Demystifying the AB side of professional counterfeiters in the food industry
Some people are committed to cracking down on fakes, some just want to make profits, and some are called liars.
● Food counterfeiting is like woodpeckers-woodpeckers catch insects, first of all to eat, not to be a forest guard, but this behavior will indirectly benefit society
● Local courts have different judgments on such cases. Nearly 30% support punitive damages, and more than 70% do not. The difference is mainly in whether professional counterfeiters can be identified as consumers.
● Starting from the original legislative intent of the Consumer Rights Protection Law, combined with the fast-developing consumer market trends, analyze the rationality and operability of using "life consumption needs" and "non-profit purposes" as the criteria for consumer judgment, and demonstrate perfect consumption The Necessity of the Concept
□ Our newspaper trainee reporter Sun Tianjiao
□ Our reporter Chen Lei
Wu Xian recently went with a piece of wonton noodles-he bought 3085 kg of Hong Kong-style wonton noodles at a certain brand online store for 49,977 yuan; the appraisal agency tested the batch of wonton noodles sodium silicate (Commonly known as water glass, non-food additives) content seriously exceeded the standard, negotiated with the merchant to no avail, the merchant was brought to court, demanding ten times the compensation.
The courts of the first instance and the second instance rejected Wu Xian's claims on the grounds that the evidence provided by Wu Xian was insufficient and the appraisal agency was not qualified for food appraisal.
"I will never give up! There must be a problem with this wonton noodles. How many people will be harmed because of the huge monthly sales?" Wu Xian said.
Wu Xian, 27 years old this year, is a professional counterfeit in the food industry.
Like him, professional counterfeiters who proactively search for problematic foods, buy fake fakes to make claims, and use this as a career to crack down on fake fakes, have formed a large group at the moment.
How does professional counterfeiting work?
How do businesses and ordinary consumers view this behavior?
Where does this group go?
With these questions in mind, reporters from the "Rule of Law Daily" recently walked into this group to investigate the status quo of professional counterfeiters in the food industry.
Embark on the path of professional anti-counterfeiting
Being threatened is too common
Wu Xian followed this wonton noodle with clues provided by others.
After receiving the noodles with a total weight of more than 3 tons, he immediately went to an appraisal agency for testing, and the results showed that the sodium silicate content of this wonton noodle was seriously exceeding the standard.
In order to crack down on this wonton noodle, Wu Xian invested nearly 80,000 yuan, which made him unable to accept the outcome of the appeal being rejected by the court, and also made him realize that cracking down on counterfeiting still needs to learn from the master.
His master is Lin Yang, a "great figure" in the anti-counterfeiting circle, who specializes in foods with problematic additives or harmful chemical ingredients.
Seven years ago, Lin Yang took the path of professional anti-counterfeiting because his friend bought a problematic mobile phone to help him defend his rights. Later, he specialized in the food field, and his record was remarkable: a batch of production and sales were supplemented with sibutramine (which may increase serious cardiovascular and cerebrovascular problems). Risk) weight loss drugs, health care product stores added with sildenafil or tadalafil (a component of aphrodisiac), were compensated, punished or even shut down for cracking down on counterfeiting.
While his reputation in the counterfeiting circle grew, Lin Yang's life was inevitably greatly affected.
"I was threatened, intimidated, and followed and followed. I dare not tell my family what I was doing." He said that in order to prevent the fake merchants or manufacturers he had beaten from coming to find trouble, he installed cameras at his door and in the car. .
In his anti-counterfeiting team, a girl who had just graduated from college was threatened with a knife "I will kill you when I come again."
Wu Xian also often received harassing phone calls and threatening text messages from some businesses. What impressed him most was a business that sold weight-loss drugs with illegally added harmful ingredients. He sent a text message saying: "My parents are seriously ill, and there are children to raise. You Fuck me like this now, be careful that I die with you."
After careful consideration, Wu Xian replied: "First of all, I am not trying to blackmail you. My appeal is that you admit that there is a problem with this product and remove these products. How many families have you destroyed by selling harmful weight-loss drugs?"
After repeated communication, the merchant admitted to the mistake, removed harmful products and closed the store.
Faced with reporters, Lin Yang did not deny that he had gained some economic benefits from counterfeiting.
"If you don't make money, how many people can selflessly do such a thankless thing? Moreover, the cost of anti-counterfeiting is very high, and composition testing is required. The litigation cycle is generally long, and it is likely to spend a lot of money. No results for a month."
During the interview, Lin Yang's sentence impressed the reporter: "We are not simply fighting counterfeit to make money, otherwise we might as well sell the problematic food, because they have extremely low costs and extremely high profits, and not many people are really punished."
Some counterfeiting methods are illegal
"Foodies" hold groups for personal gain
Chen Dong, 25, has seen the other side of professional counterfeiting.
Chen Dong, who was still in college at the time, accidentally saw a "part-time exchange group" on the Internet. After he joined the group, he found that the group announcement read: Apprenticeship and art, you can easily earn 5,000 yuan a month.
Without thinking about it, Chen Dong directly paid 600 yuan for tuition to the group owner. After a simple study, he received his first anti-counterfeiting order-he bought a refurbished mobile phone on a shopping website, and then complained to the relevant department. The merchant compensated him. 1200 yuan.
Chen Dong told reporters that not everyone took the path of professional counterfeiting after studying. Some people used illegal means after studying to "smear" professional counterfeiters. Professional counterfeiters called these people "foodies."
Chen Dong revealed that "foodies" are often huddled together. After someone finds a shop on the Internet that may have problems, they place an order to purchase the goods, and at the same time choose the method of only refunding and not returning the goods, without spending a penny to obtain the goods, and keep it for their own use. Or resell it to make a profit; if the business has opinions, call on the "foodies" in the group to report collectively. In this case, the business usually chooses to calm down.
The reporter used "anti-counterfeiting" as the key word and searched for related groups on social software, and could retrieve multiple groups that claimed to be anti-counterfeiting rights protection and anti-counterfeiting learning.
After the reporter applied to join several groups on the grounds of "newcomers, want to learn how to fight fakes," he immediately had an account known as a professional faker asking to add friends.
These so-called professional anti-counterfeiting routines are basically the same: it is straightforward and clear that tuition is required for accepting apprentices to teach people to fight fakes. The minimum tuition fee is 89 yuan and the maximum is 988 yuan.
Once questioned about the charging issue, the other party immediately threw out a few screenshots of the "merchant transfer" and said that "one bill will be returned."
In one of the anti-counterfeiting learning groups, an account claiming to be an "experienced counterfeit" shared the document of "eating zongzi for free": search for "zongzi" on a certain online platform, click on the sales volume, and the single price is controlled at 40 Within RMB yuan, the cooked rice dumplings are sealed in packaging after the arrival, and if you cut it open with a knife, it is said to be leaking, and a refund is requested...
Someone praised the act of justice
Some people criticize profit making trouble
As the opposite of professional counterfeiters, how do businesses view this group?
Speaking of professional counterfeiters, the owner of a grocery store in Xicheng District, Beijing, was full of anger: "Professional counterfeiters are liars! They catch small business problems for profit. It is not easy for us to open a small shop. , There will always be such a group of people to make trouble with you, is it safe to do business like this?"
When the reporter asked that the professional counterfeiters had discovered any food quality or safety issues in his store, the store owner refused to reply on the grounds of inconvenience.
Chai Na once opened an online shop, mainly selling imported food.
In March of this year, users in Shanghai successively purchased a large number of goods in the store.
She thought it was a big business, but instead received a notice from the Shanghai court.
"Only then did I know that those orders were professional counterfeiters. After they received the goods, they sued the court on the grounds that the imported food did not have Chinese labels and demanded ten times the compensation." Chai Na said that at the beginning, she tried to communicate. , But the other party refused to negotiate and directly said "See you in the court."
In desperation, Cai Na removed all the goods in the store and closed the store.
In her opinion, a lawsuit is hard to fight.
"Even if I win the case, they will have no major losses, and I have to bear the travel and accommodation expenses to Shanghai. If I lose the case, the compensation will be too great to imagine."
There are not a few merchants full of complaints.
On September 4, the reporter searched for the keyword "fake people" on Weibo and clicked on the real-time Weibo to find that 7 of the 10 latest related Weibo posts were complaining about fake people.
Among them, a Weibo netizen @白痴笑西疯狂 wrote: "A complaint against a fake person to cheat money has caused so many electronic businessmen to stay awake."
In the Weibo account of Wang Hai, a well-known professional counterfeiter, the first of his selected Weibo was published on October 10, 2019. There were a large number of reposts and comments, and the voices of support and doubt showed obvious polarization.
Weibo netizen @YK哥哥2009 said: “The collective silence of professional counterfeiters is the regression and sorrow of our society. More Wang Hai, less harm. Come on Wang Hai, we support you! Our society needs more Wang Hai stood up."
Another Weibo netizen @曾的青春2015 said: "Professional anti-counterfeiting is blackmail. It will only lead to the blackmail of supermarkets and e-commerce companies by local ruffians and e-commerce companies, disrupt public order, and blackmail."
Du Peng, a lawyer at Beijing Zhongkai (Shanghai) Law Firm, is well-known in the anti-counterfeiting circle and has handled numerous anti-counterfeiting prosecution cases.
In his view, the food counterfeit group does not need to be artificially elevated, but it should not be stigmatized.
Food counterfeiting is like woodpeckers-woodpeckers catch insects, first of all to eat, not to be a forest guard, but this behavior will indirectly benefit society.
"Indeed, from a subjective point of view, perhaps the main motivation for food counterfeiting is not to purify the market, but to make money. But when it comes to making money, everyone will sneer at it and call it'use evil to suppress evil', which is too high for the profession. Isn't the ethical requirement of counterfeiting a connivance to unscrupulous operators?" Du Peng said.
Status in a fuzzy state
Where does the anti-counterfeiting group go?
Are professional counterfeiters considered consumers and are not protected by laws such as the Consumer Protection Law?
The reporter recently sent a letter to the State Administration of Market Supervision and Administration on the subject status of professional counterfeiters and related law enforcement, but had not received a reply as of the time of publication.
According to Ren Chao, a professor at the School of Economics and Law of East China University of Political Science and Law, the implementation regulations of the Consumer Rights Protection Law (draft for review) promulgated many years ago stipulate that “consumers who purchase, use goods or receive services for their daily consumption needs shall be subject to their rights and interests. The regulations are protected. However, these regulations do not apply to natural persons, legal persons or other organizations that purchase, use goods or receive services for profit-making purposes.”
At present, the regulations have not yet been promulgated.
The reporter noticed that even for professional counterfeiters, the relevant departments have different attitudes towards counterfeiters in the special field of food.
The “Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Food Safety Supervision Regulations” implemented on May 1, 2018 stipulate that when receiving complaints and reports, if the supervisory authority finds that the complainant exceeds reasonable consumption or uses compensation or rewards as the main source of income, the investigation may be terminated and Include relevant clues into the scope of food safety risk monitoring.
However, those that may cause food safety accidents or suspected crimes are excluded.
The Supreme People’s Court’s newly revised "Regulations on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Laws in the Trial of Food and Drug Disputes" clarified that when disputes occur due to food and drug quality issues, buyers claim rights to producers and sellers, and producers and sellers The people's court will not support the purchaser who knows that there are quality problems in the food and medicine but still defends the purchase on the grounds of it.
At the same time, the relevant departments also acted decisively against the chaos that exists in the professional counterfeit group.
On June 13 this year, the Shanghai Municipal Market Supervision Administration stated in its reply to the No. 0451 representative of the Fifth Session of the Fifteenth Shanghai Municipal People’s Congress that in recent years, the city will be suspected of illegal crimes. The "professional anti-counterfeiting" behavior was included in the rectification, and the investigation was strengthened and the "professional anti-counterfeiting" criminal clues were transferred to relevant departments, which effectively curbed the high incidence of suspected illegal crimes of "professional anti-counterfeiting" behavior.
The vague status has also left many practitioners of anti-counterfeiting at a loss as to where to go.
Towards the end of the interview, Lin Yang said after a long silence on the phone that he planned to "stop": "I always feel that this is not a long-term solution. I will consider changing my life."
(In the text, Lin Yang, Wu Xian, Chen Dong, and Chai Na are all pseudonyms)
Comics/Gao Yue