which can be solved through legal channels.

On the morning of April 8, at the press conference on the management of litigation sources held by the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court, such a typical case was released, and the merchant and the platform went to the court of second instance for the 20 yuan part of the price of a dress.

The owner, Mr. Chen, demanded compensation from the platform for the loss of "refund only". Finally, the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court held that the platform did not give the merchant a reasonable time to respond and present evidence, but directly intervened to take refund measures, which violated the right of the merchant and the consumer to deal with the after-sales of goods on an equal footing, and the platform compensated the store owner Mr. Chen for the loss of 20 yuan.

So is return-only refunds common for sellers? And how can it be solved? In this regard, Pai Dai also interviewed relevant merchants, and merchants have generally experienced such encounters.

A clothing merchant said, "Every seller will encounter it, and what you haven't encountered may be because you have just opened a store and have not yet opened a bill." As for how to solve the problem, it can only be used as a financial disaster to eliminate disasters, and the intervention treatment will also increase the intervention indicators. ” 

Another food merchant believes that the merchant has a low winning rate of appeals, and does not want to waste time dealing with small amounts. Today, consumers only refund the money from merchant A, and tomorrow they will pay more to buy the products of merchant B. In fact, the wool comes from the sheep.

Question Pinduoduo, understand Pinduoduo, and become Pinduoduo

Over the years, the terms of service of major e-commerce platforms on "refund only" have become more and more perfect.

First of all, Pinduoduo took the lead in launching the "refund-only, return-only" service in 2021, and then attracted a large number of consumers to join the platform with "refund-only".

In the "refund-only" mode, consumers only need to apply for a "refund only" through the order shipped by the merchant, and they can be refunded in seconds after being approved by the e-commerce platform, which provides more protection for consumers' rights and interests.

In the battle of wits and courage against "refund-only", some merchants have also accumulated valuable experience. Merchant Li Ming (pseudonym) said in an interview that at present, about 1,000 orders are sent every day, and only at least 10 orders are refunded by the platform every day.

"Generally speaking, there is no way to solve it, and the basic platform will directly intervene in the refund. If the order amount is large, generally I see that the momentum is not right, and I am looking for trouble, so let the customer service first note the phone address information of the name on the order (because once the platform is successfully refunded, even the consumer information is invisible, and the virtual number will be invalid) Contact the courier to retrieve the pickup record and try to find the real phone number of the consumer. Then call and communicate with the consumer. ”

Li Ming also called on e-commerce platforms to improve the rules of "refund only", "The refund only policy developed by the platform to reduce the cost of protecting consumers' rights is not wrong, and the problem lies in the refund only review mechanism." Before the platform's review mechanism for refund-only was not perfected, it became a weapon for a large number of wool parties. ”

At the end of last year, e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and Jingdong followed suit and successively launched "refund-only" after-sales service.

On December 19, 2023, Taobao issued a "Taobao Platform Dispute Settlement Rules", which not only stipulates refunds only, but also new rules for delayed or forced delivery, and consumer refusal.

One of the things that has attracted much attention is that the new Taobao is based on the platform's own big data capabilities, identifies multi-dimensional combinations, and makes a rule basis for quick refunds or returns and refunds for consumers who initiate after-sales services that meet the relevant circumstances.

This means that Taobao has also played "refund only", which some merchants interpret as Taobao's "Pinduoduo".

Subsequently, JD.com also updated the "JD Open Platform After-sales Service Management Rules", adding a new non-returnable implementation standard for refunds, which will take effect from December 29, 2023; At the same time, the General Provisions for the Settlement of Transaction Disputes on JD's Open Platform have added content that supports users to refund only.

Douyin has also issued relevant regulations, the merchant's product praise rate is less than 70%, and the platform has the right to take measures to support consumers to refund only and return the refund package for the after-sales application of the product transaction order, and the product praise rate can be lifted if it recovers to more than 70% for 7 consecutive days.

However, if you read carefully, the refund-only terms of the major platforms are not all biased towards consumers.

For example, Taobao will combine big data, based on product quality, consumer integrity model, and seller quality, etc., to determine that the product is indeed inappropriately described, confused, counterfeit, etc., and will only support high-credit users to refund only. Some merchants operating Taobao platforms said that after the Taobao platform decided to only refund the money, if the merchants were reasonable, they would appeal to the platform, and some order platforms would return the money to the merchants. In addition, JD.com's regulations also support merchants to appeal within 7 days.

Some merchants said, "If each refund only, the platform can manually review and then determine the refund amount, giving us the opportunity to fully communicate with consumers, which is acceptable." For merchants, it is actually important to give the opportunity to "explain", leave enough time to respond and provide evidence.

In the final analysis, all major platforms are learning from Pinduoduo's refund-only service, reflecting their anxiety in the face of performance: on the one hand, Pinduoduo's unstoppable rapid development, on the other hand, the growth of their own platforms is slow, and finally becomes "questioning Pinduoduo, understanding Pinduoduo, and becoming Pinduoduo".

But there's no doubt that the "refund-only" policy is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it helps to eliminate the merchants who make and sell counterfeits and purify the e-commerce environment. On the other hand, the policy may also become a way for some consumers to abuse their rights, resulting in the loss of the interests of merchants.

As for where the boundary of refund-only is, it is still relatively vague, and it requires the self-discipline of consumers, the trustworthiness of merchants, and the fairness of the platform.

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