In recent years, in order to improve consumers' shopping experience and reduce the cost of protecting their rights, e-commerce platforms have launched "refund-only" services. However, this mechanism has been abused by some consumers to "gather wool", which has brought a lot of business risks to merchants.
Recently, a merchant in Wuhan, Hubei Province encountered such a problem. A customer purchased 4 items worth 1,800 RMB, but after using the "refund only" operation to pick up the delivery, he rejected only 1 of them, picked up the other 3, and then applied for a full refund only. The merchant appealed to the platform to no avail, and could only report to the police.
This is not an isolated case. As refund-only services become the standard on e-commerce platforms, some consumers have begun to take advantage of loopholes and abuse this mechanism. Previously, some consumers placed an order to buy mung bean cake on an online platform, and applied for a "refund only" after signing for it, but the merchant refused when they asked them to return the goods. In the end, the court ordered the consumer to compensate the merchant for the loss of the payment and the lawyer's fee for accessing the file.
For e-commerce platforms, the original intention of the "refund-only" rule is to improve user experience, save social resources, and force merchants to improve the quality of products and services. However, if the rules of the platform are too lax, it will increase the moral hazard in them. Some users abuse the mechanism to maliciously refund money, which increases the business risk and cost of merchants, and also makes the relationship between users, platforms and merchants more tense.
In this regard, legal experts suggest that the platform must build a clear and strict review system, provide a complaint channel for merchants, find a balance between safeguarding the interests of consumers and protecting the interests of merchants, and avoid the "wool party" abusing the mechanism to infringe on the rights and interests of merchants. For merchants, improving the quality of their products is the key, and they should also actively use the platform's grievance mechanism to protect their own rights and interests. At the same time, consumers should also uphold the principle of good faith and exercise their rights legally and reasonably. You can't blindly use the rule to "get wool" with the luck that the product value is small and the merchant will not sue, otherwise you will need to bear the liability for breach of contract at least and may also constitute the crime of embezzlement or fraud.