Online Shopping Scams
China Web Affairs: "Phishing Online Shopping" + Health Product Scams + False Advertising - How Can I Not Fall Victim?
Xinhua News Agency, Guangzhou, May 17th (Reporters Ye Qian, Wang Haoming, Zheng Tianhong) Online shopping frauds, health product scams, and false advertisements are now commonplace. Recently, a post on a certain forum about the "Feng Nai'er Breast Enlargement Product Scam" reflected a combination of these three. How does the scam succeed step by step? What loopholes exist in the supervision? How can consumers remain clear-headed in front of "beautiful traps"? Xinhua News Agency's "China Web Affairs" reporter conducted a follow-up investigation.
"The Phishing Online Shopping Chain" - Shoppers Spend Seven Ten-Thousand Yuan in Two Months
The reporter contacted several users of Feng Nai'er Company by phone and reconstructed the "phishing online shopping chain" through their narratives.
First Move: "Search Engine" Paves the Way
Netizen "Basically Doesn't Hang Around Forums" said that in February this year, she entered the keyword "breast enlargement" into the search engine Baidu, and the Feng Nai'er website appeared at the forefront of the search results. She casually clicked and entered, thus beginning her "beautiful nightmare." The website claimed that all products were imported and had been recognized by the national health department, with noticeable effects after one month of use. The official website of Feng Nai'er introduced the company as "a well-known marketing brand product under Guangzhou Haoyan Tang Business Co., Ltd., a new enterprise in China's beauty industry, specializing in the research, development, production, and sales of personal breast enlargement and body beautification. The enterprise has established independent scientific research, production, and training bases." The website also included praise from four experts and posted four different types of qualification certificates in Korean, English, and Chinese. These made her heart race.
Legal representative Liang Xiaoting confirmed in a telephone interview with the reporter on the 17th that Feng Nai'er was promoted and advertised through two domestic search engines, one of which even used it as a successful case study on its promotion page.
Second Move: "Enthusiastic Customer Service" as Bait
"I didn't even have time to further understand this product and company when a network customer service window popped up," said the netizen. The customer service first understood the basic situation of "Basically Doesn't Hang Around Forums" and then launched an attack. "With a firm tone, they said that for my condition, three courses of treatment, 1600 yuan, would definitely take me from A cup to C cup. A deposit of 500 yuan, pay upon delivery."
Third Move: "Professional Guidance" Sets the Hook
"Basically Doesn't Hang Around Forums" just received the goods and was preparing to learn how to use them when a person claiming to be "Doctor Fang" called. "Doctor Fang" meticulously questioned her about her physical, work, and life conditions, then seriously said, "Do not use this medicine first, I will prescribe another formula for your condition, and only after using this formula can you use the previous medicine to achieve the effect."
This hour-long phone call fully demonstrated "Doctor Fang's" professional qualities. "From her tone, you couldn't help but believe she was a professional. I paid 3800 yuan without hesitation."
After receiving the goods and using them for a week, just when she felt there was no effect, "Doctor Fang's" phone call came again. After listening to the "ineffective" complaint, "Doctor Fang" showed "great anxiety and surprise," saying "this kind of situation happens only once a year, and it's you," so "Doctor Fang" prescribed another "strong unblocking" formula for 4200 yuan.
"At this point, I still didn't think it was a scam," the netizen told the reporter. "I just thought that if I gave up now, then all the money I spent before would be wasted."
Fourth Move: "Tyrannical Reeling In" for Profit
Of course, she still felt ineffective, and this time the other party pulled out all the stops. "Dean Ye" appeared, prescribing an 18,000 yuan "formula" for her. In the situation of "really unable to afford it," "Basically Doesn't Hang Around Forums" posted her experience online. "It wasn't until I saw many people reflecting similar experiences on the website that I realized I had been scammed."
Multiple consumers of Feng Nai'er told the "China Web Affairs" reporter almost identical stories of being scammed. One of them, under the mentality of "giving up halfway means losing everything," kept adding purchases bit by bit, ultimately spending more than 70,000 yuan in just over two months.
Three Essential Elements of the "Phishing Online Shopping Chain"
The reporter found that for the "phishing online shopping chain" to succeed, three essential elements must be present.
-- Matters involving personal bodily privacy, where consumers are unwilling to inquire or communicate with relatives and friends beforehand or during the process, and are unwilling to publicize rights protection after being infringed. For things like breast enlargement and male enhancement, consumers usually feel embarrassed to talk about them and rely more on online information.
Some consumers trying to protect their rights later discovered that some remittance receipts and even product packaging could not be found, as these pieces of evidence were "self-destroyed" upon receiving the product because most consumers themselves held the mindset of "fearing privacy leakage."
-- The "effect" of the product is intangible and cannot be protected.
For breast enlargement and male enhancement, consumers cannot accurately "measure" or "test" these parts of their bodies before use, and whether they are "effective" afterward naturally cannot be discussed. Therefore, no one can take responsibility for whether they are "effective," leaving consumers with no "rights" to claim.
-- Consumers lack discernment.
In fact, Feng Nai'er's "unreliability" is evident everywhere on its official website. For example, the website claims to have obtained the "Special Cosmetics Permit of China," "FDA Quality Certification from the USA," and "Quality Safety." However, when the reporter tried to open the links for these certifications, the result was always the homepage of the official website.
Interestingly, in the "Qualification Certification" section, the reporter enlarged these pictures and found that the organization certificate of the company was from "Zhenjiang Tianlong Electric Power Transmission Equipment Factory," and the Internet Drug Information Service Qualification Certificate was from "a pharmaceutical company in Yuxi City, Yunnan Province"; a blurry inspection report was issued by the "Tianjin Quality Supervision Bureau."
Liang Xiaoting admitted that the website was commissioned to a third party, and much of the content was directly copied from other similar websites, and the relevant qualification certificates displayed on the website indeed did not belong to the company. Regarding this, Liang Xiaoting said calmly, "All such businesses operate this way, the company does not engage in fraud, all purchases are voluntary."
When "Privacy Products" Meet "Shadow Companies" -- When Will the Chaos of Health Product Online Shopping End?
At 4 PM on the 16th, when the reporter went to the registered address of the company with enforcement personnel from the Guangzhou Administration for Industry and Commerce Professional Division Network Market Management Office, it was already "empty." This so-called "new enterprise" that claimed to integrate research, production, and sales was merely a small stall less than 10 square meters in size within a residential area in Tianhe District, Guangzhou, with only 2 people in the entire company at registration, relying on a few computers and telephones for online sales.
However, Director Zheng Shaoqiong of the Guangzhou Administration for Industry and Commerce Professional Division Network Market Management Office told the "China Web Affairs" reporter that last week, the office's online patrol personnel had already discovered that the company was suspected of false advertising, and the business license and certificates shown on the website did not match the actual situation. They went to verify on-site, but there was already no trace of anyone. The company's server was located in Jiangxi and Chongqing, and the Guangzhou Administration for Industry and Commerce had already sent letters to the administrations in both places for investigation. If the investigation confirms that there was false advertising and online fraud, the server will be shut down, and a maximum fine of 200,000 yuan can be imposed; cases involving criminal offenses will be handed over to judicial authorities for handling.
Consumer Rights Protection experts stated that the efficacy of health products itself is "intangible," existing if you believe in it, non-existent if you don't. Online shopping is "neither seeing the person nor the item," it can be said that online stores have developed the past "briefcase companies" to the extreme, turning them into "shadow companies." Combined with some consumers' "private psychology," health product online shopping has become a chaotic mess within chaos.
Vice President and Secretary-General of the Guangdong Consumer Council, Luo WeiGuang, said that online advertisers should bear the obligation to review, and words related to efficacy that are explicitly prohibited by relevant departments should not appear in online promotions. And if it is verified that there is online fraud, the online promotion service providers offering the promotion should also bear corresponding responsibilities.
Zheng Shaoqiong said, "Shadow companies" make network supervision even more difficult. The company's registered location and website server are not in the same place; servers located domestically are easier to handle, but those set overseas are even harder to deal with.
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