Disorders occur frequently in the education and training industry, how to rectify it?
Our reporter Yang Zhaokui
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In the third quarter, the National Consumers Association received 15,639 complaints about education and training services, accounting for 13.7% of the total service complaints.
The problems reflected in consumer complaints include the risk of prepaid payment methods, false publicity, uneven training quality, and hidden unfair format clauses in contracts.
In recent days, many campuses of the established education chain Yousheng Education have been closed one after another across the country, causing many consumers to encounter difficulties in refunding fees.
Statistics show that the total amount of tuition that should be withdrawn on the Beijing Guangqumen campus alone has exceeded 9 million yuan.
The problem of winning education reflects some chaos behind the booming education and training industry.
According to the "Analysis Report on the Acceptance of Complaints by the National Consumers Association in the Third Quarter of 2020" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") issued by the China Consumers Association on October 28, there were 15,639 complaints about education and training services in the third quarter, accounting for services. 13.7% of the total number of complaints.
Chen Jian, director of the Complaints Department of the China Consumers Association, said that with the increase in consumption, consumer disputes in the education and training industry also showed different characteristics.
The problems reflected in consumer complaints include the risk of prepaid payment methods, false publicity, uneven training quality, and hidden unfair format clauses in contracts.
False publicity is the key issue of complaints
On August 5 this year, Mr. Liu, a consumer, came to the Consumers Association of Kaifeng City, Henan Province to complain about the subsidy education in Kaifeng City, claiming that it was for children to reach the middle-recruitment line, and he paid a total of 19,800 yuan.
At that time, the person in charge of the training organization promised to let the children raise more than 100 points.
However, after the entrance exam, the child was still a few tenths away from the file line, which was too far from the original promise, so a full refund was required.
But the merchant only promised to refund 70%, Mr. Liu did not approve, and complained to the Kaifeng Consumers Association.
The staff of the Kaifeng Consumers Association negotiated and communicated with the person in charge of Dianjin Education, but based on the fact that it was only a verbal promise at the time, consumers did not keep relevant evidence, causing merchants to shirk in every possible way, unwilling to give a full refund, and ultimately failed to reach an agreement.
Chen Jian pointed out that false propaganda has always been one of the major complaints of training institutions.
Training institutions often exaggerate the effectiveness of publicity and training, and the power of publicity teachers. The actual training learning model does not match the publicity, and the actual teaching quality is far from the quality of the experience class and the trial class.
During the interview, the reporter found that common exaggerated propaganda of education and training institutions include: "100% pass rate", "first-line famous teachers", "professor teaching", "passing", "packing education package meeting" and so on.
Unfair format clauses hidden in the contract
On July 20 this year, consumer Mr. Wu complained to the Consumer Council of Langzhong City, Nanchong City, Sichuan Province, saying that he had applied for a mind map training class for his children at an education and training institution in Langzhong City on June 16, and paid the fee. 9,000 yuan, the two parties signed a training contract.
But Mr. Wu said that he found that the child had no interest in mind map training after 19 days of studying at the training institution, so he asked the training institution to follow the contract stated in the contract that "if you have not studied for a month, a 70% refund" The terms agreed to refund 6,300 yuan in cash, but the training organization only agreed to refund 5,000 yuan.
The two parties could not reach a consensus through negotiation, and consumers complained to the Langzhong Consumer Council.
After mediation by the staff of the Consumer Council, the training organization finally agreed to refund consumers' surplus payments as agreed in the contract.
Li Bin, a lawyer from the China Consumers Association Lawyers Group, said that some education and training institutions take advantage of the lack of consumer contract awareness and often tricks in contract signing, such as not signing formal contracts with consumers, letting sales staff sign contracts on behalf of consumers, or using the Internet to default consumption The author agrees to the content of the agreement and does not noticeably remind consumers to pay attention to the format clauses.
In addition, some educational institutions did not fulfill the contractual agreement or modified the contract terms without authorization.
Prepaid payments are risky
In August of this year, many consumers complained to the Shenzhen Consumer Council that the Shenzhen branch of an Education Technology Co., Ltd. induced consumers to apply for a civil service training class with loans, and used the money borrowed in a loan method called "Lixiangxue" to advance tuition. Repay the loan after you pass the exam, and you don't need to spend money if you don't pass the exam.
Affected by the epidemic, in October, Shenzhen's civil service examination announcement was not released, but consumers' loans were approaching the repayment date, and consumers had to face the fact that they had to repay early.
The plan given by the training organization is to refund part of the payment according to the agreement, or postpone the repayment of "Lixiangxue", but this will affect 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.
The reporter's interview found that, currently, many training institutions under the banner of "recharge and enjoy discounts" use large discounts to entice consumers to pay large amounts in advance or apply for installment loans.
Due to the lack of an effective fund supervision system, consumers' prepayments may be misappropriated by merchants. Later, merchants will run away or operate poorly, which will cause difficulties for consumers to protect their rights.
Some consumers are unable to receive training services because they have applied for training loans and have to continue to repay the loans.
In response to the chaos in the training industry, Chen Jian said that some consumers are currently appealing to the court for prepayment disputes, but they face various problems in their rights protection, and the effect is not satisfactory.
It is recommended that the judicial department issue relevant judicial interpretations or trial guidance, from the perspective of protecting the legitimate rights and interests of consumers and maintaining social stability, unify judicial judgment standards in terms of burden of proof, identification of standard clauses, civil compensation, etc., regulate the behavior of operators, and form a society Model guidelines, and strive to help consumers defend their rights.
In addition, Chen Jian suggested that prepaid consumption legislation should be included in the plan as soon as possible, through the formulation of special laws and regulations, strengthen the management of prepaid business behavior, and do a good job of source management to prevent subsequent endless consumption disputes.
Legislation can regulate the qualifications of operators receiving prepaid fees, contract requirements, performance guarantees, capital management, information disclosure, fee refunds, cooling-off periods, delisting requirements, legal responsibilities, etc., to effectively strengthen risk co-control and protect consumers Legal rights.