In recent years, with the development of the sharing economy and the continuous emergence of business opportunities, the concept of sharing has been widely disseminated, and a large number of Internet rental platforms have emerged. Among them, the mobile phone rental business caters to the needs of many young people through the gimmick of "low monthly rent" through the model of "renting".
Some platforms say that consumers only need to pay for a cup of milk tea every month to have the most advanced or higher-end mobile phones. Attracting consumers to rent in installments with "low monthly rent" actually hides interlocking routines.
Some consumers have reported that the default lease term of most platforms is 1 year or more, and once it is overdue, they must pay a high buyout feeThere are also cases where consumers have encountered violent collections.
Rental mobile phone market.
What are the risks to be wary of?
In November last year, Mr. Li (pseudonym) from Sichuan rented a 99 into a blue mobile phone with 256g memory, the lease period is one year, paid in 12 installments, the first installment only needs to pay 1 yuan, and the next 11 months need to pay 445 per month33 yuan.
The inspection report provided by the merchant (photo provided by the interviewee).
On November 12 this year, the lease expired, and according to the contract, Mr. Li could choose to return the mobile phone or buy it out for another 6,000 yuan. Because the buyout fee was too high, Mr. Li finally chose to return the phone and send it back to the merchant. The express information shows that the merchant has signed for the receipt on November 14. However, after receiving the mobile phone, the merchant did not terminate the contract, but asked Mr. Li to pay a discount fee of nearly 1,000 yuan, or directly buy out the mobile phone.
Mr. Li told reporters: "After the merchant signed, there was an interval of two weeks, and I was sent a machine inspection report, which said that there were some slight scratches and no sound from the speaker. ”
The inspection report provided by this merchant says that the mobile phone is eighty percent new, with slight scratches on the screen, slight aging and slight scratches on the frame, slight aging of the back cover, and silence on the speaker. Mr. Li did not approve of such acceptance results. He said: "It's impossible for the speaker to have no sound, and if there is no sound, ** can't be connected." ”
Before sending out the mobile phone, Mr. Li took a ** bottom, and from **, the phone could not see obvious scratches. The reporter also contacted the customer service staff who connected with Mr. Li many times, but the other party did not give a clear response as of press time.
In addition to the situation of asking for a discount fee when returning it at the expiration date, the problem of ** pipe lock also gives many mobile phone rental users a headache. The so-called *** tube lock, in fact, is a restriction on the user by the merchant, if the user has overdue rent or overdue return of the mobile phone, the mobile phone will be locked.
Consumers' payment records (photo provided by the interviewee).
Mr. Zhang (pseudonym), who lives in Guiyang, told reporters that last month, his rented mobile phone expired, and considering his Xi habits and the storage of data in the mobile phone, he decided to buy out the mobile phone. However, after the buyout, the merchant did not lift the regulatory lock of the mobile phone, but let Mr. Zhang handle it himself.
Mr. Zhang said: "He told me that their platform has been lifted (** pipe lock), and the customer service also said so, but my mobile phone still shows 'supervision'." He now tells me to factory reset my phone, and if it doesn't work, let me flash it. ”
Mr. Zhang said that the rental cost of the phone plus the buyout fee had exceeded the official selling price of the phone in the same period last year.
Mr. Zhang said: "I didn't think about it so much at the time, but in the process of repaying the loan later, I found that I felt cheated on how to spend so much money when I paid it off every month. ”
The reporter searched on the black cat complaint platform with "renting a mobile phone" as a keyword, and found that there were nearly 30,000 complaints, involving a lease increase for a period of time, a buyout much higher than the market price, and a mobile phone found to be a "refurbished machine" and "resource machine" during maintenance, violent collection, etc., and even some users reported that they had rented "stolen goods" and were confiscated.
The leasing plan provided by the platform (reporter Qian Cheng).
On the homepage of the leasing platform with many complaints, the reporter saw the hot rental hot mobile phone recommended by the platform, with a memory of 128g, a lease period of one year, and a total rent of 4243 yuan, paid monthly, if you want to buy it out after expiration, you need to pay the balance of 3545 yuan. According to the lease contract, the rent plus the estimated buyout fee, the arrival price of the mobile phone after one year is 7,788 yuan. The current official price of the phone is 5999 yuan.
In addition, the reporter searched on the platform and found that the acceptance of mobile phones, the pricing of discount fees, liquidated damages and other links are completely determined by the platform and the merchant, and users have almost no effective appeal channels.
to rent ** security risks.
It should be regulated in a timely manner.
Chen Yinjiang, deputy secretary-general of the Consumer Rights Protection Research Association of the China Law Society, pointed out that businesses have the right to set their own rules for business activities, but they must be fair and reasonable, and must not harm consumers' right to fair trade. He suggested that the market supervision department should strengthen the supervision of the Internet consumer finance industry, especially in the "rent-to-rent" model, college students and other young groups have excessive spending, privacy leakage, fraud and other risks, for the industry in violation of laws and regulations, should be timely supervised.
Chen Yinjiang said: "It is a leasing agency, and now there are so many consumer complaints on the Internet, its business model deserves the attention of the relevant departments, and it should be intervened in a timely manner, to find out whether this is a legal and reasonable business behavior, whether there is a hidden security risk, and whether there is a trap that infringes on the rights and interests of consumers." ”
*:* Voice of China.