Chinanews client, Beijing, October 28th (Reporter Xie Yiguan) In order to improve professional ability or let children learn some skills, I enrolled in an off-campus education and training class. As a result, I encountered a business running away as soon as I paid the advance payment. Haven't encountered this situation?
On the 28th, the China Consumers Association released an analysis of the acceptance of complaints by the National Consumers Association in the third quarter of 2020. A total of 219,909 consumer complaints were accepted, of which 15,639 were complaints about education and training services, accounting for 13.7% of the total service complaints.
Data map: Students attend classes at off-campus training institutions.
Photo courtesy of training institutions
It can be seen from the report that false propaganda issues, "routine loans" caused by prepaid payments, and merchants running away are still the hardest hit areas for complaints.
"Training courses generally have long periods and high costs. In order to save costs, consumers usually pay for several months or even years. Some consumers will use installment payments to ease the pressure, but if they don’t pay attention, they will fall into'routine loans. 'The possibility.' China Consumers Association pointed out.
For example, a number of consumers complained to the Shenzhen Consumer Council. The Shenzhen branch of an Educational Technology Co., Ltd. induced consumers to apply for a civil service training class with loans, and used the money borrowed by a lender named "Lixiangxue" to advance the tuition fees. Repay the loan later, and you don’t need to spend money if you fail to pass the exam.
However, Shenzhen's civil service examination announcement has been delayed, and the repayment date is approaching in October.
Operators delay the time and do not provide solutions, even if Shenzhen civil servants take an examination, it will not change the fact that consumers have to repay early.
The plan given by the operator is to refund part of the payment according to the agreement, or postpone the repayment of "Lixiangxue", but this will affect the personal credit investigation and is inconsistent with the wishes of consumers when reporting classes.
After mediation by the Shenzhen Consumer Council, the operator reached an agreement with 13 consumers and the complaint was resolved.
According to the China Consumers Association, for convenience, some consumers also make private transfers with salespersons of training institutions. This situation is also very risky.
In addition, in recent years, training institutions have closed down and run off from time to time, causing consumers to suffer greater property losses.
"Recently, off-campus education and training institutions such as Weber English, Stone Touchdown, and Yousheng Education have successively closed down due to poor management, involving many consumers, and similar situations have not been effectively contained, and even intensified." Consumers Association said.
In the opinion of the China Consumers Association, one of the important reasons for the difficulty in resolving consumer disputes on off-campus education and training is the adoption of a pre-paid business model. Some unscrupulous merchants use large discounts to entice consumers to pay large amounts in advance under the banner of "recharge and enjoy discounts." Expenses. Due to the lack of an effective fund supervision system, consumers’ prepayments may be misappropriated by merchants, and merchants will run away or operate poorly in the later period, making it difficult for consumers to defend their rights.
In particular, the development of the Internet has made online collection of prepaid fees extremely convenient, and has also opened up a thoroughfare for the behavior of collecting money, and has even been used by criminals to implement fund-raising fraud.
Administrative agencies and courts in some regions also have a backlog of related cases, and consumer rights and interests urgently need to be effectively protected.
In this regard, the China Consumers Association reminded that the "Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Regulating the Development of Off-campus Training Institutions" stipulated that the state’s financial and asset management regulations should be strictly implemented, and the charging period and teaching arrangements should be coordinated, and the one-time collection time span should not exceed 3 months' cost.
Consumers should try their best to choose short-term payment methods when choosing education and training institutions to avoid large one-time investments; carefully check the installment contract to prevent instalment loans; consumers are not recommended to choose "training loans" and other credit products.
(Finish)