The dream of a high salary stuck on the wheel
Three years ago, 25-year-old Zhao Yong changed jobs and joined a logistics company in Zhongshan, Guangdong. After getting the car, he happily took photos of the minivan and posted them on social media platforms.
Unexpectedly, many messages in the comment area said, "Another brother has fallen into the trap" and "Why is there still such a scam now?" Soon after, Zhao Yong discovered that he had really fallen into a trap that was difficult to escape.
Since 2021, Jin Juan, a lawyer at Guangdong Changzheng Law Firm, has received inquiries from many drivers. Their experiences have similar keywords: novice drivers, high-paying recruitment, and renting a car instead of buying a car.
After carefully combing through these cases, Jin Juan found that some logistics companies were hiring under the guise of high salaries, with the purpose of allowing applicants to borrow money to buy cars at high prices. In January 2024, she posted a post to remind drivers to pay attention to these serial tricks and avoid falling into the dream of high salary on the wheel.
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Recruiting drivers with high salary, excited to "rent a car"
Zhao Yong once worked as a clerk in a large logistics company in Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province, with a monthly salary of seven to eight thousand yuan. Zhao Yong felt that staying up late on duty was very hard, and he came up with the idea of changing jobs.
In September 2021, he saw information on a recruitment platform that a logistics company in Zhongshan City was recruiting freight drivers with high salaries: a C1 driver's license, a guaranteed salary of 18,000 yuan, and guaranteed supply of goods were required.
Zhao Yong contacted the recruiter through the recruitment platform. The other party quickly invited him for an interview. Zhao Yong came to the company located in an office building and saw plaques from multiple well-known freight companies hanging on the wall, with words like "strategic partner" written on them. There are dozens of employees in the office area, all of them young, busy in front of computers. Zhao Yong felt that "this company looks very formal."
But he was somewhat skeptical about the high salary in the recruitment information. "I asked if the guaranteed amount was really 18,000 yuan, and the other party said it must be there. If it's not enough, the company will make up for it."
The other party asked Zhao Yong if he had ever been a freight driver and asked him to fill in his resume. Another staff member claimed to be Zhao Yong's fellow villager and said enthusiastically: "I will definitely not lie to you." The staff member showed him a screenshot of the driver's operating flow, and his daily income was between 700 and 800 yuan to more than 1,000 yuan. Zhao Yong later found out that the drivers were "fed" with good orders, specifically used to fool novice drivers.
In order to dispel Zhao Yong's doubts, the fellow villager invited him to try out a sports car with the company's driver.
The next morning, Zhao Yong got into a driver's minivan. He saw that the driver made a delivery order of less than 100 kilometers, and more than 400 yuan was credited to the app. "I thought at the time, he was an experienced driver and could earn 1,000 yuan a day; I was a novice, so I should have no problem earning 500 yuan a day." Zhao Yong said.
The staff of the logistics company urged him to make a decision as soon as possible: "The volume of goods is very large now. If you miss it, you will make a lot of money."
Zhao Yong decided to join the company. After confirming with the other party, he learned that his vehicle was rented from the company. The other party said, "The car was transferred from the company. If you don't want to do it, you can drive the car back to the company."
In the small room of the logistics company, the other party took out a stack of documents for Zhao Yong to sign and told him that this was just a company entry process.
Zhao Yong didn't understand these documents. "To be honest, I was a 'newbie' at that time and didn't know about leasing to purchase or buying a car with a loan." He later looked at the cover of the document taken at that time and "only then did he realize that it was a car contract."
Zhao Yong signed on it one by one. He knew that the contract should be in duplicate. But the fellow said that the company's printer was broken and that he could not be given a contract for the time being.
You also need to pay a deposit of 17,800 yuan to join the company, and Zhao Yong only brought 5,000 yuan with him at that time. The fellow asked for Zhao Yong's mobile phone and said he wanted to go through the company's onboarding process. Then he sat opposite Zhao Yong and operated the mobile phone, occasionally asking him to do facial recognition. Later, his Alipay mobile phone often deducted money from his bank card. Only then did Zhao Yong realize that the company staff used his Alipay mobile phone to borrow money to top up the 17,800 yuan that day.
A few days later, he picked up the car. This is a brand new minivan. Zhao Yong happily took photos of the truck and posted them on social media platforms. Unexpectedly, this was just the beginning.
"Guaranteed supply" changed to "No supply"
When he went to a vehicle management office in Guangzhou to get his car registered, Zhao Yong was surprised to see dozens of trucks parked there waiting to be registered, exactly like his car.
At the vehicle management office, Zhao Yong asked the drivers who also came to apply for license plates how they bought their cars. "They all said they applied for a job at a certain company and the company provided the vehicles. Everyone's company is different."
After getting the car, Zhao Yong went to the logistics company to prepare the goods. The other party told him that the warehouse had not yet been settled, and asked him to work on a well-known freight platform for a few months to get familiar with the truck.
Zhao Yong came to the store of the freight platform and was told that to register as an App member, he also needed to pay a membership fee of one to two thousand yuan. Zhao Yong understood: "The company sent me here to register, why do you still need me to pay the membership fee?" The person in charge of the store clearly told Zhao Yong that they had no cooperation with the company.
After asking logistics company personnel to no avail, Zhao Yong decided to try a sports car. He paid the membership fee and ran for more than ten days, but found that the high salary promised by the logistics company could not be realized. "The most I made in one day was more than 300 yuan. I ran eight or nine orders without stopping. I went to charge at 6 o'clock in the morning and was busy until about 11 o'clock in the evening."
Zhao Yong went to the logistics company to ask for an explanation, but was "kicked". He added several staff members on WeChat but did not receive a clear answer. He tried to get the contract he originally signed, but was never able to get it.
Chen Zhi (pseudonym) once worked in the decoration industry, and his application experience was similar to Zhao Yong. In October 2023, Chen Zhi applied for a job at a logistics company in Foshan, Guangdong after seeing an advertisement for "high-paying driver recruitment". The business license on the company wall made Chen Zhi feel that "the company looks very formal." The recruitment notice is equally tempting: "The monthly salary is 12,000 to 15,000 yuan, only a C1 license is required, no loading, unloading or moving goods is required, and the work day is 10 hours."
After signing the contract, when Chen Zhi went to pick up the car somewhere in Guangzhou, he saw "a large area of the same car there."
After getting the car and getting the license plate, the staff of the logistics company told Chen Zhi that he was going to register and receive orders on a certain freight platform, saying that the company had already connected to the platform. After Chen Zhi came to the platform store, he was told that the platform did not cooperate with logistics companies.
Chen Zhi felt that he had been cheated, but he still decided to try a sports car. After running for a day, he found that the monthly salary promised by the logistics company could not be met at all. Guangzhou, Foshan and other places stipulate that trucks are prohibited from driving for five or six hours during the day. As a freight "newbie", Chen Zhi did not know these important regulations, and the staff of the logistics company did not mention them.
After a month of experience, Chen Zhi calculated that after deducting the daily electricity bill of more than 40 yuan, he earned six to seven thousand yuan. Excluding the loan of more than 2,000 yuan, he only got three to four thousand yuan.
Paying rent inexplicably turns into paying off car loan
When Chen Zhi applied for a job at a logistics company, the staff kept urging him to sign the contract quickly, telling him that it was just a matter of going through the onboarding process. The staff also took away his ID card and told him to go to another room to make a copy, and returned it to him a few minutes later.
When he received a loan notification text message from a financial leasing company in Zhejiang, Chen Zhi was a little confused and didn't understand how he got the loan. He remembered that the original agreement was clearly for rent, which was 2,600 yuan/month for the first three years and 1,500 yuan/month for the next two years.
He quickly called the salesman of the logistics company, who promised that as long as he paid for three years, the car would be owned by Chen Zhi.
In this way, he spent more than 130,000 yuan on a loan to buy a medium-sized van. The reporter saw that what Chen Zhi signed was a 9-page "Vehicle Financing Lease Contract (Sale and Leaseback Affiliated Version)" printed on one side, and a 19-page mortgage contract.
Later, Chen Zhi went to the store of the car brand to inquire and checked online, and found that the price of the same car was about 85,000 yuan, with the most expensive not exceeding 90,000 yuan.
Lin Wei (pseudonym) is a novice driver in Dongguan City, Guangdong Province. He used to work in a factory. When consulting a lawyer, he couldn't remember when he took out the loan. Later, Lin Wei recalled that he seemed to have signed on a tablet at the logistics company. He later learned that he was signing an electronic contract with a financial company.
In Lin Wei's impression, he had never seen the staff of the financial company from beginning to end. He just remembered doing facial recognition on the tablet and signing.
Lin Wei later contacted the staff of the financial company and repeatedly asked the other party for a loan contract. The other party repeatedly said, "You have to pay back the money before I can give you a contract." "You have to ask the logistics company before they can give you a contract." Lin Wei In anger, Wei complained to the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and finally got the loan contract.
During the interview, several drivers who "rented a car instead of buying a car" said that they were applied for loans by the company without knowing it. Zhao Yong said: "Many people only know that they have been 'loaned' a few years later."
Can't get rid of trouble
Zhao Yong found that running a truck was not cost-effective and planned to find a job and go back to work. But he was carrying a monthly car loan of more than 3,000 yuan and was eager to get rid of this burden. After repeated communication with the logistics company, the other party agreed to let him go to the logistics company's "vehicle management department" to handle custody, and the company would repay the loan for him.
Zhao Yong drove to the "Vehicle Management Department" in Foshan City, Guangdong Province to handle the "custody" procedures. The custody agreement shows that the vehicle is managed by Guangdong Zhifu Excellence New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., and the company pays Zhao Yong more than 3,000 yuan in rent every month.
In the first month after signing the agreement, Zhao Yong urged him many times. Two or three days after the repayment period, the company transferred the "rent" to him. The next month, Zhao Yong was told that the company was undergoing renovations and had no money to repay his loan.
Zhao Yong rushed to Foshan again and said: "Since the company won't repay my loan, I will drive the car back."
But the other party came up with a custody agreement, which stipulated that if Party A (i.e. the aforementioned logistics company - reporter's note) cannot afford the monthly rent of the car for more than 3 months, Party B (i.e. Zhao Yong - reporter's note) can take back the custody vehicle. Zhao Yong was dumbfounded.
Zhao Yong later asked someone to read the contract for help and discovered that the meaning expressed in the contract was different from the verbal promise made by the staff at the time.
In order to completely solve the problem, he paid another 9,900 yuan in liquidated damages. His family helped him raise the rest of the loan. Zhao Yong did the math, and he paid 140,000 to 50,000 yuan for the car, which had a market price of more than 70,000 yuan at the time.
Compared with Zhao Yong, Lin Wei's situation is even more difficult - the car is not even in his name.
Half a month after Lin Wei signed the contract with the logistics company, he picked up the pickup truck. He found that the company's name was written on the driving license. Lin Wei asked the staff of the logistics company to question him, and the other party explained: "Write the company name so that you can enter the warehouse to pull goods."
Lin Wei found that it was not easy to make money running freight and asked to return the car. He learned that he could sign a contract with the company and pay a liquidated damages of more than 10,000 yuan, and the loan would then be repaid by the company. Eager to get his life back on track, he signed the contract. The staff assured him that they would not contact him again.
Lin Wei paid 10,700 yuan in liquidated damages. The logistics company paid the car loan on schedule for several months in accordance with the contract. After the logistics company paid about 10,000 yuan, it informed Lin Wei that there was still a loan of 20,000 yuan that had not been repaid, but the company had no money and hoped that both parties would repay 10,000 yuan. The staff said to him: "If you don't agree, the auto finance company will sue you."
Lin Wei sighed: "I wanted to solve the trouble as soon as possible, but ended up getting deeper and deeper."
The HR specialist can get the capitation fee by inviting people to the store
A reporter set his job search intention as a truck driver on a recruitment app and received nearly 40 "hellos" from human resources specialists of different logistics companies in half an hour.
The recruitment threshold for these companies is very low, as long as you have a C1 driver's license. They claim to have considerable income, with monthly salaries ranging from 7,000 to 8,000 yuan to more than 10,000 yuan, and some show "daily salary of 600 yuan" and "the more you work, the more you get, and there is no upper limit."
The reporter randomly responded to several companies, and the recruiters said that they use vans to deliver goods and work about 8 hours a day. If you ask a few more questions, the recruiter will ask to add you on WeChat or call to chat in detail.
Liu Mei (pseudonym) once applied for a human resources position at a logistics company in Beijing. She told reporters, "As soon as you join the company, the company will give you a piece of paper filled with words. Once you read the words fluently, you can start making phone calls to recruit people." ." She said, "After two phone calls, I felt something was wrong. I felt like I was defrauding people of loans and money... There were three people who joined the company together, and they all left that day."
Sun Yi (pseudonym) also had a similar job. The task was to find people who wanted to be drivers on a recruitment app, "make appointments with them to the store, and they would get a head fee of 10 yuan as long as they came to the store."
The reporter learned that in order to avoid the supervision of recruitment platforms, informal recruiters often use various excuses to request contact via telephone, WeChat, etc. Zhao Yong was also asked for his phone number when applying online, and the other party explained that "I don't log in to the recruitment platform very often, so it is more convenient to leave my phone number."
Many interviewees found that once a logistics company receives a lot of complaints and reports, the boss will cancel the company and reopen it with a different name and location.
Sun Yi has voluntarily resigned. She has seen many drivers come to the company to ask for explanations, and she cannot bear the psychological pressure. She talked about the scene at work at that time, "For half a month, the police came to the door and said that someone reported a fraud. Then the company changed its office."
After Zhao Yong successfully applied for the job, a company called "Zhongshan Guzhen Yueyunteng New Energy Technology Service Department" issued an employment certificate for him. The company that signed the vehicle deposit contract and custody service contract with Zhao Yong is called "Guangzhou Zhifu Excellence New Energy Technology Co., Ltd." The reporter saw on the "Tianyancha" App that both companies have been canceled and have existed for 2-3 years.
The reporter tried to call the heads of several logistics companies, but was unable to get through or was prompted to have an empty number. A person in charge answered the phone, learned about the interview request, said he was in the hospital, and hung up the phone.
Lin Dongyuan applied for a truck driver job in Foshan, Guangdong in March 2021 and paid a "deposit" of 2,500 yuan to the logistics company. The payment screenshot provided by Lin Dongyuan shows that the payee merchant is "Guangdong-Foshan Transportation (Foshan) Co., Ltd." and the payment icon displays "Loading." Lin Dongyuan later checked the company's industrial and commercial information and found that the company had been canceled more than a month before he applied for the job, and the "Loading La" company was only registered after that.
Lin Dongyuan requested to return the car to the logistics company, and the logistics company agreed to sign a custody service agreement with him, and the company would pay rent to Lin. One year after the agreement was signed, the company's staff stated that the company would close down and would transfer Lin Dongyuan's vehicles to another logistics company. But Lin Dongyuan discovered that the financial staff who transferred money to him every month was still the same person, and the company leaders had not changed.
The reporter's investigation revealed that the executive directors of Guangzhou Zhifu Excellence New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., which signed the agreement with Zhao Yong, and Guangdong-Foshan Transportation (Foshan) Co., Ltd., which collected Lin Dongyuan's "deposit", are both Zhuo. Zhuo has served as a senior executive of 8 companies, 6 of which have been cancelled, and many companies have been involved in vehicle rental contract disputes.
How to take the road of legal rights protection
Among the drivers who fell into the trap of "applying for a job instead of buying a car", Hubei driver Hu Zhengzhu is one of the few who sued a logistics company and went to the court for a second instance.
After Hu Zhengzhu bought the car, he worked hard for several months and found that his income was far from what the logistics company promised, and he needed to take orders on the freight app himself. He called the 12345 hotline several times to complain about the logistics company.
In the copy of the inquiry and investigation record of the Market Supervision Bureau provided by Hu Zhengzhu, the reporter saw that on April 19, 2023, two law enforcement officers from the Market Supervision and Administration Bureau of Wujiagang District, Yichang City, Hubei Province launched an attack on the person in charge of Yichang Saiyang Logistics Company. Ask for a survey. The person in charge of the logistics company admitted that the company has had business dealings with companies such as JD Logistics and Hema Fresh, but there is no cooperative relationship and no warehouse. "Our company is not actually engaged in cargo transportation."
The investigator asked: "Where does your company get its order dispatch business? Is it your company's self-operated business?"
Answer: "Our company has no self-operated business. We obtain logistics information through freight platforms such as Huolala, Yunmanman, and Kuaigou, and we then distribute it to them."
The investigator asked: "What is your company's main source of income?"
Answer: "When a driver applies for a job and needs to buy a car, we help him buy the car on his behalf. Our company earns the difference. The 4S store pays the corresponding difference in car purchase to ×× company, which then pays it to our company."
When he first applied for the job, in order to reassure Hu Zhengzhu, the logistics company signed a minimum guarantee agreement with him, promising that "the net income from the supply business will not be less than 150,000 per year." But there are no punitive clauses for breach of contract.
Hu Zhengzhu sued the logistics company to the People's Court of Wujiagang District, Yichang City, Hubei Province, demanding that the aforementioned minimum guarantee agreement be terminated and that the logistics company compensate him for various economic losses. However, the court rejected his appeals. In December 2023, the Intermediate People's Court of Yichang City, Hubei Province made a second-instance judgment and agreed to terminate the minimum guarantee agreement and did not support Hu Zhengzhu's other claims. In order to sue the logistics company, Hu Zhengzhu spent nearly 20,000 yuan in litigation fees and attorney fees.
In the past two years, lawyer Jin Juan has been involved in more than 10 similar cases, and many drivers hope that she will represent them in their cases and sue logistics companies. She found that most people lacked legal awareness and took the recruiter's verbal promises seriously and signed the contract. In addition, these recruitment tactics often have a legal veneer. Some companies record and videotape the entire process of signing a contract. When reviewed in court, the driver has no evidence to prove that he was deceived. There are also financial leasing companies that have taken drivers to court to demand repayment on schedule.
She believes that even if the driver provides evidence, the cost-effectiveness of prosecution is very low. The amount involved is mostly 100,000-150,000 yuan, and litigation costs often require tens of thousands of yuan. Coupled with the long litigation cycle, it is even more difficult for ordinary workers.
“Routines” continue to escalate
In the past two or three years, Zhao Yong has shot hundreds of videos exposing the "high-paying driver recruitment" routine. Many drivers with similar experiences came to him, hoping to tell their experiences of being deceived so that others would not be fooled again.
Zhao Yong found that compared with when he was deceived, the "routine" has changed now. The vehicle he bought before was in his personal name, but now it is in the name of the company, and the company has the right to tow the car away at any time. Zhao Yong knows a young driver who has just graduated from college. He works more than ten hours a day. "The trucks and insurance are all in the company's name, and only the loan belongs to him."
Jin Juan learned about a similar situation: Many people took out loans to buy trucks and found that the name of the logistics company was written on the driving license. Even if the driver has paid off the car loan, it will be difficult to successfully transfer the car to his name. Some companies require drivers to pay another handling fee before transferring ownership. Some companies drive the car to other places when the driver has repaid the loan or is about to repay the loan. Since the car is in the name of the logistics company, it is difficult to recover it even if the driver calls the police.
Zhao Yong said: "Nowadays, financial companies will ask a lot of questions during phone reviews, such as asking whether your car dealership promises you a 'guaranteed supply of goods and high guarantee.' If so, the loan will be suspended. But some people have been brainwashed. According to If the logistics company teaches you the rhetorical answer, the financial company will still lend you money.”
After Lin Dongyuan was deceived, he decided to take up legal weapons. This post-80s generation who had been doing part-time jobs taught himself law. He reported the case to the police on suspicion of fraud at a logistics company. At the end of December last year, he received a receipt from the Public Security Bureau that "the conditions for filing the case are met and the case has been filed for investigation." He is waiting for the result. .
During the interview, the reporter found that the "high-paying recruitment and selling of cars" routine not only involves the aforementioned small trucks, but also involves large trucks, cars, electric bicycles and other models in some areas, with the amount ranging from thousands to hundreds of thousands of yuan. No wait. The reporter also noticed that the prices of vehicles sold by "recruiters" are generally higher than the market price, and some are even 40% higher.
Jin Juan reminded that when signing a contract, you should not listen to the other party's verbal promises, but you must read the contents of the contract clearly before signing. In addition, when looking for a job, job seekers must be vigilant if credit reports and other information related to loan credit are involved.
China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Li Yajuan Source: China Youth Daily