The group leader ran away with the money and the buyers had no way to protect their rights. The reporter investigated the chaos of individual group buying: pre-sale system individual group buying
"Group buying is unreliable, and the platform is even less reliable." Recently, Ms. Liu, a Beijing resident, called the Legal Daily reporter to report her experience with group buying. Not long ago, she saw someone on a group buying app initiate a group buying to buy a certain brand of cat food gift box. The price was right, so she paid and placed an order. However, until the platform automatically displayed "confirmed receipt", her cat food still hadn't arrived.
During this period, she asked the group leader many times, but he kept saying that the goods were on the way. She contacted the platform for after-sales protection, but the platform said that it only provided a channel for collecting group order information and was not responsible for the actual transaction. After more than a month of repeated negotiations with the group leader, the other party agreed to a refund.
"Later, after I joined a pet-raising social group, I found that many people had encountered situations where the group buying leader absconded with the money and there was no way to protect their rights." Ms. Liu said that consumers' rights were seriously damaged, and the chaos in group buying should be rectified according to law.
Not long ago, Ms. Li from Nanjing, Jiangsu, ordered a brand power bank on a group-buying app and paid for it, but the other party failed to deliver the product. More than a week later, Ms. Li found that the leader of the group had lost contact and no one answered the phone. So she applied for a refund from the platform, but received a reminder from the platform that "you need to contact the leader of the group for a refund." She contacted the platform's customer service, but the customer service said that they could not contact the leader of the group either.
"I can't contact the group leader, and the platform doesn't care. Who will be responsible for my losses?" Ms. Li said helplessly.
Recently, a shopping model where individuals initiate group purchases on online stores or group purchase apps has quietly emerged. This model often adopts a pre-sale system, that is, after the initiator releases product information, consumers place orders, and after a certain number of people are gathered to form a group, the group leader will make or place orders with online sellers or manufacturers. Due to the long delivery cycle and production costs, it is common to make false deliveries or ask buyers to confirm receipt before the group leader has shipped the goods. This also leads to the frequent disappearance of group leaders and the difficulty of consumers in refunding and protecting their rights.
Experts interviewed believe that the group buying method initiated by individuals has certain convenience and flexibility, which can quickly gather consumer demand and reduce costs, but at the same time, many problems have arisen due to the lack of relevant qualifications of individuals and insufficient platform supervision. The niche sales method should not be separated from the market rules of the general public. For behaviors that infringe on consumer rights in the group buying model, relevant departments and platforms should strengthen supervision and crack down on them to purify the market environment.
Wang Yiyi, a high school student, is a loyal fan of a certain anime character. At the beginning of this year, she ignited her passion for "raising a baby". The "baby" in "raising a baby" refers to an exquisite cotton doll made based on a certain character.
"'Doll moms' will make an appointment to make dolls with their favorite characters. Because the cost of making a single doll is relatively high and it is difficult for ordinary consumers to contact the factory, most of the groups in the circle are started by someone. The group leader will contact the factory and initiate the group. The more people in the group, the lower the unit price of the doll will be." According to Wang Yiyi, it is normal for a doll group to take several months from pre-sale to delivery. At the same time, because the group leader needs to pay the factory in advance before the factory starts making dolls, the group leader often requires the group members to pay first and confirm receipt. "At this time, the money is concentrated in the hands of the group leader, which often leads to the situation in the circle where the group leader runs away with the money."
Recently, reporters searched for keywords such as "baby mom run away" on a social platform and a third-party complaint platform and found a large number of complaints about group leaders running away. These group leaders usually have similar routines: after publishing the group opening information, they post two links. The first link is for the pre-sale deposit. After the buyer pays the deposit, the group leader makes a virtual shipment and urges the buyer to confirm receipt of the goods by "paying the factory to place an order". At this time, they can get some funds. The second link is to make up for the postage or the balance. Repeat the above collection steps and collect another part of the money.
"Because the order cycle is long, many buyers only realize that they have been cheated after they have not received the goods for several months." Wang Yiyi said that she has encountered three cases where the group leader ran away, and one of them was arrested. In May this year, after the leader of a certain group ran away, some mothers collected evidence and reported to the police at the location where the leader ran away. According to the police report, the suspect Qiao has been arrested and the case is currently under investigation.
The reporter noticed that there are two main ways for individuals to start group sales: one is for the group leader to start a group on the group buying app, and the other is for individuals to register an online store on the platform and publish a group buying link. The products sold in these online stores are mostly celebrity peripherals, handicrafts, low-priced small commodities, etc. Moreover, these online stores usually do not have business licenses and other qualifications, so it is easy to apply for opening a business. All you need to do is provide personal identity information, contact information and a deposit of several hundred yuan.
In this regard, the relevant platform explained: "According to relevant laws and regulations, situations where market entity registration is not required include: individuals selling self-produced agricultural and sideline products, family handicraft products, individuals using their own skills to engage in convenient labor services and sporadic small-scale transactions that do not require a license according to law, and situations where registration is not required in accordance with laws and administrative regulations."
During the interview, many consumers reported that under this individual group-building model, even if group members placed orders through an online store or platform, some platforms were unwilling to take responsibility for the after-sales service of the goods and the protection of rights after the store owner ran away.
Ms. Li from Nanjing, Jiangsu said that after the group leader lost contact, she tried to contact the group buying app developer, but the developer said that it was only the platform provider and that the group leader should be contacted to resolve any transaction disputes. The response she received was similar to that of the platform customer service. In desperation, she recently called the 12315 consumer complaint hotline to file a complaint and is currently waiting for a response.
It took more than two months to buy a power bank worth dozens of yuan. It was very time-consuming and laborious. Ms. Li now has only one thought: "I will never order such an unsecured personal group again."
Huang Mi, who is studying at a university in Shantou, Guangdong, likes a foreign rap group. Some of the group's albums can only be purchased through purchasing agents. Some time ago, Huang Mi saw someone in a fan group she joined posted a group purchase link for albums. The person who started the group was a "big fan" who had been doing purchasing agents since 2022, and he started the group on a certain group purchase app. She felt that the platform had a guarantee and it should be safer, so she spent more than 130 yuan to buy two albums.
After payment, the group leader quickly urged in the fan group, saying that she needed everyone to confirm receipt before she could withdraw cash and place the order. Since this is a common operation in the purchasing circle, Huang Mi didn't think much about it and directly clicked to confirm receipt. Unexpectedly, more than a month later, the album was not received and the group leader also lost contact.
"It was then that the fans who had placed orders realized that they might have been cheated. After putting together various information, it was discovered that since 2022, the group leader had been in multiple groups, collecting money with various excuses such as supplementing postage and pre-ordering out of stock, but had delayed delivery, and owed more than 500,000 yuan in total." Huang Mi said that he heard that someone had called the police, but the group leader seemed to have fled abroad.
Huang Mi thought of getting a refund through the platform. After communication, she found that in a very hidden corner of the payment interface, there was a disclaimer written on the platform: "After payment, the funds will be transferred to the other party's account. Transactions generated by the platform do not support 7-day unconditional refunds by default. For after-sales related issues, you need to consult the group leader who placed the order. If you are worried about payment, refunds, and after-sales related matters, please do not pay. Group buying activities are launched by the group leader, and the group leader is responsible for its content and products. This platform is a statistical tool and does not store funds. Only you can judge whether the transaction is safe for you. Before paying, please make sure you know and understand."
"Filling in information, making payments and communicating with the group leader when placing an order all go through the platform. Many people place orders because they think transactions on the platform are guaranteed. How come the platform has no responsibility at all?" Huang Mi felt puzzled.
According to Gou Bocheng, senior partner of Beijing Kangda Law Firm, individuals can quickly gather consumers and reduce costs by selling through group buying, and a sales contract relationship is established between the group leader and the consumer. However, the legal risks that may exist in this model cannot be ignored: some people do not have legal business qualifications, and it is easy to have problems such as false propaganda and the inability to guarantee product quality. There is also the risk of the contract not being actually performed and difficulty in protecting rights.
Gou Bocheng introduced that the act of the group leader running away with the money is a failure to perform the main obligations of the contract, suspected of violating the provisions on contracts in the Civil Code, constituting a breach of contract, and consumers have the right to require him to bear civil liability; this behavior is suspected of violating the Consumer Protection Law and infringing on the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, such as fraud; if the amount of money absconded is large and there is an intention to defraud, it may constitute the crime of fraud as stipulated in Article 266 of the Criminal Law, and he may be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment, detention or control, and may be fined or fined alone.
"Even if they are individuals and lack relevant qualifications, in practice such sellers should be identified as operators as stipulated in the E-Commerce Law and the Consumer Rights Protection Law, and they must bear all legal responsibilities as operators," said Hu Gang, deputy secretary-general of the Legal Working Committee of the Internet Society of China.
It is worth noting that some group-buying mini-programs and online store platforms that provide sales channels for individuals have issued disclaimers, stating that they only provide information collection functions and are not responsible for transaction behaviors. Is such a disclaimer valid?
Hu Gang believes that the discussion of platform responsibility in the individual group model needs to determine the legal status of the platform when the transaction occurs, whether it charges the group leader and how it charges. "If the trading platform takes a fixed commission from each transaction, it may have to share the responsibility with the group leader."
Huang Wenjing, a lawyer at Beijing Yinghe Law Firm, told reporters that although some group-buying mini-programs and online store platforms have issued disclaimers, according to the E-Commerce Law and other relevant laws and regulations, if the platform knows or should know that there are illegal activities on the platform and fails to take necessary measures, such as fulfilling its legal obligations such as verifying the identities of relevant users, and providing consumers with the seller's real name, address and effective contact information after a dispute occurs, it may need to bear corresponding legal liability.
It is not uncommon for group leaders to run away with the money. How should we deal with this phenomenon?
Recently, the Supreme People's Court issued a judicial interpretation on the trial of civil disputes involving prepaid consumption, which mentioned that if an operator terminates its business after collecting prepaid payments, fails to redeem goods or provide services as agreed, and maliciously evades consumers' applications for refunds, etc., it constitutes fraud and should bear punitive compensation liability.
Gou Bocheng suggested that market regulatory authorities should strengthen supervision of individual group buying and group buying platforms to ensure that they have legal qualifications and operate in good faith. At the same time, the responsibilities of the platforms should be clarified, requiring them to strictly review the qualifications of merchants entering the platform and conduct necessary supervision of the transaction process. For online shop owners who have committed serious illegal acts, a blacklist system should be established to prohibit them from engaging in e-commerce activities on major platforms.
The experts interviewed believe that if the fees paid to e-commerce operators are first transferred into the platform's own account and then withdrawn by the e-commerce operator, then the platform should assume the responsibility of a third-party payment platform. When the advance payment collected exceeds the prescribed amount, it should take the initiative to effectively control and restrict the transaction funds, building the last line of financial security for consumers.
"E-commerce has indeed brought great convenience to our production and life, but in any case, it is an online transaction that may be risky." Hu Gang said that for consumption patterns such as prepaid consumption, consumers should increase their awareness of online transaction risks and carefully verify the identity, relevant qualifications, deposit and other registration information of the seller on the Internet before consumption.
