For a long time, there have been a number of incidents in the area of household electricity maintenance — such as hyperbole, vague rates of fees and minor diseases — that have been reported, not only against consumers but also affecting brand credibility。
The consumer is all the more puzzled by the fact that some “liggins” groups impersonate themselves as brand-name official maintenance teams, set up false websites and even opened “400” telephones to confuse consumers, and then defrauded them of high maintenance costs in the form of unsickness, minor illness and even artificial failure。
Recently, the shanghai police removed such an air conditioner repair fraud syndicate from the chain and arrested nine suspects, including website maintenance, telephone service and maintenance personnel, for over $3 million。
Fraud syndicates wear branded work clothes to cheat consumer trust
Behind the case, how to break down household electricity maintenance patterns, further regulate the market order and effectively safeguard consumer rights deserves consideration by management and industry。
You can't fix the fees for official maintenance on the internet
In february 2021, ms. Liu, a citizen, reported to the shanghai city public security bureau, bong hyeon substation, that she had been deceived by brand-name air conditioners。
At that time, ms. Liu's installation of the central air conditioner at her home was suddenly unable to be activated and, as the warranty period had passed, no documents were available for the purchase. She found an online “400” telephone call, which she considered to be the contact of the official brand-seller team. After the electricity contact, the “passenger service” indicated that the workers would be placed in the house for repairs。
The next day, the maintenance worker in the air conditioner branded work suit came to the door. Following a review by the maintenance staff, ms. Liu was informed that the computer master plate of the core air conditioner story needed to be replaced at a price of $10,000。
Ms. Liu was reassured by the fact that the air conditioners had cost more than 70,000 new air conditioners and that the other party had claimed to be a branding authority, official maintenance, and had paid for it without on-site testing. It was not expected that the air conditioners would not be properly activated at the time of their subsequent use, that the maintenance staff would no longer be in contact and that the incident would be reported to the local police station。
On the basis of ms. Liu's comments, the police contacted the branded air conditioner company and found that ms. Liu's maintenance records were not available on the regular after-sale team, that telephone calls were searched on the internet and that there was no real official customer service call。
In fact, ms. Liu's experience is not an example. The police conducted a clean-up analysis of the record of complaints from the branded air conditioner company and the related city-wide police situation, and found dozens of similar service complaints and disputes, “all of which were reported online for searching telephone calls due to air conditioner failure and warranty period, followed by complaints of excessive maintenance costs and ineffective maintenance”
The civilian police visited the relevant complainants and the police on a case-by-case basis, accompanied by specialized engineers arranged by air conditioners to conduct simultaneous inspections of air conditioners。
According to the interviewees, when the maintenance workers came to the door, they generally raised the need to replace the main parts of air conditioners, such as main panels, electric appliances, and to report high maintenance costs. However, the inspection by the professional engineers revealed that the physical maintenance of the air conditioners did not correspond to the description of the so-called maintenance workers, either at all or without the marks of repair or the replacement of spare parts。
“many of the interviewees did not realize that they had made false calls or that they had been deceived, but merely complained to air conditioners because they felt that maintenance costs were more expensive and did not work well.” the deputy chief of the criminal investigation division of the shanghai city public security bureau, bong hyen, said that he was not a member of the police force。
The police determined that there was a fraud ring behind this。
The fake website was promoted by a search platform, and the fraud syndicate had been cheating 3 million in two years
On the basis of extensive investigations carried out in the preceding period, between september and november of last year, the bong-hyun police arrested six suspects in various parts of the city, including shao-i, wang-i, wu-i and huang-i. In their places of residence and transport, the police seized work clothes with well-known branded air conditioners logos, false post-sale service work papers and a large amount of air conditioners repair and maintenance parts, tools, documents and consumables。
There are plenty of maintenance tools in the suspect's car
“this group of suspects is a line maintenance worker operating in shanghai and does not possess specialized maintenance skills.” xu wei feng explained that the fraud syndicate also had dedicated website maintenance and telephone service personnel. Following a follow-up investigation, in mid-january this year three suspects, zhao, deng and hu, were arrested by the police in the city of rechan, jiangxi province. As a result, the air conditioner repair fraud syndicate was destroyed through the chain。
According to the police, since 2020, zhao, deng and hu three suspects have set up a number of websites for post-sale maintenance services and, using forged brand name company authorizations, have been recommended by search platforms to enable clients to first see these false websites when searching for the relevant keywords。
At the same time, they have registered “400” telephone contact numbers, which are close to official customer service calls, further misleading consumers to think they are the official after-sales service team of the brand. Following their preparations, the three men recruited a number of maintenance workers throughout the country to form an underground maintenance team。
The group also designed a set of words modelled on the regular service team. Upon receipt of a call from the consumer, the person who served as a customer on the telephone will have detailed background information on the type of equipment that the other party is required to report, the breakdown and the address of residence. “looks like a formal service process, in fact they use this information to judge the financial situation of the victim.” xu wei-fung stated that when the underline maintenance team comes to the door, high maintenance costs will be defrauded in the form of unsick repairs, minor repairs and even human faults。
Two on the right are brand-new parts, two on the left are old parts used by the suspect
According to the police, the group was suspected of fraud amounting to over $3 million. At present, four suspects in one category have been arrested by the police in accordance with the law on suspicion of fraud, and five suspects in another category have been subjected to criminal coercive measures in accordance with the law。
There's a lot of damage to household electricity maintenance
Behind this fraud case, which was detected by the shanghai police, was also exposed to the long-standing disruptions in the electrical maintenance industry. What are the reasons for this? What should be done by all parties
“the tumultuous nature of the domestic electrical maintenance industry is rooted in the problematic pattern of profit-making after-sale services.” one practitioner noted that while many large brands of household electricity have established their own after-sale outlets in the region and have their own after-sale teams to take over after-sale services, in practice many after-sales are done through outsourcing cooperation, with few after-sale sites that are truly directly controlled by enterprises。
The industry informed journalists that, in comparison to production and sales, a number of power producers invest less in after-sale services for cost reasons, thus relying more on a large number of third-party repairers, couples'stores and individual traders, resulting in a relative lag in services and a lack of business performance。
In particular, the reason why consumers are repeatedly caught in a maintenance trap is that, according to the industry, “it is fundamentally asymmetrical”. He indicated that some maintenance workers had difficulty understanding technical professional names and earned excessive profits under information asymmetries. There are also irregular personnel who use minor diseases, major repairs, high prices for internal products, etc., to tie up sales of unknown quality。
“what consumers really need is more standard and regulated post-sales service security.” industry argue that for branding enterprises, it is necessary to change the loose relationship between the immediate firm and the contractor and to establish rigorous service provider selection criteria, service standards and oversight mechanisms to ensure the quality of post-sale services。
It was also noted that as an important element in regulating the domestic electricity and electricity industry, such sectors as market regulation should effectively perform regulatory and supervisory functions, expedite the establishment of industry access mechanisms for servicing and servicing enterprises, improve the skills identification criteria for practitioners, provide risk warning to enterprises and personnel involved in consumer disputes and complaints, and effectively safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of consumers。
In fact, as early as 2014, in shanghai, there was a requirement for household electricity maintenance service providers to be licensed and licensed and to be popular with the public. However, some unlicensed maintenance workers remain in the industry owing to the high mobility of practitioners and the high demand for maintenance on the market. In recent years, however, there have also been cases of poor scrutiny of personnel information, discrepancies between platform personnel and actual personnel, as well as consumer disputes and complaints。
“as consumers, there is also a need to raise awareness of the need to properly preserve documents such as domestic appliances, vouchers for the purchase of electronic equipment, instructions or security cards, so that official security calls on documents can be made at the time of the request. If the documents are indeed missing, calls may also be made for telephone calls or direct calls to the customers of the relevant official stores on the main electric power company platform.” industry sources argue that, in selecting a third-party service provider, a fully documented and credible platform and shop should be selected, and that door-to-door maintenance staff should be required to present officially recognized business certificates and carefully verify their identity。
The shanghai police also indicated that citizens who suspected that they had been subjected to domestic electricity fraud could call 110 or report it to the police station。
