Information is being resold, revealing the tricks of attracting customers in home decoration: low price signing and layer by layer price increase Factory | Ms. Liu | low price
The low-priced building materials purchased in full are only found to require additional installation fees upon arrival at home and cannot be returned. In recent years, the digital development of the home furnishing industry has been rapid, and some "tricks" have also flooded it. Recently, Upstream News reporters received reports from consumers in Fujian, Guangdong and other places that the merchants first recruited customers at low prices, then signed contracts and continuously increased prices under the pretext of paying material transportation and installation fees. In the end, the consumers had to cancel the contracts and only received partial refunds.
The investigation by reporters found that behind such short videos of home decoration soliciting customers, there are also violations such as video fraud and buying and selling customer contact information. Two knowledgeable insiders interpreted that these means were common offline routines in the past and were used by some businesses on the Internet. A special company was responsible for selling the information of customers interested in decoration such as mobile phone numbers to such manufacturers at prices ranging from tens to hundreds of yuan. The reporter found that if consumers and factories are not in the same city, the difficulty of rights protection will greatly increase.
Continuously increasing prices after attracting customers through promotional activities
Ms. Liu's home is in Nanping, Fujian, and her new house has been renovated this year. Ms. Liu's husband saw an advertisement on a short video platform about "carbon crystal board whole house decoration". The video claimed that the decoration could be completed for only tens of thousands of yuan, and the home style in the video was relatively beautiful and generous. After leaving their contact information, Ms. Liu and her husband were invited to visit a factory located in the suburbs of Minqing County, Fuzhou.
According to the "Model Room" promotion organized by the factory, both parties have reached an agreement: the decoration includes materials at 1000 yuan per square meter, and after the decoration is completed, the factory will give away home appliances. In addition, as a "model room", if a customer signs a contract for decoration after visiting Ms. Liu's house in the Nanping area, Ms. Liu can also receive a certain dividend. Finally, Ms. Liu paid the full amount of 60000 yuan and signed the contract. However, when the carbon crystal board and ceramic tile materials were transported to Ms. Liu's home, the factory claimed that the contract did not include installation, which was inconsistent with the original statement that the whole house was packaged and installed, resulting in a dispute between the two parties.
After the dispute, Ms. Liu carefully inspected the contract and found that it was a material purchase contract without mentioning the installation issue. After investigation, she found that carbon crystal board materials with a market price of 40 to 50 yuan were sold to her by the factory at a price of 138 yuan. The factory stated that the prices vary depending on the brand, and the related materials are customized for each household. Once shipped, they cannot be returned, and the cost of unproduced materials can only be refunded to Ms. Liu for over 10000 yuan.
According to the recording provided by Ms. Liu, the factory employee verbally stated that the package installation does not require any additional payment. But the contract shows that the payment is for customized products, and the shipping cost needs to be borne by the consumer. The factory will send technical instructors for free to cooperate and guide the installation.
After the relevant departments intervened and coordinated, the factory refunded Ms. Liu 35000 yuan. Ms. Liu stated that she no longer has the energy to continue defending her rights, and in addition, she did not carefully review the contract at the beginning, so she accepted a partial refund and promptly stopped the loss.
The reporter called the manufacturer as a consumer, and the other party stated that they will follow the provisions of the contract. The contract does not mention the need for additional payment or self installation.
During the dispute between the two parties, Ms. Liu discovered that she was not the only one who had such an experience, and two other customers encountered similar problems at the same manufacturer and had a refund dispute. Upstream news reporters contacted these two customers to confirm this matter, but due to signing a confidentiality agreement with the merchant, the two customers chose to receive a partial refund and politely declined further interviews.
Online signing and rights protection increase difficulty
Besides Fujian, Ms. Lei from Dongguan, Guangdong also encountered similar tricks. Her husband saw a beautiful and affordable full house decoration advertisement on a certain short video platform, and left his contact information. He also visited a factory located in Gaoming District, Foshan. Seeing that the factory was relatively strong, Ms. Lei and her husband signed a contract, with a full payment of 66000 yuan. After delivering 57000 yuan, Ms. Lei advanced the material shipping fee of 1200 yuan.
Later, there was a dispute between the two parties over shipping and installation costs. Ms. Liu stated that the originally agreed decoration contract became a purchase and sales contract, and the other party's verbal agreement to include installation and transportation was denied. After coordination between both parties, Ms. Lei received a refund of 35000 yuan and some materials that had already arrived. Ms. Liu stated that these boards and tiles do not have certificates of conformity or safety testing standards, and she is concerned about quality issues and will not use them in the future.
In the interview, Ms. Liu and Ms. Lei both expressed that considering that more people may be tricked, they are willing to share their experiences and remind everyone to carefully review the contract before signing and making payment when making bulk purchases.
Mr. Li, a senior home decoration practitioner and the director of a listed home furnishing company, believes that the tricks encountered by the two women are the "added items" tactics commonly used by some unscrupulous merchants in the decoration industry, which use rhetoric such as low prices, direct sales from manufacturers, all inclusive discounts, and activity model rooms to induce customers to sign contracts. After the contract is signed, profit can be increased by adding items not included in the contract, such as freight, installation fees, renovation fees, etc. These methods are not novel, someone did it more than a decade ago. Generally speaking, factories and businesses that use such methods have limited strength and low brand awareness.
Mr. Li said that with the advent of the Internet era, a large amount of household decoration consumption can be sold through the Internet. There are a large number of online customers, and they are geographically dispersed. Ordinary customers are not familiar with the industry insider information, making it very easy for them to be trapped in the subsequent decoration process. If the factory is not located in the customer's city, the cost of complaints will greatly increase, greatly increasing the difficulty of rights protection. He suggests that when consumers choose online decoration companies, they should focus on companies with big brand endorsements and high local evaluations, as the risk will be much lower.
Fu Jian, director of Henan Zejin Law Firm, believes that businesses use excuses such as low prices, direct sales from manufacturers, and full package discounts to induce customers to sign contracts, and then increase additional fees to obtain high profits. This behavior violates consumers' rights to information, fair trade, and independent choice. Consumers should take the initiative to take legal measures to protect their rights, report to market regulatory authorities, or report and complain to consumer associations.
Customer information is being resold layer by layer
According to the descriptions of multiple consumers, upstream news reporters searched for keywords such as "whole house decoration" and "carbon crystal board" on a certain short video platform and found that these videos highlight the region, but do not display the factory name or product brand name. The content is narrated by the anchor and combined with the images of the factory and model room. Most people claim slogans such as "coming to inspect and reimburse travel expenses", "eliminating intermediaries in the source factory", "collecting sample room activities for less than 50000 yuan and returning furniture and home appliances", and "one-stop full package for manufacturers, including delivery and installation".
The reporter saw that under the video showing the factory address in Guangdong, many netizens from Jiangxi, Sichuan, Guizhou and other places left messages asking where it is in the local area? It is suspected that a video was broadcasted in multiple locations for promotion after its address was changed.
A video claiming that the factory is located in Haizhu, Guangzhou, was left by netizens from different provinces, thinking that the factory is in the local area/ Screenshot
In addition, the reporter found that some videos are suspected to have been fabricated, with inconsistent visuals and audio. In other words, a female anchor introduced the source factory of the whole house decoration in front of the factory, and when it came to regional cities, the sound was clearly processed to be different from the original sound, or the character's mouth shape and dubbing in the entire video were completely inconsistent.
Upstream news reporters left contact information in two video advertisements that did not indicate the manufacturer's name. Within a month, reporters in Guangzhou received calls from more than ten factories in Boluo County, Huizhou, Foshan, Dongguan, Jiangmen, Zhanjiang, Qingyuan, and other places to inquire about the need for decoration. When asked where to obtain the phone number, they were told that it was the contact information left by the journalist browsing the relevant advertisement.
After further questioning by reporters, it was found that some factory customer service representatives admitted that the phone number was "purchased" and repeatedly stated that the decoration advantage of the factory is low price and good quality, hoping that the reporter will have an unprecedented visit.
After phone consultation, some customer service representatives will also add WeChat for secondary promotion. After adding three factory customer service WeChat accounts, the reporter forwarded the chat content to Ms. Liu and Ms. Lei. They confirmed that the statements of the manufacturers and customer service encountered by the reporter were consistent with those they encountered.
Regarding this, Mr. Zhao, a senior practitioner in the decoration industry and the new media manager of a certain company, told reporters that the promotional methods of this type of manufacturer are relatively conventional and belong to the "casting a wide net" model. They mostly rely on purchasing for the source of customer information and contact information. If it is a first tier city, first-hand customer information with decoration intentions can cost up to four to five hundred yuan per piece. The price of materials that have been transferred layer by layer will decrease, ranging from a few tens to over a hundred yuan. Generally speaking, the average lead cost for each transaction is 5000 yuan, which means that after purchasing information from more than ten consumers and contacting them, approximately one transaction will be made. This 5000 yuan cost is usually included in the fees of the customers who made the transaction.
Where do these customer information come from? Mr. Zhao stated that due to the high unit price and high profits in the home decoration industry, there are companies specialized in reselling customer information. The reporter received calls from more than ten factories, indicating that the reporter's information has been resold. Some of these secondary dealers collect phone calls that they have not converted into orders and sell them to others, while others sell them privately by platform owners and internal employees of large companies.
Mr. Zhao claimed that he was previously responsible for the e-commerce business of a leading home decoration company. Some dealers complained that the relevant customer information obtained from the company was the same as the customer information purchased from external secondary vendors. After he reported this matter, the company changed the viewing permissions of programmers, customer service personnel, and other employees, and left a trace on the behavior of exporting customer data, reducing the loss of customer resources through institutional and technical means.
Fu Jian, the director of Henan Zejin Law Firm, believes that obtaining customer information through illegal channels and seeking illegal benefits through reselling and layer by layer, has infringed on the personal information rights of citizens. According to the Personal Information Protection Law, no organization or individual shall illegally collect, use, process, or transmit the personal information of others, and shall not illegally buy, sell, provide, or disclose the personal information of others; Personal information processing activities that endanger national security and public interests are prohibited. The information rights of citizens are protected by law. Selling someone else's information without authorization from the rights holder violates the information rights of citizens, and not only should they bear civil liability for infringement, but they may also touch the criminal law and bear criminal responsibility for the crime of infringing on personal information of citizens.
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