Online Li Gui is "very expensive" offline, saying that 200 has risen to more than 3,000
Our reporter Zhu Hong
In the modern information society, mobile phones have become an indispensable work and daily necessities for people.
When a mobile phone encounters a malfunction and cannot be used normally, it often makes people uneasy.
The criminals are just taking advantage of people’s eagerness to repair their mobile phones, carefully crafting fake and real web pages to "drain traffic"; offline designing words, fictionalizing or exaggerating mobile phone failures, and even replacing parts with shoddy ones, with only one purpose- Defrauding high maintenance costs.
From the beginning of the maintenance fee of two to three hundred yuan, to the actual payment of two to three thousand yuan in the end, consumers are trapped in the abyss of being deceived in the "serial package" of criminals.
The Shanghai police successfully smashed a fraud gang that used online customer service to solicit customers at low prices and fake repairs in offline stores. They arrested 20 criminal suspects headed by Wu in many places across the country, with more than 30 million yuan involved in the case.
After looking through the relevant police information and communicating with the police and the victim, I had to "sigh" that the criminal suspect really used his brains to defraud.
200 rose to 3200, high price change screen but repair "no trace"
At the beginning of this year, Mr. Ni, who lives in Changning District, Shanghai, accidentally dropped a well-known domestic brand mobile phone to the ground. The screen of the mobile phone broke a few cracks. Although the phone can still be used normally, Mr. Ni thinks it is not beautiful.
So, he searched the phone's brand repairer through the Internet, and after browsing the "brand repairer" webpage, he called the top-ranked "customer service number".
"At that time, the customer service staff asked about the model of my mobile phone, purchase time, malfunction, etc., and then said that it can be repaired for only 200 yuan. However, the customer service also informed that there is a risk when the mobile phone is disassembled on the screen, so it is necessary to see the actual product. The final confirmation can only be made later.” Mr. Ni told Xinhua Daily Telegraph, “At the time, I thought what they said was reasonable, so I didn’t think much about it. I made an appointment and went to the physical store in an office building near Zhongshan Park designated by the customer service. "Because the other party also sent Mr. Ni an "reservation code" through his mobile phone, he felt that it should be a "regular store."
Mr. Ni said that the store is small and has no customers. The store is divided into a reception counter on the outside and a maintenance and operation room on the inside.
After receiving the appointment code and the description of the fault, an engineer in the store took the mobile phone into the operation room for "disassembly and repair".
A few minutes later, the engineer informed Mr. Ni that after opening the screen for inspection, he found that not only the outer screen of the phone was broken, but the inner screen was also damaged and could not be used normally, so the screen could only be replaced.
Seeing that the phone that could be used originally turned into a black screen, and there was no time to back up all kinds of information and no spare phone was prepared, Mr. Ni had no choice but to agree to replace the so-called "original screen" at a price of 3200 yuan.
About ten minutes later, the engineer came out of the operation and maintenance room and said that the phone was "repaired", and Mr. Ni tested it and found that it could be turned on and used normally.
In less than 2 months, Mr. Ni's mobile phone failed again.
Mr. Ni felt that the repair fee was "outrageously expensive" last time. Instead of looking for customer service online, he went directly to the official repair point of the brand's mobile phone.
During the repair process, the staff told Mr. Ni that the inner screen of the phone had no signs of repair or replacement, and there was no obvious malfunction.
"When I heard that, I buzzed my head and realized that I had been deceived before, so I immediately reported the case to the Xinjing Police Station of the Changning Public Security Bureau." Mr. Ni said.
Low-price drainage is shoddy, and fraud gangs cooperate closely with "online and offline"
After receiving the report, the Shanghai Changning police, based on the clues provided by Mr. Ni, after data analysis and comprehensive research and judgment, locked a company named "Quantum Shuttle Media Co., Ltd." in Fujian.
After investigation by the police, it was discovered that this "media company" has opened 20 mobile phone repair physical stores or franchise stores in 6 cities across the country, and also established 15 online stores on major e-commerce platforms.
"After our investigation, we found that although these stores claim to be'brand official maintenance points' in online searches, consumer disputes often occur." Gao Fei, deputy captain of the law enforcement team of the Xinjing Police Station, told reporters, "On the one hand, it is. Selling dog meat by selling sheep’s heads counterfeit official repair points. On the other hand, there are constant consumer disputes. There are various signs that this is a shop suspected of fraud due to “online ghosts, offline expensive”.”
During the investigation, the police contacted another victim, Ms. Gao.
In April, she found a mobile phone repair shop under the company's name in Huangpu District, Shanghai through the Internet, and spent 4,000 yuan to "replace" the mobile phone motherboard.
After the incident, Ms. Gao also lodged a complaint with the market supervision department because the cost far exceeded the previous online customer service quotation.
After inspection, the motherboard of Ms. Gao's phone was not actually replaced.
After in-depth investigation, the police discovered that this was a new type of fraud group that advertised on the Internet to solicit customers and tricked customers into door-to-door or mail repairs at low prices, thereby defrauding high maintenance costs.
In mid-September, the Shanghai Changning Police, with the assistance of local public security organs, simultaneously centralized the network in Guangdong, Hunan, Shandong, Anhui and other places, and successfully arrested Wu and others, the main criminal suspect of the gang.
After arriving at the case, the suspect truthfully explained the criminal technique and the process of committing the crime.
Wu, a 42-year-old Fujian native, opened a "Quantum Shuttle Media Co., Ltd." in Fujian, which is mainly divided into two parts: "online customer service" and "offline maintenance".
"Online customer service" arranges dedicated personnel to perform maintenance operations on various search sites to ensure that when consumers search for relevant mobile phone repair keywords, they will give priority to the shops and contact information opened by the gang, and mislead consumers that what they have searched for is Official brand repair point.
After the customer calls or contacts online, the customer service will give a price below the market price based on a set of pre-designed speech skills to attract customers to the physical store for repairs; if there is no physical store in the city, the network will be recommended. The shop guides customers to mail mobile phones for repairs.
"The most important thing is that the customer service will prompt the risk of disassembly and repair during the communication, that is, it may cause damage to other parts such as the inner screen, paving the way for subsequent fraudulent behaviors in physical stores." Qian Jun, deputy head of the Criminal Investigation Division of Changning Public Security Bureau, said .
"Offline repairs" are carried out by physical mobile phone repair shops recruited by the gang in various places, usually equipped with 1 store manager and 3 engineers.
"After the customer arrives at the store, the engineer will first try to get the customer to approve the'risk agreement', and then use the inspection and maintenance as an excuse to take the mobile phone to the repair room inside to make it out of the customer's line of sight. Then take fiction, fabricate, and exaggerate the mobile phone failure It also creates illusions such as a black screen and cannot be turned on, which ultimately forces customers to agree to pay high maintenance costs.” Gao Fei said, “In fact, the so-called'original parts' are counterfeit or second-hand parts, and some have not even been replaced at all. And if the customer refuses to repair, the engineer will secretly remove the original parts of the mobile phone and replace them, reselling the original parts for a profit."
Under normal circumstances, the mobile phone can be used normally after repair. Although most customers find it expensive, there is no way.
For a small number of customers who have complained or questioned, the gang will arrange customer service special consultations to deal with the solution by reducing or refunding part of the maintenance costs.
"The front-end customer service'drains traffic' and the back-end customer service'fires the fire.' This has also caused many consumers to mistake this fraud as a maintenance dispute. To a certain extent, it has also made the police detection difficult." Qian Jun said.
Small repairs make a "big deal" maintenance service still needs more attention
In an interview with reporters, Qian Jun believed that there were two key steps for the criminal suspect to commit fraud in this case, one is to solicit customers online, and the other is to commit fraud offline.
"From our survey, we found that in addition to attracting customers at low prices and prompting maintenance risks, online customer service will also collect customer personal information as much as possible in the communication process, analyze temperament and determine whether they understand mobile phone expertise, so that you can choose high-end Mobile phones can increase profitability and help offline engineers to implement fraud and increase the success rate." Qian Jun said, "Especially in the maintenance phase, the gang members also specially crafted a complete set of speech skills to train employees."
On the other hand, criminal gangs have opened their offline stores in commercial buildings in central urban areas of municipalities or provincial capitals, giving consumers the feeling of being "tall", mistakenly thinking that they are regular brand maintenance points.
In addition, none of the shops opened by lawbreakers has obvious shop signs or billboards, and customers must come to the door at a designated time by virtue of the appointment code.
Qian Jun said, "The purpose of this is to avoid receiving customers who come to their door without prior communication and master information; at the same time, it also ensures that only one customer is received within a certain period of time. Consumers think they are enjoying the'VIP Service', everyone knows that this is a criminal gang in order to avoid communication between customers, causing the risk of'passing through'."
Sun Hao, a staff member at an officially authorized mobile phone repair point in Shanghai Pacific Digital City, said that when consumers need to repair their mobile phones, they should learn about the repair methods and official authorized repair points through the official channels of the mobile phone brand, and try to go to authorized physical stores for repairs.
"The most important point is that during the repair process, try to avoid the phone out of sight." Sun Hao said, "If you really want to choose the repair mode, you must back up and save personal data in advance, remove the phone card and memory card, and restore the phone to the factory. Set up to avoid the disclosure of personal privacy information."
"Nowadays, many mobile phones and computers are expensive, and the cost of replacement of accessories and repairs is quite high. This allows criminals to see room for illegal profit. The police will continue to increase their crackdowns on maintenance service fraud. In addition, the police also reminded them. Everyone, no matter what maintenance method you choose, one is to choose a regular channel, and the other is to keep the relevant maintenance and transaction vouchers after the completion of the maintenance service, so that it can be traced after the fact." Gao Fei said.