● Most near For a period of time, Shared Power Bank has been hot searched many times under the title of "Price Assassin". Many consumers complained in the interview that the rental cost of the shared rechargeable bank is absurdly high; If you want to return it, you can't return it when the store is closed; It's clear that he still keeps withholding fees after paying
● The operating enterprise of the power bank should improve the internal operation mechanism and management system, improve the service quality and consumption experience, and develop a public service flat Reasonable charging rules, smooth after-sales service channels, and let consumers get rental services that match quality and price
● For various problems that may be encountered in the process of using the shared power bank, consumers are advised to choose well-known service providers as far as possible, and carefully check the price, return site and other information before use. If the division of responsibilities is not clear, the evidence shall be preserved in the form of photography, audio recording, video recording, etc. When the customer service personnel cannot solve the problem, they can complain to the Consumer Protection Association, the market supervision and management department and other relevant units
"It's expensive and difficult to use!" This is the comment of Chen Zhengkang, a resident of Qingpu, Shanghai, on the shared charging treasure.
"I remember when the shared power pack first appeared, it could be charged for one hour or two at a cost of 50 cents or one yuan. Now the 'starting charge' is about three or four yuan, and some charging speed is still very slow. When renting, a lot of advertisements jump out of the code scanning." Chen Zhengkang said that now he tries to bring his own power pack when he goes out. "The shared power pack that can be seen everywhere is really 'unbearable'.".
This is not the voice of Chen Zhengkang alone. most near For a period of time, Shared Power Bank has been hot searched many times under the title of "Price Assassin".
Reporter of Legal Daily near A survey conducted in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Anhui and other places on May, found that the price of shared rechargeable treasure has mostly risen to about 3 yuan/hour, and the fees for large business districts and tourist attractions are generally 4 to 6 yuan/hour. At some stations, the price even reaches 9.9 yuan/hour.
During the interview, many consumers complained to the reporter that the rental cost of the shared power bank was outrageous; If you want to return it, you can't return it when the store is closed; It is obvious that the charges have also been deducted... People can't help asking: why is the shared charging treasure that is convenient for the public criticized?
The charging standards before and after the price rises, charging is slow and returning is difficult to scan
A few days ago, the reporter came to Tianjin and flat Binjiang Road Commercial Street, Nankai District Ancient Culture Street, Hedong District Wanda Golden Street, and borrowed 5 shared charging pads from many hospitals, shopping malls, snack bars and other places. The price of these shared power packs ranges from 2.5 yuan to 4 yuan per hour, and the free use time is usually 3 minutes. Those less than 1 hour are charged for 1 hour. Some take 0.5 hour as the pricing unit, such as 2 yuan/0.5 hour.
The reporter interviewed a number of people on the spot, who generally believed that the rental price of the shared power bank was too high and rose too fast.
It is understood that, country In 2021, the Market Supervision and Administration Bureau issued an announcement to curb the price rise in the field of shared consumption. After rectification flat The average rental price is 2.2 yuan to 3.3 yuan/hour, while the prices of popular scenic spots, business districts and stations are mostly higher than the average price.
The price has gone up, but the charging speed has "stalled" or even dropped. In the actual measurement, the reporter found that the charging speed of some power banks was extremely slow, and only about 15% of the electricity was charged to the mobile phone in an hour.
The cost of charging several times with a shared power bank can buy a power bank. Is the price really reasonable? Many consumers have raised such questions.
Chen Yinjiang, deputy secretary-general of the Consumer Protection Law Research Association of the China Law Society, believes that the market competition of the shared rechargeable treasure is relatively sufficient, and the enterprise has the right to set its own price. It is understandable that the price can be adjusted appropriately according to its own operating costs and supply and demand, including the appropriate price increase according to the operating costs.
"But we still have to follow the public flat Principle of legality, honesty and credibility flat Reasonable prices should be clearly marked, and prices should not be raised or colluded, otherwise they will also be regulated by the Price Law and relevant laws and regulations. " Chen Yinjiang said, for example, enterprises sharing power bank colluded with each other and artificially manipulated market prices; Or deliberately spread information about price increases to drive up prices, resulting in too high and too fast rise in the price of the shared power bank market.
On the question of whether the collective price increase is suspected of monopoly, Tang Wei, senior partner of Beijing Yinghe Law Firm, said that it must be determined by the relevant departments. Generally speaking, whether a monopoly is constituted depends on whether the operators of the shared power bank have formed a unified monopoly agreement and used the market support position to focus on combining to limit prices.
In addition to the price rise, the reporter found that it was not easy to return the power bank.
Although there are many rental points for each shared power bank, most of which can be found through apps or applets, these locations are sometimes inaccurate. Some consumers told reporters that some point displays were inaccurate, some supermarkets closed early and could not be returned, and sometimes the machine was still full, the power supply was cut off, and the return system failed. Some people said that they had run 4 points before returning to the shared power bank.
"On one occasion, I borrowed the shared power bank for charging, and soon found that the power of the power bank had already run out. When I returned it, I found that I had been charging all the time. The customer service consultant was told that if I borrowed it, I would pay by the hour." A nearby interviewee complained.
Chen Yinjiang said, "When consumers spend money on renting and renting the service of the power bank, the power bank operator should ensure the normal use and return of the power bank. If it is a problem of the enterprise that causes consumers to fail to use or return the power bank normally, the enterprise should bear the corresponding responsibility, so the increased costs should not be borne by consumers; If the enterprise stipulates that similar expenses should be borne by consumers through standard terms such as user agreement, it obviously increases the responsibility of consumers, reduces or exempts the responsibility of the enterprise itself, which is typical injustice flat Standard terms, also known as "overlord terms", are not legally binding on consumers. "
The reporter also found in the survey that the two rental points of the same brand of rechargeable treasure are less than 100 meters apart, but the rental price is far from the ceiling price. Why is this pricing? The reporter inquired about the customer service, but the other side didn't give an answer.
When using a charging bank called "Street Power", the reporter found that the charging rule was 3 yuan/hour when clearly borrowing, with a ceiling of 30 yuan every 24 hours and a total ceiling of 99 yuan; However, the page charging rule is changed to 4 yuan/hour when returning, with a ceiling of 98 yuan every 24 hours and a total ceiling of 99 yuan. The reporter borrowed it for 6 hours and charged 24 yuan.
The reporter noticed that such changes in the billing rules before and after code scanning were not unique.
The relevant person in charge of the Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Commission told the reporter that clearly marking the price, fully informing, honesty and credibility are the minimum obligations and principles that operators should abide by, and also respect the rights and interests of consumers. The situation that the price before and after scanning the code and the ceiling price become higher is suspected of infringing consumers' right to know flat Trading rights and other legal rights and interests.
Pop up window and push fake ads to induce consumption and collect private information
In the process of investigation, in addition to the rising price of the shared rechargeable treasure, there were countless pop-up ads that impressed the reporter most: the waiting interface and return interface of scanning code to rent the rechargeable treasure, each step of operation will have different ads pop up, at most, there are four different ads on the whole screen, and the operation interface only accounts for one fifth.
In these pop-up ads, there are numerous behaviors such as inducing consumption, false winning, and collecting personal information.
When using a charging bank called "Caller", the reporter found that just after scanning the code, the mobile phone popped up the lottery interface of "charging scratch card, taking away the iPhone 11". After clicking the lottery, the reporter found that he had won the first prize, and the prize was two boxes of white wine. The page information said "you can get it after completing your personal information". After the reporter inputs the name, mobile phone number and address and clicks Submit, a prompt "You have placed an order successfully" pops up on the page.
The customer service told the reporter that after filling in the personal information, it was defaulted that you had purchased successfully. The reason why there was no payment interface was that the goods had not been delivered yet, so you can help the reporter cancel the order for free. The reporter returned to the winning page several times before he found that there was a very small line under the "immediately get it" that said "the price of the land is the price of the fee".
"Pay 29.9 yuan to recharge 100 yuan." Li Xin, a resident of Hefei, Anhui Province, saw such an advertisement pop up on the page when renting a certain type of charging bank.
"I thought I had charged 29.9 yuan and received 100 yuan, but after paying, I asked to download an app flat On the stage, instead of charging RMB 29.9 for RMB 100, you can get RMB 5 and RMB 10 call coupons, with a total value of RMB 30. You can use a 5 yuan call coupon for every 100 yuan recharge, and 10 yuan for every 200 yuan recharge. " Li Xin said angrily that it was clearly a false advertisement that deceived consumers.
"Enter your mobile phone number and receive traffic accident insurance with a maximum coverage of 1 million for free!" Xu Li, from Taizhou, Jiangsu, received such an ad push when using the shared rechargeable bank in July this year.
"Let me fill in a phone number and personal information. I want to try it. If I have to pay for it, I will not do it." Xu Li told reporters that he was still "on the way" - the system has an automatic deduction of more than 100 yuan every month, and he "bought" insurance without knowing it. He asked the insurance company for a refund and the enterprise sharing the power bank for an explanation. He was kicked back and forth.
According to the reporter's actual measurement, when renting each brand's rechargeable bank, the applet will push winning advertisements such as "free phone bill" and "free insurance" to induce users or purchase goods online, or submit personal privacy information. Most of these goods cannot be delivered or their value is far lower than the price, and the winning phone bill cannot be cashed. Users who submitted personal privacy information, Since then, we have frequently received phone messages from product promotion and insurance agents.
The Administrative Provisions on Internet Pop up Information Push Service implemented on September 30 this year proposed that "pop-up advertising information should be identifiable nature Significantly mark 'advertising' and closing sign to ensure that pop-up ads are closed with one click; The third party links, QR codes and other information of malicious diversion jump shall not be displayed in the form of pop-up information push ".
The Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Commission believes that according to the provisions of the Advertising Law that "advertisements shall not contain false or misleading content, and shall not deceive or mislead consumers", and the Personal Information Protection Law that "personal information processors shall be responsible for their personal information processing activities, and take necessary measures to ensure the security of the personal information processed", it is unreasonable to share many pop-up advertisements of PowerBank, Suspected illegal Collect and use consumer personal information, etc Violation illegal activities.
In Chen Yinjiang's opinion, in the pop-up advertising behavior of the rechargeable bank, the operating company of the rechargeable bank is equivalent to the advertising publisher, and has the obligation to review the pop-up advertising. If the pop-up false advertising results in the infringement of consumers' rights and interests, consumers can claim rights from the operating company of the rechargeable bank. If the operating enterprise of the power bank fails to perform the obligation of review, or knows that the false advertisement is still published, resulting in damage to the rights and interests of consumers, it shall bear joint and several liability, and consumers can require it to make compensation in advance.
Formulated by flat Reasonable charging rules, strengthening supervision and promoting compliance operation
According to the statistics of relevant research institutions, the number of users of China's shared power bank is expected to increase from 92 million in 2017 to 755 million in 2025, with an average annual growth rate of 16.93%.
On the one hand, consumers' demand for charging at any time and anywhere is growing stronger, and on the other hand, the current chaos in the industry of sharing power bank is growing. How to solve the problem and provide better user experience for consumers?
The Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Commission believes that the shared power bank has indeed brought some convenience to the vast number of users, but many problems have also emerged due to various reasons, affecting the quality of industry services. To solve these problems, operators, regulators, consumers and other parties need to participate in the joint management and governance.
First of all, service providers, including enterprises, agents, outlets, etc. that share power packs, should perform their main responsibilities, and under no circumstances should they seek commercial benefits at the expense of consumers' legitimate rights and interests. The charging price, charging mode, use method, precautions, etc. shall be clearly marked to ensure openness, transparency, accurate charging, and no arbitrary restriction of consumers' rights or shifting of responsibility risks; Explicit consumer complaint feedback channels in outlets or software interfaces to improve the efficiency of consumer dispute resolution; Rationally plan the business model, optimize the layout of offline machines, and facilitate consumers to borrow and return; Perfect the network technical support and provide reliable and safe leasing services.
Secondly, as a regulatory authority, it should urge the operator of shared power bank to implement Relevant obligations and responsibilities, and timely correction or even punishment should be given to illegal and infringing acts to guide enterprises to operate in compliance; Actively handle consumer complaints and reports, and disclose and prompt consumer risks.
In Chen Yinjiang's opinion, when consumers give their money to the operating company of the power bank, the operating company has the responsibility and obligation to provide consumers with complete service of renting and renting the power bank. As for the smooth cooperation between channel providers and agents, it is entirely an internal business problem of enterprises. Operating enterprises should ensure smooth cooperation through internal agreements and internal management and other means to provide consumers with qualified service products.
"The operating enterprise of the power bank should improve its internal operation mechanism and management system, improve its service quality and consumption experience, and formulate a public policy flat Reasonable charging rules, smooth after-sale service channels, and let consumers get charging bank leasing services that match quality and price, so that the industry can get good nature Development. " Chen Yinjiang said.
Tang Wei suggested that consumers should try their best to choose a well-known service provider for various problems they may encounter in the process of using the shared power bank, and carefully check the price, return site and other information before use. If the division of responsibilities is not clear, the evidence shall be preserved in the form of photography, audio recording, video recording, etc. When the customer service personnel cannot solve the problem, they can complain to the Consumer Protection Association, the market supervision and management department and other relevant units, and provide corresponding evidence to safeguard their rights. (See Xi Reporter Zhang Shoukun, reporter Zhao Li)
