"You don't need to invest a penny to join TST."
"Encourage them (customers) to open the card by themselves and become their own people to keep them tightly bound."
"You have to quickly set up a company and become chairman, or how much less do you earn every month?"
The secret of the micro-business brand TST Court, which has its own star halo, is now deeply questioned about MLM.
On December 30th, The Paper learned from several TST agents that if TST’s star aura and the vision of "joint entrepreneurship" are removed, agents are often led to the path of attracting people and hoarding performance. After upgrading from an ordinary agent to a "chairman" with a large group of 500 agents, the agents are faced with more stringent performance evaluation requirements.
"They were all brainwashed at the time." An agent told The Paper.
At the same time, some agents also posted in Moments saying that TST "never pulled heads, never stocked goods", and still believes that TST is not a pyramid scheme.
Regarding this MLM questioning, in the early morning of December 29, the official Weibo of "TST Chamber Secrets" responded that Shanghai Darwin is a legally operating company and has always followed the government's guidance since its establishment, adhered to legal operations, and paid taxes in accordance with the law; thank you very much The government of Shijiazhuang, Hebei has guided the company to investigate risks. At present, the company is operating normally, and the company will actively cooperate with relevant departments.
At 7 am on the 29th, actor Zhang Ting reposted the statement through his personal Weibo.
On the morning of December 29, the staff of the Anti-Unfair Competition Section of the Yuhua District Market Supervision Administration (hereinafter referred to as the "Yuhua District Municipal Supervision Bureau"), Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province, told The Paper that a large number of people reported that "TST Court secret" is suspected of pyramid schemes.
After verification by the Yuhua District Municipal Supervision Bureau, it was determined that Shanghai Darwin, the parent company of "TST Chamber Secrets", was suspected of being involved in pyramid schemes.
(The case) has a long time span, a large number of participants, and a large amount of money involved. The current case has entered the audit stage.
The Paper reporters could not reach Shanghai Darwin Trading Co., Ltd. for comment.
"Star Halo"
"Stars, come with a halo." Shen Zi (pseudonym), an agent of TST in Hebei for 6 years, told The Paper that she was originally asked to let go of her doubts and join TST because her fellow said that TST is a "star". "The boss is doing good deeds", repeatedly telling her to join TST "no need to invest a penny".
Shen Zi's fellow said that he earns more than 20,000 yuan every month in a short period of time.
There is no need to invest money, there is a guarantee from a star boss, and you can still make money. "Don't say earning 20,000, earning 2,000 is not for nothing." Shen Zi decided to try, and the fellow opened a card for her.
The "star bosses" of TST are well-known actors Lin Ruiyang and Zhang Ting in Taiwan.
Lin Ruiyang was once hailed as "Taiwan's No. 1 Niche" and was the actor of "Chu Lian" in the 1996 version of "Yi Lian Yu Meng".
Zhang Ting became popular in Taiwan in 1991 for starring in "A Play on Qianlong", and later became popular in mainland China for starring in dramas such as "Shuangjiao" and "Love Through Time".
According to the official website, in 2013, Lin Ruiyang, Zhang Ting and his wife founded Darway, and TST (TIN'SECRET) was founded in the same year.
According to the data from Tianyan, the main operating entity of TST is Darwin.
TST focuses on skin care products, cosmetics, etc. Its main products include Bingjiruyu series, facial mask series, etc., and also launches health tea, red wine and other products.
Many stars have publicly endorsed TST.
The staff of the Anti-Unfair Competition Section of the Municipal Supervision Bureau of Yuhua District once told The Paper that this organization has a certain confusing nature and "covers this illegal behavior with celebrity effects."
Picture provided by interviewee
The star halo, cordial encouragement, the "big brother" and family atmosphere of the agents are the driving force for many agents to continue to make big achievements.
Xiaoli (pseudonym), a TST agent in Shanghai, said that after the performance reaches a certain standard, you can sign up for the company's various group activities, including trips, parties, etc., and even take photos with Lin Ruiyang and add them to his WeChat.
"Lin Ruiyang is very friendly. Everyone calls him'Big Brother.' The customer service dealt with a facial mask problem very slowly. I directly contacted him on WeChat. He quickly asked the company's employees to help. The people below admire it very much. In addition, he will send us a blessing video after our agent has achieved a certain performance, and will affectionately call us "sister" and wish us a new performance in the new year."
Complex compensation mechanism
In the first few months of acting as a TST agent, Shen Zi did not make any money.
According to Shen Zi, TST implements a "rebate system", divided into "red card" and "blue card" (previously "gold card" and "silver card").
The reporter obtained the "blue card" and "red card" bonus system forms from multiple TST agents. The core is that the consumption amount (also known as "team performance") reaches a certain level, and the salary will be paid next month. Get a corresponding percentage of rebates.
Among them, the "blue card" does not have the qualifications to issue cards to others, and the bonus system is also far behind the "red card".
According to the private anti-MLM team Li Xu's introduction, TST adopts the "regular price rebate" model.
Taking the "red card" as an example, the "red card" agency is divided into 7 levels. The price of the goods at each level is the same, but the rebates of different levels are different. Therefore, the higher the team's performance, the more rebates.
The private team added that according to his understanding, the red and blue card agent and chairman system is already the old MLM model of TST, and there will be changes in the future.
The Paper, in the name of joining the agency TST, opened a "blue card" from Zhang Xin (a pseudonym), the founder of the TST agency team.
Zhang Xin said that the company has no requirements on performance. Agents can buy products for personal use or sale, and do not need to stock up. The company will pay wages in proportion to the amount of consumption in the TST mall next month.
Picture provided by interviewee
"You don't need to invest money in the early stage. Just send it to Moments, and if someone wants it, sell it to them." Xiaoli said that after applying for the card, the company will make money based on the performance of the agent on the 15th of each month.
"It depends on how many friends you have sold, how many agents you have received, and your own performance. It depends mainly on the team. The bigger the team, the better."
Soon after Shen Zi became an agent, a friend came to her to open the card.
"Everyone knows that (TST products) have rebates." Shen Zi said that she was embarrassed to sell it to others at the original price, so she "didn't make any money."
Xiaoli said that agents will use the team's rebate to help customers purchase products, and customers can also open cards directly under the team's account.
She emphasized that customers who continue to use them or are willing to join the team will encourage them to open their own cards and turn them into their own.
"Because the rebate amount is determined according to the performance of the entire team, although the individual customers who do not issue a card will give the agent a higher rebate after purchasing the product, but for the agent, there will be The risk of loss, after all, customers can switch to larger agents at any time to find higher rebates for self-use products."
A number of part-time TST agents said, “Usually we buy ourselves every month for our own use, one is to increase the basic performance, and the other is to use a sample to expand new customers. If you don’t use it yourself, how can others believe this is good?” Agents are also using this kind of rhetoric to gradually develop potential customers into their own "customers."
Pull people to open the card and be your own boss
When the number of "team groups" created by Shen Zi increased to three hundred people, her "upper family" told her, "How much money has to be lost?"
Selling goods is a small amount of money. Shen Zi explained to The Paper reporter, “You open a card to someone else, and your son has a grandson (next family). As the chairman and founder, you can earn education for all the next consumption. Bonus (commission), you are the boss, that's big money."
In the early days, to obtain the qualification to "sign up" for others, you need to spend more than 2500 yuan in the TST Mall.
Shen Zi believes that this is the so-called "entry fee."
According to Zhang Xin, currently TST has modified the system, fill in ID card, bank card number, and share TST Mall merchandise to the circle of friends 4 times, you can upgrade to a "red card" for free.
In the beginning, the threshold for Shen Zi to become "chairman" was "to fill 100 people by herself."
After she was finished, her superiors turned into a single-month performance of 100,000 yuan for three consecutive months.
"You have to quickly set up a company and become the chairman of the board, or how much less do you earn every month?" Shen Zi recalled that when she saw an agent achieving millions of sales, she was anxious when she heard what her superior said.
As TST said in the promotion of investment promotion, TST agents implement a "hereditary system."
Agents often use their own names for the team, and the team is called the "family" by the agents.
The general agent of a team can be upgraded to "chairman", "founder" and even a shareholder of TST through a series of assessments.
TST agents refer to joining as a "co-enterprise", and they mainly attract new entrants through the promotion of "successful cases" such as the full payment of cars and houses, as well as the vision of becoming a TST listed shareholder with zero investment.
Many agents will take photos with "Big Brother" (the agent's name for Lin Ruiyang) as an important publicity point for pull new.
Picture provided by interviewee
"It's just drawing big pie." Shen Zi told The Paper that the TST agents around her have not done it one after another, and the company has not achieved its listing in Hong Kong in 2019.
In order to achieve the monthly performance target of 100,000 yuan, Shen Zi swiped credit cards, swiped flowers, and stocked up. It was not until the fifth month that she realized "fission" and became the chairman of the board.
"It's not enough to find out." The chairman can only get a commission from the next sales, and once the next sales fail to make a performance, the commission becomes empty talk.
Shen Zi said that the chairman had to ask his next family to "hoard goods desperately, otherwise they would not be able to make money", because the chairman must continue to achieve a monthly performance of 100,000 yuan.
At the beginning of 2021, Shen Zi decided to withdraw from TST, "all was brainwashed at the time."
To this day, Shen Zi still has the goods that she had hoarded in her family, but she also admitted that she did not lose money, "I can only say that she can't make money."
"It is definitely necessary to buy products by yourself, but I don't recommend stocking, unless there are really many customers and the activities are especially cost-effective." Xiaoli told The Paper that in order to reach the target, some peers in the industry can't sell it by themselves after stocking up. Being stuck, some colleagues will desperately hoard goods to achieve high rebates, "There will indeed be more customers, and some people are willing to buy, but this is more risky."
TST's so-called "0 investment, 0 stockpiling, and 0 risk" is often a slogan.
Does it count as MLM?
"(Dalway) promotes high returns." The staff of the Anti-unfair Competition Section of the Municipal Supervision Bureau of Shijiazhuang Yuhua District once told The Paper that TST has the three characteristics of pyramid schemes, namely, pulling heads, paying entry fees and teaming. Pyramid structure of compensation.
Article 7 of Chapter 2 of the Regulations on Prohibition of Pyramid Marketing, which came into effect on November 1, 2005, clearly states that three types of activities are classified as pyramid schemes:
(1) Through the development of personnel, the organizer or operator requires the developed personnel to develop other personnel to join, and the development personnel shall be calculated and paid based on the number of directly or indirectly rolling development personnel (including material rewards and other economic benefits, The same below), seeking illegal benefits;
(2) The organizer or business operator, through the development of personnel, requires the person to be developed to pay fees or pay fees in disguised form by subscribing to goods, etc., to obtain the qualifications to join or develop other personnel to join, and seek illegal benefits;
(3) Organizers or operators, through the development of personnel, require the development personnel to develop other personnel to join to form an online and offline relationship, and calculate and pay online remuneration based on the sales performance of the offline, and seek illegal benefits.
"(The case) has a long time span, a large number of participants, and a large amount of money involved." A staff member of the Anti-Unfair Competition Section of the Municipal Supervision Bureau of Shijiazhuang Yuhua District said that Darwin's related actions began in 2013, and according to the bureau's control According to the data, nearly 10 million people have participated.
According to the staff of the Anti-Unfair Competition Section of the Municipal Supervision Bureau of Yuhua District, Shijiazhuang, the bureau has opened an investigation into Shanghai Darwin’s suspected pyramid schemes on June 5.
At present, the case has entered the audit stage, that is, the financial data and background of Shanghai Darwin will be audited.
The next stage of the case involves the penalty decision and the penalty amount. The staff member is expected to take several months.
Picture provided by Li Xu's anti-MLM team
Disagreements among agents: some people support TST, and some people say that live streaming affects business
After TST was involved in the MLM incident, a number of agents voiced "support" on social platforms.
The copywriting issued by these agents is similar, declaring that TST "never pulls heads or stocks", still believes that TST is not a pyramid scheme, and emphasizes that the company is a "large taxpayer, legally compliant" and so on.
The pictures are also very uniform, showing the honors that TST has won in the past.
The circle of friends of TST agents is still actively forwarding similar content, and at the same time, it continues to publish new transaction screenshots and sales information of TST-related products.
Xiaoli still recognizes the TST model. She believes that almost all of the micro-business platforms are through the first-level solicitation of people as agents, and the model is developed in a pyramid structure. This incident may sound the alarm for all micro-business platforms and companies.
Screenshots of the circle of friends of multiple agents
However, the evaluation of TST within the agent group is not completely unified.
"Since Zhang Ting started selling goods on Douyin, he has robbed many of the agents' business through a more direct star effect." Xiaoli said frankly that the agents around me have felt that business has become more difficult to do in recent years.
This has also been confirmed by Shen Zi.
Shen Zi said that after the sister-in-law took the goods from the live broadcast, she asked the agent to place an order in the live broadcast room, but the price was much higher than before.
Shen Zi believes that this is the company "going to play live broadcast, now I don't need you anymore".
Xiaoli recalled that when she first entered the industry to do TST, the rebate was very high, and she could get the educational bonus rebate from each level of downline she developed. The monthly income of peers with good performance in the industry can reach five or six hundred thousand.
However, in recent years, more and more people are acting as TST agents, and the agency model formulated by the headquarters is constantly updated. Many agents around the "chairman" level have reported that it is difficult to do business and the 100,000 yuan target is difficult to do. Reached every month, and some even gave up the cross-border transformation of the agency business.
According to Xiaoli's understanding, her previous home is an agent who has made money through transformation. She chooses to do live Douyin live broadcast by herself and carry a certain TST latest product series. "I heard that there are nearly 100,000 yuan in income a month. "
Shen Zi sent a TST product foundry information document to The Paper and said that the profit of the product is extremely high, even 50 times the profit.
She said that sorting out this information, "hope that fewer people will suffer."
In this regard, The Paper reporters verified with some foundries that they were indeed TST foundries.
According to the online TST Mall, the cost of a certain facial mask milk priced at 178 yuan/bottle is as low as 4 yuan/bottle. The executive director of the company said that the cost of its foundry TST products is at the mid-end and the price is relatively not cheap.
On the morning of December 30, many TST agents said they were still working.
According to the official Douyin account of "TST Court Secret", its latest update was on December 29th, and the last live broadcast of the official live room stayed at 8 to 11 pm on December 28.
The Paper News trainee reporter Wang Qiwen and reporter Shao Bingyan