Merchant: Hello, dealing with disputes.
Suspect: How do you want to solve it, I respect your choice.
Merchant: I will compensate you 50 yuan here, and you can keep the goods, it is not easy for everyone, you can see it.
Suspect: Everyone else is solved for 588 yuan or 488 yuan, and you can also find me if you have something in the future.
Merchant: The discount point is 188 yuan, it is not easy for everyone.
……
This is a chat record that happened on November 3, 2020, and the two parties in the chat were 17-year-old Zhang Mouhao and an e-commerce platform merchant. Fifteen days later, Zhang Mouhao was investigated by the police at the local police station.
At that time, it had been a year since Zhang Mouhao joined the commercial water gang organized by Zhang Mouqiang to carry out online extortion. According to the police handling the case, in the name of "public welfare anti-counterfeiting", this gang organized minors and all kinds of idle people to create "online porcelain", and used malicious comments, irrigation and other pressure methods to blackmail online store merchants to ask for "protection money", forming a bad influence on the e-commerce platform.
Wang Xiaojun from Hefei, Anhui Province, never thought that he had run a cake shop for many years and had a good reputation, but on an e-commerce platform, he was complained that "there are insects in the cake".
The incident occurred on October 24, 2020, when a buyer placed an order for a lasagna cake from his store, and after the arrival of the goods, the other party initiated a dispute and said on the chat interface of the e-commerce platform that there was a problem with the food, and asked Wang Xiaojun to solve it privately.
The buyer, whose online name is "Your Pig", said that there were insects in the cake sold by Wang Xiaojun, and asked him to compensate 1,000 yuan in accordance with the provisions of the Food Safety Law. The request was rejected by Wang Xiaojun. The other party also threatened to complain to the market supervision department if it did not agree to its request. Worried that if the platform and the regulatory authorities did not deal with it properly after the intervention, it would not only delay the time, but also affect the turnover, Wang Xiaojun had no choice but to compromise and agreed to the other party's request of "compensation of 200 yuan, refund without return".
Surprisingly, a few days later, two of Wang Xiaojun's friends were also maliciously complained and blackmailed by the buyer "Your Pig" on the platform. This made him confirm again that he had been blackmailed by the commercial army, so he called the police.
In the face of the police's questioning, Wang Xiaojun insisted that his goods were fine, saying that it was only because the other party initiated a dispute order, "If it is not handled well, the platform may make penalties such as demotion of rights, deduction of points, and reduction of the store's search ranking, which will affect the store's business." ”
The police investigation found that "your pig" was Zhang Mouqiang. Zhang Mouqiang set up a commercial water gang suspected of using netizens to carry out extortion, and the gang had a special master, and after collecting apprenticeship fees, he taught gang members how to extort merchants.
Kuang Lei, deputy captain of the Serious Crime Brigade of the Nansha Branch of the Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau of Guangdong Province, introduced that in order to ensure the smooth progress of the "porcelain touching", after receiving the goods, Zhang's gang first negotiated with the merchant through the chat software of the online shopping platform, and after briefly explaining the situation involving the fake, left contact information and asked for refund and compensation, and gradually pressured the merchants who did not cooperate with the "malicious bad reviews", such as submitting transaction disputes many times, malicious reports and comments, etc., and gradually coerced the merchants.
"For merchants who are unsuccessful in coercion, the gang members will send links to stores or products in their peer circles, and organize group members to maliciously place orders, return goods and bad reviews of the store, and even start from the store's Weibo and other promotional social platforms to carry out sieges, and maliciously report and even ban the merchant's customer service account as a retaliation." Kuang Lei said.
Less than a month after the "porcelain" cake shop, Zhang Mouqiang was arrested. At that time, he was in the first year of a vocational college in Jiangxi. He quickly explained to the police how he had engaged in malicious claims and how he had taught others about his experience in malicious claims through social groups.
As early as his sophomore year of high school, Zhang Mouqiang was exposed to malicious claims. At that time, he was pulled into some learning groups by some netizens about "online shopping mall anti-counterfeiting and refund", in which he learned how to search for keywords, how to chat with merchants, and what terms were used as support for claims.
In his computer, the police found a large number of malicious claim methods on the business scenarios of Internet platforms such as JD.com, Suning.com, and Meituan, including malicious claims about electric vehicles, fruits, toothpaste, tea, nasal sprays, botanical blended oils, basketball shoes, and even online game redemption codes.
"In the beginning, I was just a 'foodie', and after tasting the sweetness, I slowly began to learn to claim cash from merchants." Zhang Mouqiang said.
The so-called "foodie" refers to complaining about the three nos of goods or other violations after online shopping, and then forcing the merchant to refund but not return.
In a short video produced by Zhang Mouqiang, he introduced how to claim compensation from a fruit merchant on a social e-commerce platform: after receiving the goods, first take a photo with the fruit, and there must be a fruit box and express delivery order in the picture, and then look for the bad fruit photos sent by others from the platform, and use the broken part to "transfer flowers and trees" to the fruit photos that are not broken, and then complain to the platform and claim compensation from the merchant.
The reporter learned that Zhang Mouqiang did not know the true identity of the friends who pulled him to "enter the industry", and he did not pay them the apprenticeship fee, but every time he successfully made a claim, he would send a red envelope of 88 yuan to the "master" as a "group meal", which is the industry rule.
In June 2019, he began to recruit apprentices by himself, pulled some friends into the group he built, advertised in the group, and called himself a "white prostitution brigade" and "zero masturbation party", declaring that "I dare not say that the monthly income is more than 10,000, and it is no problem to work hard to earn a few thousand a month", so that people who want to learn extortion will pay him apprenticeship fees.
According to the different levels of content of the professors, the apprenticeship fee is divided into two packages: one is the "apprentice package" of 388 yuan, which mainly teaches entry-level simple claim methods, speech skills, and occasionally shares links to defective products. The second is the 688 yuan "cousin package", which requires the provision of ID card or household registration book for real-name authentication, mainly teaching a more comprehensive claim idea, including the search for defective product links, communication skills with customer service of various Internet platforms, and the sequence of steps for psychological control of merchants.
With the boom of his business, on April 1, 2020, after Zhang Mouqiang's 18th birthday, the apprentice package rose to 688 yuan, and the cousin package rose to 888 yuan. By mid-November, the cousin package had risen to 1,288 yuan.
After investigation, Zhang Mouqiang continued to recruit school students and idle people to develop offline, and set up an online club "Big Pig Group", which has set up more than 200 network groups in the past year, and developed more than 440 "apprentices", including 36 backbone members, and illegally profited more than 30 yuan from the "apprenticeship fee" alone.
Kuang Lei, deputy head of the Serious Crime Brigade of the Nansha Branch of the Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau, who was in charge of investigating the case, said that the police found out that the gang committed illegal crimes in the mode of "recruiting anti-counterfeiters, teaching criminal methods, organizing hunting shops, and extorting money."
The first is to study the idea of cracking down on counterfeiting and looking for links to defective goods. The core anti-counterfeiting personnel of the gang are mainly responsible for researching the idea of cracking down on counterfeiting, and through various means, looking for defective goods such as goods that use abolished standards, counterfeit and shoddy goods, etc., on major online shopping platforms, forming the idea of "extortion claims". Kuang Lei said that some "copycat" goods have become defective goods favored by anti-counterfeiting personnel because they cannot provide proof of legal purchase channels. Zhang Mouqiang also said frankly that these merchants who sell fake and shoddy products are at a loss, so they are willing to give money.
The second is to send out recruitment advertisements in groups and teach criminal methods online. The core members of the gang sent advertisements such as "cracking down on counterfeit apprentices" and "bringing compensation cars" in their circles, and used screenshots of successful extortion in the past to attract idle people in society, so as to recruit "apprentices". After determining the mentor-apprentice relationship, Zhang Mouqiang used the network group to organize teaching, taught claim skills through a combination of pictures, texts and voices, and regularly summarized the defective goods and service links of major e-commerce platforms, various policies, norms, standard documents and claim skills, and shared them through group files.
The third is malicious bad reviews, gradually exerting pressure and coercion. In order to ensure the smooth progress of "online shopping and porcelain", the gang first submitted a transaction dispute through the platform after receiving the goods, and then negotiated with the merchant, leaving contact information and asking for a refund and compensation. For merchants who do not cooperate, they will make malicious reports, irrigate bad reviews, and put pressure on merchants with words such as "closing stores" and "going to court".
Of particular concern is the fact that all but two of the 36 core members of the gang are between the ages of 15 and 20. The police said that the gang took advantage of the immature minds of minors and the characteristics of being easily lured to constantly inculcate improper profit-making methods, and during the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the youth group has a higher degree of online activity and is more susceptible to the negative "online earning" atmosphere.
The reporter learned that in recent years, the market supervision system alone has received more than 1 million malicious complaints and reports every year. According to the survey of various platforms, more than 5 million private compromises were made by merchants.
Zhu Wei, deputy secretary-general of the Beijing Consumer Rights Protection Law Research Association, suggested that the market and network regulatory departments should earnestly fulfill their regulatory responsibilities, strengthen daily inspections, take the initiative to accept reports and complaints, and truly "sink" daily law enforcement into cyberspace. Social platforms should also assume the main responsibility, strengthen governance, and work together to remove these cancers in the online world.
The police said that in malicious claim cases, some victims are willing to settle the matter because the amount of extortion is small and the degree of attention is not enough; Some victims have a weak sense of law and insufficient awareness of evidence preservation; Some victims did make minor mistakes in the process of running online stores, and they were worried that they would be punished if they reported to the police.
In the circular, the Ministry of Public Security also reminded the general public that when they are illegally infringed upon by underworld forces involved in information networks, they must be calm and calm and report to the police as soon as possible; Keep electronic evidence such as chat records and transaction records; It is necessary to actively cooperate with the public security organs' investigation and evidence collection efforts, accurately explain the situation, and provide the account number involved in the case, so as to facilitate the public security organs' in-depth investigation and recover the stolen goods and losses as soon as possible.
Source | Xinhua Daily Telegraph
Audit | Yu Jackie Chan Zhang Lijuan
Edit | Chen Ying
Internship Editor | Ma Jiayi
Produced by the New Media and Digital Publishing Department of China Business Press
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