The salon has changed owners one after another
There may be tricky behind!
Hangzhou female lawyer took more than a year to uncover the tip of the iceberg
In October 2018, there was an accident at the beauty salon in front of the community where Ms. He lived.
This shop only opened around November 2017, and was newly opened on the basis of the previous beauty salon.
After less than a year of operation, the employees in the store suddenly changed faces and the boss changed too.
The owners of the community wanted to return the money in the recharge card to the old staff who had handled the recharge, but the other party explained that the old store was not operating well and the money was lost.
There are at least 16 consumers who want to refund their money and protect their rights. The most one has a card with more than 70,000 yuan, and the few with a few thousand yuan, involving more than 200,000 yuan.
How to do?
There seems to be a female lawyer in the community, asking her.
At first, Li Lihong, a lawyer at Zhejiang Liuhe Law Firm, also believed that this matter was too costly to initiate litigation and rights protection. It is recommended that those seeking help report to the market supervision department or seek media rights protection.
After multi-party coordination of rights protection, the store agreed that the balance in the recharge card could still be used.
But the customers soon discovered that if they follow the consumption rules given by the new store, all the money in their previous recharge card has depreciated.
Could this be a scam?
Li Lihong had doubts and began to investigate similar cases in depth.
After visiting more than a dozen similar beauty salons in Hangzhou, she found that changing the boss of a beauty salon may not be as simple as poor management. It is likely to be a malicious way to collect money.
Lawyer investigation found
There are at least 16 related beauty salons
Li Lihong checked the beauty salon on the Internet and related systems, and found that things are not simple.
The address of this store is in the industrial and commercial registration but another beauty salon; the address of this store is in another district.
Not only that, at that time, the subject of customer recharge was a third-party company and a beauty salon.
It sounds a bit convoluted, but to put it simply: A is the name registered in the industrial and commercial registration, B is the store sign, and the payee is C.
Is there any connection between these three stores?
A check surprised her.
Li Lihong logged into the "National Enterprise Credit Information Disclosure System" and "China Judgment Document Network" and other platforms through the Internet, obtained internal file information from the Market Supervision Bureau through the court investigation assistance letter, and inquired about the legal representative of the relevant enterprise. The result was More companies.
There are at least 16 beauty salons related to the above three companies and corporate shareholders!
It is located in Xiacheng, Gongshu, Shangcheng, West Lake, Jianggan, Xiaoshan, Binjiang and other districts of Hangzhou.
Many stores carry the word "Shang", and the legal representatives and shareholders of the company are related to each other.
In order to further investigate and verify, Li Lihong compiled a registration information form, and it took more than a week to run through all these related stores.
She found that "selling dog meat with sheep's head" is common. The registered name of several stores is A, but when they go to the registered place, the name of the store is another name.
In addition, she visited these beauty salons under investigation. As of the date of investigation, at least four were involved in “running off the road”, and related complaints or lawsuits were triggered as a result. Some shops were also suspected of price violation, illegal medical practice, and Consumer complaints and reports have been investigated and dealt with by administrative agencies.
Litigation
Encountered many difficulties along the way
Regarding the results of this investigation, Li Lihong had a speculation: these beauty salons are aimed at developing customers and encouraging them to recharge large amounts of prepayments, and then "run away" through closures, transfers and other means, embezzling huge amounts of funds, and finally Open a store in a different place and look for customers to recharge.
After hearing the results of the investigation, Ms. He, who had recharged more than 20,000 yuan, insisted that all three related companies and legal persons should be brought to court, but the litigation process has been twists and turns.
"At that time, I suggested to consumers: First, to both the affiliated company and the legal representative as the defendant; second, to claim that the involved company has subjective malice and fraudulent behavior, and propose punitive damages, that is, to return one compensation to three; Third, two or three consumers with a larger amount of money should file a joint lawsuit first and apply to the court for property preservation. If there is property that can be preserved, on the one hand, the lie that the store does not have money to refund will be eliminated, and on the other hand, for overall consideration, I hope that the amount preserved will cover the amount of consumer rights protection."
But the reality is that many consumers feel that litigation is too cumbersome and they take a wait-and-see attitude. “They all want others to try first, and feel that there is almost no possibility of getting the money back. They don’t want to toss.”
Under Li Lihong's analysis and suggestions, Ms. He decided to list all three companies and three legal representatives as defendants.
In November 2018, Ms. He and another consumer filed a complaint in court, but they ran into problems right after they started.
"A service contract dispute involves 6 defendants, and 3 legal representatives are listed as defendants. First, the personal identification information of these defendants is needed." Therefore, Ms. He could only apply to the court for an investigation letter, and then go to the police station to retrieve the natural person defendant. Identity information.
Another consumer found that it was so troublesome just after the lawsuit, and quickly retreated.
After Ms. He got the defendant's identity information, she went to the court to file the case again. The judge of the case-filing division believed that the six defendants had mistakes and refused to file the case and requested corrections.
After many communications, the judge finally agreed to use one of the companies as the defendant, and the other two companies as the third party. The three legal representatives cannot be the defendants.
Ms. He can only follow the court's recommendations.
However, the opened case was transferred to the court in another district.
Once and again, it took several months to file the case.
After learning about this situation, Li Lihong decided to directly intervene in the case to defend his rights and formally accept the agency.
Before the first hearing in May 2019, Li Lihong rearranged the evidence materials, regarded the 3 companies and 3 legal representatives as joint defendants, and formally applied to the court for additional defendants.
After many communications, the court finally agreed to treat the above six subjects as co-defendants.
Li Lihong said frankly that a judge who knew her had also complained to her, "The judge himself has been scammed by such a beauty salon, and ultimately has no energy to pursue it."
The defendant did not appear in the first hearing.
The court arranged a separate hearing time, which was in December a few months later.
Win the lawsuit
But it just revealed the tip of the iceberg
For this case, Li Lihong used the law firm's one-year free agency litigation quota and free public welfare agency.
"Otherwise, Ms. He has recharged a total of more than 20,000 yuan, and even if she wins the case, most of it will have to be paid to the lawyer."
After the court officially filed the case, the attitude of the beauty salon involved has changed dramatically.
"In the beginning they were very indifferent, saying that they had no money and the balance could not be refunded. Later, the court opened the case and they came to communicate many times, hoping to mediate privately, but the amount of mediation was not satisfactory and it was difficult to return all of it." Li Lihong said .
Ms. He insisted on prosecuting to the end, "It's not just a matter of tens of thousands of dollars, but the hair salon involved is too malicious. We want to figure out what is behind it, and we want to remind more consumers. ."
The second hearing was scheduled for December 25, 2019. It has been more than a year since Ms. He started defending her rights.
The court opens a trial and presides over mediation after the trial.
For various reasons, Ms. He finally agreed to mediate, and the defendant refunded her 23356 yuan and compensated her for the loss of 7644 yuan.
"Although the money is not much, it is still quite rare to compensate for losses. I checked it, and other contract dispute mediations seem to have no such compensation." Li Lihong said frankly, because of various reasons, there are regrets in this case, and many problems have not yet been resolved. The investigation made it clear that some of the materials I collected may only reveal the tip of the iceberg. “For example, every time a beauty salon collects money, the QR code used is not a public account. Where did the money go? The owner of this account will Wouldn't they be the manipulators behind the scenes? We don't have the authority to check these. Maybe only the police can solve the mystery by intervening in the investigation."
Such a "profit model"
There may be a high IQ team behind
Li Lihong wants to remind consumers of this case through his own agency: When choosing prepaid consumption and recharging, you must be cautious and don't get into the trap of others.
"It is a long and difficult process to solve the problem through legal means after the accident, and ordinary people must be sufficiently psychologically prepared."
Li Lihong said that beauty salons have grasped this point, so they frequently copy the "profit model."
"Such a thing must not be done by a single person. There must be a team behind it, and this team knows the loopholes of the law and the status quo. It is a high IQ group operating in a planned way to collect money."
After interviewing Li Lihong, the reporter searched through the "China Judgment Documents Network" and entered the keyword "beauty and hairdressing", and found that in 2020 alone, Zhejiang had 48 related contract dispute cases involving Yiwu, Putuo, Shangyu and other cities , More than half of which are related to recharge.
One of them is that consumers exchange "sincerity money" for the services of a beauty salon. As long as they complete the service within the specified time, they can get back the "sincerity money" they paid.
Hairdressing salons will delay service for various reasons such as shortage of beauticians, staff vacations, and beauty shop decoration, until the store closes, and consumers' "sincerity money" is finally lost.
Reporter Zhu Lizhen