How to break the recharge of online games for minors

  "Payment is instant, and refunds are as good as the sky." Recently, minor cases of large amounts of consumption on gaming platforms and webcast platforms have occurred frequently, especially during the epidemic online class, cases of under-age excessive virtual consumption have exploded. However, parents found it difficult to find a platform to refund their rights according to law.

  "Krypton Gold", "Reward", "Recharge", "Send Gifts" and "Buy Equipment"... In recent years, with the rapid development of the mobile Internet cultural and entertainment industry, virtual consumption is no longer new. Watching live broadcasts and playing online games has become an Internet entertainment virtual. New outlet for consumption.

  "Sihong 11-year-old boy spent 400,000 yuan on rewarding anchors and playing mobile games" "Nurse mothers first-line anti-epidemic 10-year-old son secretly rewarded Douyin anchors 100,000 yuan" "12-year-old boy used parents' mobile phones to reward anchors 7 "Ten thousand yuan" and other reports are frequently seen in newspapers, causing widespread concern in society.

  Not long ago, the Supreme People’s Court issued the "Guiding Opinions on Several Issues Concerning the Proper Trial of Civil Cases Involving New Coronary Pneumonia Epidemic Cases (2)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"). The "Opinions" make it clear The guardian agrees to participate in online payment games or online live broadcast platform "reward" and other means to spend money that is not suitable for his age and intelligence. If the guardian requests the network service provider to return the money, the people's court should support it.

  On June 30, the twentieth meeting of the 13th National People's Congress Standing Committee reviewed the second review draft of the revised draft of the Protection of Minors Act. Because behind a large number of criminal cases involving minors, there is the problem of minors being exposed to bad network information. The draft clarifies the relevant responsibilities of all parties involved in the protection of minors' networks, which is conducive to mobilizing the whole society to participate in the protection of minors' networks.

  A survey conducted by a reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily found that despite the relevant guidance issued by the Supreme Law, in many cases of consumption of gaming platforms for minors, because few parents can seek the help of the police or the news media to enter the judicial proceedings There are very few. When refunding rights, people generally encounter a series of difficulties such as "difficult to find customer service", "customer service evasion", "artificial barriers to the refund process", "difficult to prove", "long time" and "difficult to refund".

How to crack "difficult to contact customer service"

  The guidance issued by the Supreme Law has given hope to Mr. Li, a parent from Changzhou, Jiangsu. On March 6, he found that his bank card was 34,306 yuan less. Later, when he checked the transaction information, he found that his 12-year-old son recharged the money to the 4399 game platform several times. This money is equivalent to Mr. Li’s one year. Savings.

  Mr. Li's account made dozens of transfers to the 4399 platform in February this year. Among them, there were 49 transfers with an amount of 648 yuan.

  Mr. Li contacted the 4399 platform, and the other party said that because the recharge was done through his parents' mobile phone, there was no refund. In desperation, Mr. Li found a lawyer to seek the next step of help, and is now going through legal procedures.

  Mr. Li said that his child did not perform real-name authentication when registering an account. To this end, the reporter logged into the recharge center of the 4399 platform and saw that real-name authentication can be performed when the account is registered. If you are under 18 years of age, the user's playing time and recharge amount will be limited. However, real-name authentication is not mandatory. If you choose to skip, the user's recharge amount is not limited.

  Later, when the reporter searched on the Internet using the keyword "4399 minor recharge limit" as a keyword, many parents posted on the complaint website that the child encountered difficulties in recharging the parent's mobile phone on the game platform. In the meantime, the reporter repeatedly dialed the customer service phone number of 4399, but has been in an unanswered state.

  "There is no artificial customer service at the critical moment, and the response time of mobile payment transfer manual service is relatively long, or even non-responsive." At this year's National Two Sessions, the National People's Congress, Lu Jian, chairman of the Tianhe Eco-agricultural Cooperative in Jiangsu Province Mann specially submitted a "Proposal on Establishing an Emergency Human Customer Service for Internet Financial Service Platforms".

  In reality, many Internet companies say that replacing robotic customer service with robotic customer service is a sign of customer service upgrades. In this regard, Luman believes that this is a performance of "degrading customer service, reducing costs, and ignoring user rights."

  "In order to save costs, some platforms reduce or even cancel the manual customer service, resulting in the manual customer service never being online." Luman said that some Internet platform's manual customer service always likes to "hide and seek" with the user, and even intentionally set the first few calls will not go Manual customer service acceptance. Online consultation of customer service through the platform usually talks to the robot, and the transfer of manual services has been busy. Some of them can't find the entrance of artificial customer service.

  Luman believes that nowadays, Internet customer service urgently needs to establish relevant standards. In an emergency, the manual customer service is guaranteed within a limited time.

How to crack "difficult to prove"

  Around April 15th, Mr. Peng from Beijing discovered that children spent 5,000 yuan playing "Peace Elite" during the online class. Mr. Peng learned that the game platform had a promise to refund minor game consumption and began to apply for a refund.

  After calling the gaming platform, he entered the minor consumption option. However, no one answered the customer service call, and the intelligent customer service prompt went to WeChat. According to the prompt, he answered questions such as the child's consumption process, the relationship with the child, the mobile phone system used, etc., and was guided by the robot customer service to fill out a more detailed form.

  Mr. Peng recalled that the form requirements were strict. He failed to fill in the form for the first time and was returned after a day. Later, Mr. Peng uploaded the ID card and account registration photos, and the customer service responded the next day: unable to process, it is recommended to find Apple customer service feedback.

  Two days after completing the form, it was "pushed" to Apple customer service. In desperation, Mr. Peng had to follow the guidance process. After calling Apple, two days after making an appointment, Apple customer service called back, and Mr. Peng reported the order number one by one. As a result, the final refund application failed, and Apple customer service did not inform the reason.

  Fan Guomin, a lawyer from Jiangsu Nuo Law Firm, said that if you want a refund from the platform, first of all, your parents must provide enough evidence to prove that the recharge is indeed done by a minor child. However, in actual operation, there is often a "difficult to prove" situation. "The account recharge record and the child's self-reported video cannot be used as direct evidence."

  A reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily found that similar cases of excessive consumption of online games by minors broke out during the epidemic. On the online complaint platforms such as the Black Cat Complaint and the 21CN Ju Complaint, there are thousands of complaints about recharging and refunding of games for minors. Many netizens said that it is difficult to refund.

  In April of this year, the Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Commission released the "Report on Investigation of Minor Game Recharge and Live Reward". According to the report, in the first quarter of 2020, the Jiangsu Consumer Protection Commission systematically accepted 425 online complaints from minors, an increase of 460% compared with the same period last year. Among them, the youngest recharge group is 3 years old, and the recharge amount is up to 70,000 yuan. The complaints are mainly concentrated on the difficulty of refunding the recharge of minors. Parents are not able to recover from high recharge.

  According to the statistics of the report, the process of refunding minors’ recharge is complicated. In addition to requiring parents to provide evidence such as ID cards, household registration books, birth certificates, account numbers, etc., some gamers even require evidence such as surveillance videos when minors are recharged. Many parents have encountered problems such as delays by game companies.

  Among them, the problem of refunds for live broadcast platforms is even more serious. Among the nine live broadcast platform experience samples selected by the Jiangsu Consumer Protection Commission, no one has successfully refunded.

  In reality, most families will choose to communicate with the online platform customer service for refunds. In this process, some families choose to give up halfway because of the cumbersome refund process, and some families will ask the media for help. The reporter found that many cases of successful refunds were mostly due to media attention or the involvement of police and lawyers.

  Mr. Zhou, a citizen from Xuzhou, completed the refund with the help of the police. On May 13, Mr. Zhou, a citizen of Xuzhou, discovered that the child spent more than 9,600 yuan on games from April 20 to 24. Mr. Zhou introduced that during the epidemic, the children secretly downloaded a popular mobile game on their backs and registered the game account with his WeChat account. In desperation, he can only turn to the police station. In the end, under the negotiation between the police and the game platform, the game company returned the entire amount used for the purchase of game equipment.

How to crack "difficult user identification"

  Why are minor user refund requests always rejected? The response of the game platform is generally that there is a problem of difficulty in identifying the user.

  As the largest game operation platform in China, Tencent Games operates many phenomenal online games. Tencent Games said that they have a complete set of channels for accepting recharges of suspected minors. In general, parents need to provide evidence of recharge of minors.

  According to incomplete statistics, on average, Tencent customer service will receive more than 20 malicious complaints from adults in the name of minors every day. After spending on games or online platforms, these adults then appeal for refunds in the name of minors to achieve the purpose of free "consumption".

  However, considering the objective difficulty of parents in the actual proof, Tencent Games will make a comparative judgment based on the information provided by the user and the background data, and draw a conclusion whether it is a minor recharge. Tencent has a corresponding decision-making process in the background. Through big data analysis, it is determined whether the consumer is a minor user, so as to decide whether to support the claimant's refund request.

  For the problem of difficult user identification, Jiangsu Consumer Protection Commission also gave suggestions. On April 28, the Jiangsu Consumer Protection Commission conducted a collective public interview with 7 online game companies including Tencent and 9 live broadcast and short video platforms involved in the previous investigation.

  Jiangsu Consumer Protection Committee recommends that before any registered user performs game recharge or payment and consumption, the system will pop up a face recognition interface for user comparison and authentication. Only when the registered user information matches face recognition can they enter the game recharge or Payment of consumer programs, otherwise it will not be approved.

Should third-party channels refund

  Mr. Peng, "feeling fooled", posted the encounter on Weibo in a rage. On April 26, Mr. Peng received a phone call from the customer service of the gaming platform, and provided screenshots of Apple Store orders and related information as required. Later, the customer service of the game operation platform confirmed that it was consumed by minors and promised to refund part of the money, but the handling fee charged by the Apple platform was not refundable. Under the negotiation of both parties, the gaming platform is willing to return 3000 yuan.

  There are many cases where third-party platforms do not grant refunds. In February this year, Li Qiang (a pseudonym), a 13-year-old boy in Wujiang District, Suzhou, added 11800.98 yuan to the game "Glory of the King". Li Qiang's family is not rich, and his father is in poor health. After understanding the situation, Li Qiang’s head teacher contacted the Wujiang District Committee of the Communist Youth League, and the Youth League contacted a lawyer to help represent the case for free.

  On the evening of March 6, the game company and Li Qiang's family checked the accounts and discussed refunds. Four days later, the game company refunded 10,000 yuan, of which 2,448.98 yuan was not returned. The game company told parents that this was a processing fee incurred in cooperation with a third-party platform and therefore could not be refunded.

  In this regard, Fan Guomin believes that if parents can prove that they have fulfilled their due guardianship duties to the children, the game company should refund the full amount of the parents. For those that are not within the scope of the responsibility of the game company, the game company should negotiate settlement with the third party, and should not push it to the consumer, increasing the cost and difficulty of defending their rights.

  According to Article 157 of the General Principles of Civil Law (2017): After a civil legal act is invalid, revoked, or determined not to be effective, the property acquired by the perpetrator should be returned; if it cannot be returned or is not necessary, it should be compensated at a discount. The faulty party shall compensate the other party for the losses suffered by the other party. If all parties have faults, they shall bear corresponding responsibilities. If the law provides otherwise, the provisions shall be followed.

  "At present, the third-party channel providers of game companies have not assumed their responsibilities." Fan Guomin said that in the past, the courts of various regions have different judgments, some judgments are not refundable, some judgments refund the full amount, and Request the platform to refund part of the money.

  Fan Guomin believes that under certain circumstances, the Supreme Law clearly gives opinions on supporting the recharge of minors, which not only provides practical guidance at the legal level for resolving such disputes, but also timely development of online companies such as games and live broadcasts. Set the "heading". For some details, I also look forward to releasing more supplementary details.

  China Youth Daily reporter Li Chao Source: China Youth Daily