False price promotion, "0 yuan study", check-in to return tuition...
Online education marketing set "pit" consumers often suffer dumb losses
"Price ￥799, Promotional price ￥20"
"After the discount is ￥199, the original price is ￥2160"
...
There is a 10% discount for the online lesson for a limited time, but the so-called original price of 799 yuan has not been actually sold before the promotion.
On April 25, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Market Supervision announced that four off-campus education and training institutions such as GSX, Learning and Thinking, New Oriental Online, and Gaosi were fined 500,000 yuan due to price violations and false propaganda.
Ms. Zhao, who has purchased too many online education experience courses, told reporters that there are often active parents in the parent group, and they are often the "care" of the staff.
"Let parents mistakenly believe that they have benefited, and they will be induced to fall into the trap of impulsive consumption step by step, and they will be bombarded with sales promotion." Ms. Zhao said.
In the evaluation area of a number of online course e-commerce platforms, many parents reported that after purchasing an online course at a "new customer price" of a few yuan to a few tens of yuan, promoters often change their numbers to make sales calls at all times, and even In the middle of the night, you will also receive the "bombings" of promotional text messages and WeChat, which is unbearable.
In 2020, online education will usher in a blowout.
According to media statistics, according to the financial reports of major online education platforms, the marketing expenses of only three well-known online education institutions from February to November 2020 exceeded 10 billion yuan.
But at the same time, from January to November 2020, the online education industry disclosed a total of 89 financing incidents, with a total financing of nearly 38.8 billion yuan, an increase of 256.8% compared with 2019.
In addition to "low-price promotions", "check-in 0 yuan learning" is also one of the common marketing methods for online education institutions.
"Buy classes at 0 yuan, check in for xx days, and full tuition fees will be refunded!" In recent years, with the popularity of online education platforms, marketing models such as "check in 0 yuan to learn" and "check in cash back" have blossomed everywhere.
According to this model, users pay to purchase courses first, and then they can cash back in full after checking in within a certain period of time.
However, "check-in 0 yuan learning" has become a hot spot for complaints in the online education industry.
Many consumers reported that they could not get a refund after applying for cash back after completing the check-in as required.
The reporter combed and found that there are three main routines of "check-in and cash-back": unauthorized modification of check-in rules, hidden cash-back review standards, and cash-back results.
For example, since last year, a number of parents complained about a picture book app, saying that in order to prevent cashback, the platform frequently upgraded the app, set extremely high scoring links, restricted check-in time, and repeatedly revised check-in rules. It also compulsory collection of children The privacy information was notified by the Office of Cyberspace Affairs; some parents complained about a children’s English app. They were asked to provide purchase records after the check-in, but they couldn’t find it because the shopping platform was off the shelves; some consumers found that it was no longer cash back after the check-in was completed. , But use online course vouchers or receive a certain online course, causing consumers to lose the cash back benefits they should have received.
Why do online education institutions frequently issue "bad checks"?
Xiong Bingqi, deputy dean of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, pointed out that many online education institutions spend money on marketing instead of paying attention to the quality of courses, resulting in high marketing costs and customer acquisition costs, and the overall profitability of enterprises is poor.
According to media reports, the person in charge of a Hangzhou technology company behind the above-mentioned picture book APP that has been repeatedly complained by parents once stated that 95% of the financing was given to the promotion channel, which caused the cash flow to break and it was impossible to realize the "check-in cashback".
The practice of making things difficult for users and preventing them from successfully punching in is a "trick" used by the course promotion and education platform to reduce the cashback rate.
Xiong Bingqi believes that government departments need to strengthen the process of supervision of relevant institutions and stipulate the time span of charging. For the prepaid business model, it is not only necessary to review the qualifications of the institution, but also to pay attention to the operation process of the institution.
According to industry insiders, many “low-cost courses” and “surprise packages” are just a means for teaching and training institutions to attract users. Parents and students should not be tempted for free or be ensnared by anxiety when choosing; at the same time, the healthy development of online education needs government departments to strengthen Supervision builds a firm bottom line for the industry.
Legal sources reminded that "0 yuan courses" mostly adopt the online sales model and use electronic contracts. This method is convenient and efficient. At the same time, there are also disadvantages that consumers as consumers do not have the opportunity and conditions to propose changes to the contract terms, so When purchasing courses, consumers should carefully consider the key terms in the contract regarding refund conditions, check-in methods, contract changes, etc., and pay attention to collecting and retaining contract texts, chat records and other evidence.
When students complete the zero-yuan learning course but cannot get cash back and negotiate with the business to no avail, they can choose various rights protection channels to protect their rights in a timely manner to protect their own reasonable interests.
Our reporter Yu Lingge