What is the chaos in the explosive development of online education?
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During the epidemic, the online education market, which has experienced a spurt of development, has frequently encountered problems, such as inducing consumption, false propaganda, overlord clauses, easy payment and difficult refunds, and other chaos. The problem of consumer rights protection has become increasingly prominent.
Recently, the official website of the Beijing Municipal Education Commission announced that Datang Xiaoyu, a picture book learning platform, used card cash rebates, promotion rebates, etc. to induce parents to purchase courses. They were unable to rebate within the specified period and forced to close their accounts without obtaining consent. , Causing a lot of complaints.
The Municipal Education Committee, the Municipal Party Committee’s Cyberspace Affairs Office, and the Municipal Market Supervision Administration jointly interviewed relevant persons in charge, and ordered the agency’s website, APP and official account to suspend updates for 14 days and immediately complete rectification...
This is the tip of the iceberg of online education chaos this year.
Induced consumption, false propaganda, overlord clauses, easy payment and difficult refunds... Recently, reporters interviewed and investigated and found that during the epidemic period, the online education market, which has experienced a blowout development, has frequently experienced problems, and the previously exposed industry chaos has also emerged.
Check in cash back hard to cash back
In May of this year, Ms. Xia from Beijing saw Datang Xiaoyu’s propaganda that “you can learn with zero yuan when you check in” and enrolled her child in the all-around check-in class.
Since then, Datang Xiaoyu has launched activities such as "Holding Lesson Festival" and "Double Return to Family Bucket".
Under the temptation of continuous promotion and new promotions, Ms. Xia, who came to "zero yuan", finally spent nearly 4,000 yuan.
According to the propaganda of the business, as long as you insist on clocking in and learning, you can return 2,145 yuan to Ms. Xia.
On August 14, when Ms. Xia was attending class with her children, the system suddenly popped up a very illegible verification code dialog box, and the user had to enter it within 8 seconds.
Before he had time to react, the system popped up a pop-up window. The child hurriedly clicked on it, but found that all check-in courses showed that they had been abandoned, including courses that had not yet been opened.
This means that Ms. Xia can no longer get 2145 yuan in cash back.
Ms. Xia’s experience is not a single case. The reporter searched on an Internet complaint platform and found that there were 593 complaints against Datang Xiaoyu. Most of the complaints were for the system to increase the difficulty of the check-in, modify the check-in rules, and deliberately lead to abandon the check-in course.
Many parents said that the "confirm to give up" button is highlighted, and the "cancel" button is gray, which is suspected of inducing children.
Some parents also said that they still cannot get the return from the merchant after they insist on completing the check-in.
When many consumers expressed that they wanted to give feedback, all relevant WeChat groups of the merchant and the "teacher teacher" did not reply, and no customer service staff could be found.
In addition to punching in, Datang Xiaoyu also put out a slogan, "It allows you to easily raise a primary school bully, and also earn scholarships by the way. Parenting and making money have never been so easy". By promoting high commissions and high rebates, parents are encouraged to become " Mother's spokesperson".
However, some parents said that the commission they received has also not been honored.
The reporter found out that there are still many education apps on the market that use similar methods to acquire customers, but it is difficult for parents to wait for the promise of returning cash, or even refund the remaining courses.
Third-party lending was "processed"
The epidemic broke out at the beginning of the year, online education became a rigid demand, and the market scale grew rapidly.
From January to July, a total of 25,000 online education companies were registered and established, with an average of 120 new ones added every day.
According to a report released by the China Internet Network Information Center, the number of daily active users of multiple online education applications exceeded 10 million.
Correspondingly, related complaints and rights protection issues in the field of online education have become more prominent.
Among them, the “old diseases” in industries such as inducing student installment loans have re-emerged.
Xiaopu from Wuhan is a recent graduate. He wanted to improve his oral English ability. He found an online adult English education institution and purchased a course of 24,935 yuan.
Considering that Xiaopu has just graduated, the sales staff said that they can provide installment payments to reduce the pressure on tuition fees.
After paying a prepayment of 1,000 yuan, Xiaopu received a dunning text message from a loan platform, and he only signed an agreement with the school when purchasing the course, and did not see the formal loan contract.
Xiaopu realized that the other party used his identity information to borrow from a third-party platform in the name of an agent.
Worried that it is not a formal loan platform, and that the operation is unreasonable, Xiaopu asked for a refund, but the other party did not cooperate.
"The school looked for various reasons to shirk responsibility. Until I complained to the online platform and filed with the Public Security Bureau, the other party's attitude eased and returned my loan agreement, but the 1,000 yuan advance payment has not yet arrived." Pu said.
Reporters searched on multiple online complaint platforms and found that many consumers have encountered the problem of online training institutions inducing installment loans.
Many people are unable to refund fees and suspend classes after being "applied" for loans, and do not know how to cancel the installment.
Not only need industry self-discipline, but also strengthen supervision
The “Analysis on the Acceptance of Complaints by the National Consumers’ Association in the First Half of 2020” released by the China Consumers Association in August showed that complaints about education and training services have increased, and complaints are concentrated on false publicity, false promises, unclear agreement terms, and inducing consumers to pay for loans and Refunds are difficult and other aspects.
Affected by the epidemic, the suspension of operations of offline training institutions has contributed to the popularity of online education. However, the industry problems of high customer acquisition costs and difficult profitability for online education have not been effectively solved.
Some people in the industry said that online education is basically a stage of burning money. As the epidemic gradually improves and offline education resumes, there is a question mark about how many people are willing to stay online.
Therefore, customer acquisition and sales promotion have become powerful tools for online education to expand the market.
A salesperson in a small online class for children told reporters that the company will provide a complete set of fixed language skills. Many organizations will exaggerate and falsely promote. They rely on advertising to gain attention, and cash back and commission is also a common marketing method.
Even if consumers find that the quality of teaching content is poor, the goods are not on the right board, etc., it is difficult to get a refund.
Zhao Zhanzhu, a lawyer at Beijing Zhilin Law Firm, said that in addition to the illegal conduct of the operator, the problem of the difficulty in refunding fees is that consumers did not consider the refund situation before purchasing courses and signing the contract and required a clear agreement in the contract. As a result, in the absence of direct breach of contract by the operator, consumers requesting refunds lack contractual and legal support.
Recently, a number of online education institutions have jointly signed the "K12 Online Education Industry Self-Discipline Convention", which has agreed on curriculum settings, teachers, advertising, refund methods, and format contracts.
However, in addition to industry self-discipline, Zhao Zhanzhi believes that market supervision departments need to strengthen supervision, carry out rectification activities, and clean up various overlord clauses and impose penalties in a timely manner.
Tang Shu