Editor's note
This summer, a three-inch card has become a "social password" for many minors. From the "exclusive card splitting seats" in offline shopping malls to the online card splitting live broadcast room, cards are all the rage, some children spend all their pocket money to buy various "rare cards" and "collector cards", and some children even steal family money to buy cards...... The collection card has become a social vanity fair for these children, showing off and comparing the undercurrent; It has also become a heart disease for many parents, which not only costs money, but also affects their children's academic and physical and mental health.
What are the hidden tricks behind the "card addiction" of some minors? And how to stop this card trend? "Rule of Law Daily" launched a special report today, so stay tuned.
"If you don't show off your card, you buy it for nothing."
Zhang Qiu, a 12-year-old Guangdong girl, gathered rare cards and cards of special value in 6 circles, filmed a pattern video, accompanied by these words, and posted them in the circle of friends. The value of these 6 rounds of cards is nearly 20,000 yuan. In order to own these cards, she has spent more than 50,000 yuan in the past year.
Zhang Qiu is not the only one who is obsessed with cards. 13-year-old Sichuan girl Li Ya also "fell in", in order to open the card in the live broadcast room, she secretly maxed out her grandfather's credit card within 1 month, placing a total of 58 orders and spending more than 5,000 yuan.
Why would a small card make a usually well-behaved and thrifty child like this? Zhang Qiu's mother and Li Ya's mother were puzzled.
A recent investigation by a reporter from the "Rule of Law Daily" found that the gameplay of the cards is similar to drawing a blind box, and the rarer the style, the more "valuable". Players have their own set of terms, buying a card pack is called "drawing a card", opening a card pack is called "opening a card", and some players will buy the entire card box to increase the probability of winning in order to get the card they want, which is called "end box". This kind of gameplay coupled with exquisite appearance, combined with short videos, live broadcasts and other marketing and promotion methods, makes it difficult for some primary and secondary school students to resist. In order to buy the cards they want, some people buy them repeatedly, or buy the cards drawn by others at a high price, and unknowingly spend a lot of money.
Comics: Li Xiaojun
scene
Full of "waste cards"
"My classmates all play cards, and I started playing them in order to join them";
"I will exchange my favorite cards with my classmates, and the teacher will not allow the cards to be brought to school to sell, but we can buy them online";
"My goal is to have rare cards, and the other Puka will be thrown away......
The reporter visited a shopping mall in Xicheng District, Beijing for many days to sell cards, and found that on weekends, a large number of primary and secondary school students sat or stood in front of the commodity wall to dismantle cards, and the seller's area set up for card consumers to open cards was full.
Two junior high school children pick cards at the shelves, pick up one box and pick up another. "We mainly want a 'rare card', and we can feel the weight, although it is not accurate, but sometimes we can also hit it." One of the children told reporters.
Another parent took his child to open a card in the store. According to its introduction, the child is in the fifth grade of primary school this year, and has been collecting cards for almost a year, "I usually buy cards in the stationery stores around the school, and once I opened a 'high-end' card worth 268 yuan, and I was so excited that I came here to try my luck again, and I cried at home if I didn't come."
The reporter saw that many card dispensers in the store had a large number of cards under their feet. One girl said that these thrown away are all ordinary cards, and a few "rare cards" can be left in a box, and other things that have no collection and show off value will be thrown away. "During the summer vacation, students will come here together, everyone will draw packs one after another, and they will borrow money from each other to buy, and some students will save breakfast money or lunch money from their parents to draw cards."
"I didn't even have a good card." The reporter followed the prestige, only to see several girls tear open a box of cards in their hands, quickly check the English grade mark in the upper right corner of the card, and found that there was no sign they wanted, so they threw away 3 packs of 16 cards on the spot. "If it's not a good card, it's called a waste card, and we have thrown away thousands of waste cards this semester. It's nothing, a few of us don't have much money, just just play simply, and there are many more than our powerful classmates. One of the girls said.
In another store that sells such cards, the reporter saw that some children carried special card albums, card holders, card packs and card bricks (containers for protecting and displaying cards), and discussed with other children to change cards; Some children bought 3 whole boxes of cards with a total of 90 packs in one go, sat on the ground after buying, and opened the bags one by one; From time to time, some children learn about the real-time market of a certain card with the "scalper" who is responsible for recycling second-hand cards in the store, and calculate the value of the card in their hand.
The reporter randomly interviewed some parents who accompanied their children to draw cards, and found that they were worried that their children's excessive addiction to cards would affect their studies and physical and mental health, but they had to accompany their children. Some parents said, "Since you must play, it is better for me to accompany you to rest assured"; Some parents try to guide their children to consume rationally and avoid overindulgence; There are also parents who think that "they usually have little time to spend with their children, and since the child is interested, you might as well fulfill his wishes".
Addicted
Cards became social passwords
Why are these minors addicted to card drawing? The reporter interviewed and found that many people are from "following the trend" to "entering the pit".
Recently, Mr. Li from a primary school in Guangdong noticed that most of the female students in the class were playing cards, and some students were trying to "follow the trend": students who did not play cards would be considered "outdated"; In the group of classmates, some children will show their cards; In the eyes of some children, having a good card is equivalent to having a good popularity.
"What's more terrible than 'following the trend' is 'addiction'." Ms. Li, who has 29 years of teaching experience, feels that the nature of this card is very similar to the nature of cards such as cigarette cards that were banned by the school before, but it is even more menacing. After surveying her classmates, she found out that half of the students had already been exposed to this card. Many students said that they were "addicted" and had bought them "dozens of times". When asked how they felt when they split their cards, three-quarters of the students described it as "addictive".
For example, Zhang Qiu. A year ago, she saw this card for the first time from a classmate and wanted to own it herself, and she never got out of control. She told reporters that her original intention of collecting cards was to have a common topic with her classmates. She bought card packs and card boxes from commissaries and shopping malls, and spent 10 yuan to buy a small package at the beginning to spend more than 100 yuan on the "end box" later.
Stacking several card packs and aligning and cutting them, stacking the cards in a stack, and quickly flipping over whether there are "good cards" is a set of actions of Zhang Qiu's "flowing water", and it is also a moment that makes her feel "exciting". She will take a video of the cards she took out and send it to her circle of friends, "the classmates are envious".
Over the past year, Zhang Qiu spent 50,000 yuan to buy a large number of cards and hardcover the "high-level" cards into a book, which gave her the capital to "show off". "Not every card is eligible to enter the book, only 'rares' are valuable. Sometimes it takes dozens of packs of cards to produce a 'rare card', and most of the rest are ordinary cards that will be thrown away. Now look at the cards worth nearly 20,000 yuan in 6 circles, I feel that the money is too well spent, not only to buy a sense of accomplishment, but also to buy the envy of my classmates. ”
The reporter visited and learned that among primary school students, "rare cards" are also divided into grades. A normal-level "rare card" can be sold for at least 80 yuan to 160 yuan. If you draw a "rare card" of a higher level, you can even pay a premium of a few hundred yuan.
Zhang Qiu told reporters that she would exchange cards with her classmates, and she would also buy cards from her classmates, and the most expensive one she had ever bought was 400 yuan. She didn't dare to tell her parents about this transaction, because "I know very well that this is a large amount of unspeakable expenses, but when I see such a rare card, I want to have it so much that I can't control my desires at all."
Also unable to control her desire to buy cards is Li Ya, who even thought about tying her hands to prevent herself from buying cards.
At first, in order to "keep in line" with her friends who played well, she spent more than 10 yuan to buy a small number of card packs at the commissary around the school. Later, the "addiction" became bigger and bigger, and she used all the more than 1,000 yuan of pocket money in her piggy bank to buy cards. Later, when the pocket money ran out, she stole her grandfather's credit card password, and in less than 1 month, she maxed out this credit card with a credit limit of 5,000 yuan.
Carnival
The live broadcast of card splitting is small and big
In addition to offline purchases and exchanges, the way of online cards "small and big" is even crazier, and social platforms have become a carnival position for some minors to draw cards and open cards.
The reporter saw on a social platform that some of them set up social groups such as "× circle exchange" and "card collection and lightning protection group" to buy and sell cards in their hands in the group.
"I'm collecting ×× (the name of an anime character) card, and the family members who have the card are private" "24 packs of ziplock bags with black back fidelity! I'm a minor, so I don't go to the platform...... Recently, these groups have been very popular about buying and selling cards.
There are also some social groups built by the card-splitting live broadcast room, which often links to different card-splitting live broadcast rooms. Some minors spend money in the live broadcast room, hoping to "spend a small amount of money, draw back the book, and even draw more valuable cards".
"Congratulations to the baby for tearing out the 3 ponies! Let's open two boxes of cards for the baby. The reporter clicked on a live broadcast room and saw that the anchor was using the rule of "counting the number of characters on the card" to open the card.
Under this rule, buyers need to auction at least 5 card packs priced at 29.9 yuan, and the anchor will exchange different series and quantities of card boxes according to the number of characters on the cards after opening the cards. According to the rules, the more card packs you buy, the more characters you count. By analogy, the higher the level or number of boxes you may win, the higher the probability of drawing a "rare card".
In addition to the above rules, there are also various ways to play such as "counting mosquitoes" and "non-chiefs". The reporter watched several live broadcasts of card splitting for many days and found that although these live broadcast rooms were flooded on different social platforms, the price and gameplay were basically the same. Although most of the live broadcast rooms are hung with the slogan "Minors are not allowed to place orders", they are actually in vain - the live broadcast room does not confirm any identity when the buyer places an order, but only asks them to play a "mature demolition" barrage in the comment area before the buyer opens the card after placing an order. Compared with whether he is an adult, the anchor emphasizes "once it is disassembled, it will not be returned or replaced".
According to the reporter's investigation, the main force of some card splitting, especially the demolition, is minors aged 10 to 13, and the amount of orders they place in the live broadcast room ranges from tens of yuan to thousands of yuan.
Li Ya's mother told reporters that in order to draw valuable cards, Li Ya spent a lot of time figuring out the series of card boxes, the level of cards and the rules of card drawing, and even carefully searched and memorized relevant information in order to understand the characters on the cards. "The rules are clear, but the results have dropped a lot."
Li Ya swiped her grandfather's credit card because she placed 58 orders in 14 different card-splitting live broadcast rooms, the least one cost 9.9 yuan, and the most bought 150 packs at one time, spending 1988 yuan.
Rights
Requesting a refund is not easy
However, behind the carnival is a routine.
"The probabilities are all set, and the boxes on the shelves will be marked and placed, and the anchor will know at a glance whether they are neutral or not." Mr. Hong, who is currently working in Hubei, used to be the anchor of a card-splitting live broadcast room, he revealed that there are generally a lot of "trusts" in this kind of live broadcast room, which are not only hidden on the public screen of the live broadcast room to "brush the heat", but also disguised as buyers who place orders, "There are a lot of 'trusts' among the people who place orders, and the anchor will deliberately arrange the box that can win the lottery to the 'trust', creating the illusion that it is easy to 'draw' in the live broadcast room, and deceive you into placing an order alone." The kind that is more than two or more times can be said to be fake. ”
For real buyers, there is another set of "mechanisms" to stimulate orders in the card splitting live broadcast room.
Mr. Hong introduced that those who carry the "end box" must have drawn a "rare card", and they will continue to win after winning, and they will not let people win the lottery again. Through this kind of stimulus, some consumers spent more than 20,000 yuan in two months.
"This is a kind of anchor 'banking', buyers bet on the disguised 'gambling'." Mr. Hong said.
Ms. Cui, who is currently working in Guangdong, also worked as an anchor in the card splitting live broadcast room. She admits that even if it is not a gameplay, "loose bag and flat dismantling" is full of routines. The anchor will cut small openings on the side of each box before the broadcast starts, and "every time there is a live broadcast, someone will discuss what to give people in the back."
As for whether the consumer is a minor, Mr. Hong and Ms. Cui both mentioned that minors are not allowed to place orders in principle in the live broadcast room, but the anchor is not clear about the real age of the buyer.
When minors buy cards in the live broadcast room, it is not easy for parents to apply for a refund.
In order to make her daughter realize that this was a wrong act, Li Ya's mother decided to take her daughter to defend her rights together. She found several live broadcast rooms with high single consumption of her daughter and asked the live broadcast room to return the goods for a refund.
"Some live broadcast rooms refunded after I explained clearly, but some live broadcast rooms had a very bad attitude and resolutely refused to return, I found a platform to intervene, and the platform couldn't control it." In the meantime, Li Ya's mother found out that the so-called business license location displayed in a live broadcast room was located in Hainan Province, and she inquired about the local relevant departments, but found that "the license address displayed is wrong, and the company also shows abnormal operation."
"The person in charge of the live broadcast room said that the local market supervision department should issue a relevant certificate before the refund, but the relevant department said that it could not issue a certificate." Coming to this point, Li Ya's mother felt that she had also "fallen in".
In the process of defending her rights, Li Ya's mother came into contact with many families who were deeply involved, and some children spent tens of thousands of yuan, and some even as high as more than 100,000 yuan. For the current consumption concept of some minors, Li Ya's mother is very heartbroken, "This card trend should be braked urgently."
(The names of the minors interviewed in this article have been changed)
Author: Zhao Li, all-media reporter of the Rule of Law Daily, and Lin Mingqin, intern