There is a saying that is called".The store is a big bully, and the customer is a big bully”。It means that if the store is large, it will not take customers into account; If customers have money and power, they will also make all kinds of unreasonable demands on the store. Human nature is like this, and there is no exception in ancient and modern China and abroad.
Information asymmetry requires regulation
In the economic market, goods of different utility are exchanged according to their respective **, which is called equivalent exchange. I don't take advantage of you, and you don't rub my oil and water, favors belong to favors, and business belongs to business. But in real life, there are always black-hearted businessmen who are short of money, fake as real, shoddy or substandard products as qualified products, so law enforcement departments need to come forward to manage them. Before March 2018, this management agency was called the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, and later the State Administration for Market Regulation was established to manage it.
Responsibilities of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce:Responsible for the relevant work of market supervision and management and administrative law enforcement, drafting relevant laws and regulations, and formulating rules and policies for industrial and commercial administration.
Responsibilities of the State Administration for Market Regulation:Responsible for the comprehensive supervision and management of the market, responsible for the unified registration of market entities, responsible for organizing and guiding the comprehensive law enforcement of market supervision, and responsible for the unified enforcement of anti-monopoly.
The State Administration for Market Regulation largely continues the functions of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce. Among them, the food safety supervision and management of the circulation link is managed by the newly established State Food and Drug Administration. The original industrial and commercial 12315, the original quality inspection 12365, the original food and drug 12331, the original price supervision 12358, and the original intellectual property 12330** were integrated into 12315** and the national 12315 platform. The 12315 platform covers three major functions: 1. Complaints, when consumers purchase goods or services, they believe that the operator has infringed on the legitimate rights and interests of consumers; 2. Report when violations of market supervision laws and regulations are found; 3. For consultation, it is necessary to understand the relevant laws and regulations of market supervision.
Counterfeiting and combating counterfeiting always lags behind the production and sale of counterfeits, and people will study how to identify and combat counterfeit goods first. Due to professional and information restrictions, it is difficult for the general public to identify counterfeit goods in a timely and effective manner. Many consumers complain about the poor quality of the current goods, even if a small number of consumers find that they are buying counterfeit goods in use, but it is difficult to protect their rights for various reasons, and they can only consider themselves unlucky. Due to the advantages of low cost of counterfeit goods, as well as the consumption habits of consumers who only pay attention to the real and fake, consumers often only make comparisons. ** In a disadvantageous position in the competition, while counterfeit goods are able to sell well, which leads to counterfeit expulsion**, disrupting the social economy, there are all kinds of harm but no benefit.
China's first person to crack down on counterfeiting
Law enforcement officers commute to and from work, but illegal acts occur all the time, so it is more necessary for the masses to supervise and consumers to protect their rights. Article 49 of the Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Act promulgated in 1994 stipulates that if a business operator commits fraud in providing goods or services, it shall, at the request of the consumer, increase the compensation for the losses suffered, and the amount of the increased compensation shall be double the price of the goods purchased by the consumer or the cost of receiving the service. This "refund one compensation one" rule soon became the "sword of Shang Fang" for professional anti-counterfeiters.
In March 1995, 22-year-old Wang Hai bought two pairs of counterfeit Sony headphones in Beijing Longfu Commercial Building, but the counterfeiter refused to refund one and pay one according to the consumer rights and interests. Find the Market Supervision Bureau and get a reply that "the appraisal will wait at least 3 months"; When I found the Sony service point again, the headphones were identified as fake, but the other party said that they would not issue a written proof ......Wang Haixin bought 10 pairs of fake headphones and went to the Dongcheng District Industrial and Commercial Bureau to complain about the sale of fake Longfu Building. With the intervention of the Industrial and Commercial Bureau, Longfu Building agreed to refund one and compensate one for the two pairs of headphones it bought before, but the last ten pairs belonged to "knowing the fake and buying the fake" and did not pay compensation.
The first time he cracked down on counterfeiting, Wang Hai lost money, but gained experience that was more precious than money. In October 1995, after summing up his experience, Wang Hai received a compensation of 1,000 yuan within 50 days through a claim for buying fake goods - ordinary office workers at that time had a monthly salary of only a few hundred yuan. Wang Hai became the first winner of the "Consumer Anti-Counterfeiting Award" set up by the China Consumer Protection Association, and was called "the first person to crack down on counterfeiting in China". Wang Hai has become a celebrity in the fight against counterfeiting, and this year is also known as the "first year of consumer rights protection". Subsequently, Dong Zhihui, Zhang Lei, Zang Jiaping, Ye Guang, Liu Dianlin, Yang Liandi, Zhou Chunjiang, Tong Zongan, Sun Anmin, Liu Yu, Wu Jinwen, Huang Zhihong, Wang Haidong, Huang Pingguo, Xu Dajiang, Zhou Yufu, Liu Ming, Peng Juchong, etc., professional anti-counterfeiters in various provinces and cities across the country continue to emerge.
In 1996, Mr. Wang Hai was rated as a news figure in China and was invited to participate in the first episode of "Tell the Truth" on ** TV station. After Wang Hai became famous, there were many people who were wary of him, and under the sponsorship of Liu Yongxing, chairman of Sichuan Hope Group, Wang Hai established Dahai Business Consultant *** to change personal anti-counterfeiting to anti-counterfeiting enterprises, hired part-time investigators and lawyers, reduced personal appearance, hats, sunglasses, and masks became his standard.
In June 1998, the Clinton couple visited China. At a forum on "Building China in the 21st Century" held in Shanghai, Clinton called Wang Hai "."Protector of Chinese consumers”。In December 1998, at the invitation of ** TV station, Wang Hai, Zhang Ruimin, Wu Jinglian, Li Ning, Wang Shi and other celebrities appeared in the feature film as 20 representatives of China's reform and opening up in the past 20 years. In 1999, Mr. Wang Hai appeared in the second set of TV station "Economic Half Hour" "315" section program, and served as the guest host of the "Weekly Situation" column of CCTV Economic Channel.
In 1995, a reporter once asked him: When facing fakes, do you want to be "Diao Min" or "Shun Min"? It is difficult to say that professional anti-counterfeiting is "Diao Min", but at least he did not choose to be "Shunmin". Wang Hai recalled that in the Chinese consumer market at the beginning, the counterfeiting model was mainly to imitate big brands and famous brands. His company not only helps individuals fight counterfeit claims, but also checks counterfeit goods for enterprises, and the business volume of the two is basically half open, and the latter accounts for the majority of profits. Wang Hai summed up a set of strategies:Either fight with social benefits or fight with economic benefits, and it is better to have both.
In Wang Hai's eyes, it is not difficult to crack down on counterfeiting from beginning to end. For example, to help enterprises check counterfeiting, enterprises provide clues to counterfeiting, they report to the local regulatory authorities, and then send investigators to assist law enforcement with law enforcement officers to the corresponding location, shoot **, fix evidence, and then take legal action, or negotiate compensation with the counterfeiter, or go to court. Some people often accuse Wang Hai of impure motives for fighting counterfeits and making profits. From 1999 to 2000, Wang Hai experienced the Tianjin Incident and the Nanning Turmoil. In 2000, Wang Hai heard about Jincheng Wire for the first time, and the whistleblower detailed how poor the company's product quality was in **, and invited Wang Hai to fight counterfeiting and defend the rights of consumers. After collecting information, buying goods, and returning to Beijing, he sued and reported the company. The anti-counterfeiting company sent people to Beijing several times to negotiate with Wang Hai, and threw him a total of 100,000 yuan, Wang Hai felt that the money was too little, at least 1.8 million yuan, and continued to sue. This obviously does not conform to the "rules of the rivers and lakes" and angers the other party. The recording of Wang Hai shouting 1 million yuan for Jincheng wire in ** was also shaken out at a press conference held by the company a few days later.
According to Wang Hai, it is "normal" to negotiate and settle the sky-high price out of court. In fact, Wang Hai has always opposed the use of public welfare to advertise counterfeiting. “Departmental anti-counterfeiting is the function of the department, and they are the embodiment of 'justice'”。The fight against counterfeiting has nothing to do with justice, nor does it have anything to do with blackmail, it is just a legal game between the counterfeiter and the beaten! After the Jinmen incident, Wang Hai did not relent, but continued to look for more evidence of Jincheng wire. went to Xi'an and Shenzhen successively, and the exhausting itinerary made Wang Hai explode after arriving in Nanning, "At that time, the main thing was to drink too much." ”
Wang Hai smashed the hotel bar and the desk of the manager on duty in Nanning, and it was he who took the initiative to call the police and was taken to the police station. Wang Hai felt that the police had a bad attitude, and always pressed him to ask him about the purpose of coming to Nanning, and asked him to provide friends who could prove his identity. Wang Hai was furious, smashed the window glass of the police station, kicked the office door, and got into a physical altercation with several police officers. Friends rushed to the police station, and after paying a lot of damages, Wang Hai was sent to a psychiatric hospital for a week. Feeling that ** is not always on his side, Wang Hai withdrew from the whirlpool of **, and turned more to accept the entrustment of enterprises to engage in the protection of intellectual property rights to fight counterfeiting, collect evidence, report to the police or be sued by the entrusting party, and he was more invisible behind the scenes, no longer showing his head (in 2003, Wang Tiezhuang, the deputy general manager of Jincheng Company, who produced and sold fake and shoddy wires, has been detained in Dalian City Detention Center by the Dalian Public Security Organ, and its person in charge Wang Zhongqiu has been wanted).
They only see the annual income of the anti-counterfeiter, but they do not see the monthly income of more than 100 million
It wasn't until 2010 that Wang Hai returned to the public eye with two lawsuits. He targeted Kingsoft Drug Bully and Jieshibang, and sued Kingsoft Drug Tyrant distributors with false propaganda, accusing them of discriminating against and deceiving Chinese consumers; Then he sued Jieshibang condom in Guangzhou for fictitious British blood, and sued Wuhan Jieshibang sanitary products in Beijing for "**fraud" I can't remember the final results of these two cases, but Wang Hai's understanding of anti-counterfeiting has risen to a new height, and he already has a strong team of lawyers behind him, every time he issues a statement, every unannounced visit to collect evidence, every prosecution, every report, a strong team of lawyers will start from the legitimacy of every detail, to avoid the legal problems that lead to the anti-counterfeiting.
Provide anti-counterfeiting services for ** departments.
For example, we cooperate with the Tobacco Monopoly Bureau to crack down on counterfeit cigarette manufacturers, and the Tobacco Monopoly Bureau will give us rewards, cooperate with the first company to supervise the projects in the public bidding, crack down on inferior products, and so on. ”
Beijing counterfeit cigarette nest case.
In 2000, Wang Hai assisted the Chaoyang Tobacco Bureau in Beijing to ban Beijing's largest counterfeit cigarette den, with a case value of 2.8 million.
Zhejiang fake valve case.
In 2001, Wang Hai assisted the Zhejiang Technical Supervision Bureau to ban the country's largest fake valve case, with a value of more than 4 million.
Fight counterfeiting for business customers.
A pharmaceutical company found that counterfeit products appeared in the market, entrusted them to find them, and knocked down the counterfeiting den. "In this crackdown, the company paid 2 million yuan for the crackdown.
There is also a way to find counterfeiters, find evidence to prosecute, and in the end, the company does not want to damage its reputation and reaches an out-of-court settlement. This model is easy to be questioned as a kind of redirection extortion of the enterprise, so Wang Hai is not willing to talk more about "the procedure is legal, and it is generally negotiated by the lawyer team to reach a settlement." ”
In Wang Hai's view, professional anti-counterfeiters like him are restricting enterprises and forcing quality upgrades, rather than destroying the business environment and increasing the burden on enterprises. At present, Wang Hai has 4 companies focusing on anti-counterfeiting, and a testing company with more than 20 people. The anti-counterfeiting and rights protection cases handled by the company every year "may have thousands of cases a year according to the number of consumers." In terms of type, there are about 180 cases a year."
Wang Hai said that he also has two public welfare projects, one is Wang Hai**, which provides consultation for consumer rights protection and even helps consumers fight lawsuits. The other is the Center for Harmonious Community Development, in collaboration with Professor Mao Shoulong and Professor Chen Youhong of the Chinese University of China, which has been working for 13 years to explore a community governance model suitable for China's development. “
Wang Hai talked about a very in-depth point of view, China is the best regulated enterprise, which leads to enterprises are good at running relationships, playing side balls, and making profits with low ** and industry standards. At present, the development of China's enterprise organizations is relatively rapid, such as various chambers of commerce, industry organizations, associations, etc., and even many entrepreneurs have become deputies to the National People's Congress, so that enterprises have more and more organizational resources and the right to speak. However, consumers have nothing, and it is difficult for consumers' ideas and opinions to be written into the law and industry standards when legislating, which is needed."Establish an organization that is equal to industry associations, such as consumer unions, and use the organization-to-organization model to check and balance the standard-setters, so as to truly protect consumers.
In Wang Hai's view, it is necessary to fundamentally change the problem of difficulty in protecting consumers' rights, and also fundamentally change the state's supervision model for product quality and food safety. He said that in developed countries, to ensure food safety, the product quality model is not a regulatory model, but a game model: people from all walks of life have organizations that represent interests, and through the game of all parties, they can avoid the introduction of unreasonable laws and regulations and the circulation of counterfeit and shoddy goods in the market.
Since the crackdown on counterfeiting, Wang Hai has a feeling that the counterfeiting and shoddy fraud in the market is being updated and iterative, and it has also appeared in new industrial fields. "In the past, it may have been a serious problem of counterfeiting, but now counterfeiting still exists, and there are more and more frauds, and it is already pervasive. ”
For example, if the molecular formula of an illegal addition is slightly changed in an aphrodisiac drug, it will be difficult to detect it by the standard detection method promulgated by the state. He feels that the supervision and technology of the ** department have not improved much compared with a few decades ago. Cracking down on counterfeiting is becoming difficult for ordinary consumers and even law enforcement agencies; But for professional anti-counterfeiting teams, things are getting simpler. So in 2022, Wang Hai launched his own testing laboratory for anti-counterfeiting.
In the past, most of Wang Hai's companies were in the business of helping enterprises to check counterfeits, but in recent years, the proportion of businesses helping individuals to buy fake claims has increased. The reason is simple, according to the current food safety law, in addition to claiming compensation for losses, consumers can also demand compensation of ten times the price or three times the loss from the producer or operator for the production of food that does not meet food safety standards or the operation of food that does not meet food safety standards. Whether the consumer entrusts Wang Hai's team to negotiate or sue, the compensation obtained will be divided into five or five in principle. Wang Hai also conformed to this trend and entered the anti-counterfeiting work of live broadcasting, and repeatedly clashed with well-known anchors such as Simba, "Brother Xiaoyang", and Li Jiaqi.
Wang Hai used the sentence "The bird's nest in Simba's live broadcast room is sugar water" to tear open the fig leaf of live broadcasting. On December 27, 2020, the Guangzhou Market Supervision Bureau issued a fine of 900,000 yuan to Simba's company. In Wang Hai's view, the biggest problem in today's live broadcast is the "separation of delivery and delivery", and the quality of the goods displayed in the live broadcast room is not necessarily the quality of the goods sent by the shipper. In addition, if the live broadcast is not recorded, the evidence may be lost. It's just that the anti-counterfeiting strategy has not changed: "trace back to the source and verify the authenticity".
With the improvement of the law, the protection of intellectual property rights, and the strengthening of the awareness of the whole people to fight counterfeiting, is there still room for counterfeit goods to survive, and is there still a need for the profession of "anti-counterfeiter"? As far as the eye can see, there are potholes everywhere and leeks everywhere, and "the production and sale of counterfeits have not decreased at all." The fact that some large companies dare to exaggerate the utility of their products in China is riddled with loopholes is rooted in China's imperfect legal environment. Only by raising the threshold for violating the law and reducing the cost of rights protection can we fundamentally deter violators.