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In recent years, gyms, hairdressers, education and training institutions and other fields frequently appear the phenomenon of "running away". Some institutions let consumers recharge a large amount of money in advance. After "running away", many consumers could not refund their fees, resulting in various disputes. Behind the chaos, there are a lot of "professional closed shop people" who are fuelling the flames.
A few days ago, the People's Court of Fengtai District, Beijing, concluded a dispute involving the liquidation responsibility of "professional store closers". In 2023, after Xue, the "professional closed shop person", took over a yoga shop, he maliciously cancelled the company, resulting in the plaintiff Wang's membership card remaining 8000 yuan, which could not be consumed. Finally, the court decided that Xue should bear civil liability for compensation.
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"Professional Store Closers" Malicious Cancellation of the Company
Since 2021, the plaintiff Wang has exercised in the yoga shop, and has recharged and bought classes in the shop for many times. One day in October 2023, Wang found that he could not make an appointment on the small program, and no one replied when contacting customer service. He went to the store to check, and found that the door was locked.
Wang contacted other members of the store and was told that the company to which the store belonged had been cancelled half a month ago, and the shareholder and legal representative had also been changed before the cancellation.
Other members showed Xue's WeChat circle of friends, the new legal representative, to her, and multiple messages showed: "Dead customers activate to make achievements, bosses who want to cooperate talk about me in private, let dead customers in your store come to the store to spend money" "Buy beauty, hairdressing and health care members at a high price (because your store is no longer operating for some reason, your members can help you consume debt) All of Beijing can ".
Wang realized that the yoga shop had run away and he met a "professional closed shop person". Since she still had more than 8000 yuan to spend in the yoga shop, she sued Xue, the legal representative of Jiepan Company, to the People's Court of Fengtai District, Beijing, to claim compensation for the unspent amount in her membership card.
The court found out after hearing that the closed yoga shop was a shop under the name of company A, and the legal representative and sole shareholder before that was Liu.
On September 13, 2023, Mr. Liu signed a transfer agreement with Mr. Xue, transferring 100% of the equity of Company A to Mr. Xue. On September 14, 2023, Mr. Xue was changed to the legal representative and sole shareholder of Company A. On September 28, 2023, Company A applied for cancellation. The Liquidation Report in the cancellation materials shows that: "1. The creditor's rights and debts have been cleared up; 2. All taxes and employee salaries have been settled; 3. The cancellation announcement has been published in the newspaper on July 29, 2023."
Xue said in court that there were about 200 yoga shop members, about 400000 yuan of which had not been consumed. He transferred the members to a hair salon. Wang said that he signed up for a yoga class and did not agree to go to a hairdresser. Xue acknowledged the cancellation of Company A without establishing a liquidation group, and knew that if there was a false liquidation report for cancellation, the shareholders would be held responsible. However, Mr. Xue refused to accept Mr. Wang's claim for more than 8000 yuan of advance payment not consumed in the yoga shop. "When the plaintiff recharged, I didn't receive the money".
As for the content released by Xue's circle of friends, Xue said that he was "helping others", helping members of yoga shops transfer to hair salons, "doing good deeds".
The court considered that Xue, as the only shareholder of the company, was still making the Liquidation Report after clearing up the creditor's rights and debts, knowing that a large number of members' creditor's rights had not been liquidated, and decided to agree to the contents of the Liquidation Report, agree to the cancellation of the company, and apply to the Fengtai District Municipal Supervision Bureau for cancellation of the company, which was not liquidated according to law, The act of defrauding the company registration authority to cancel the registration of a legal person with a false liquidation report. This behavior led to Wang's failure to declare his creditor's rights in the legal liquidation procedure, which made his creditor's rights unable to be repaid. When Mr. Xue cancelled the company, he also made a Letter of Commitment, promising the authenticity of the submitted materials, so Mr. Wang has the right to claim that Mr. Xue should bear the corresponding liability for the company's debts.
Finally, the court ordered Xue to compensate Wang for the unspent amount in his membership card.
The judge of Beijing Fengtai District People's Court reminded that in this case, Xue, a "professional store closing person", received the store without business ability, which led to the consumer's inability to accept the service normally, which violated the principle of good faith. After taking over the store, without going through the legal liquidation procedure in a short period of time, consumers could not declare their claims in the normal liquidation procedure by cheating the registration authority to cancel the company with false materials. Such behavior has damaged the legitimate rights and interests of many consumers and worsened the business environment, which should be subject to negative evaluation by the law.
"Such 'professional store closers' often make profits by collecting service fees, intermediary fees or transfer of membership fees, which poses a huge legal risk." The judge said that "professional store closers" took over the poorly run company and registered themselves as shareholders and legal representatives of the company. Once the company's operation is abnormal, such as shareholders' false capital contribution, withdrawal of capital or failure to liquidate according to law, shareholders need to bear civil liability for the debts caused by the company's bankruptcy. The legal representative also bears many legal risks, such as credit restriction, high consumption restriction, fines, detention and even criminal liability.
"Debtors" come from all over the world
Chen Yinjiang, deputy secretary-general of the Consumer Protection Law Research Association of the China Law Society, said that the "professional closed shop people" team made "professional debtors" the legal representative of the enterprise and helped the original business owners "renege". How does the "professional closed shop person" help the business "get rid of the golden cicada"? The reporter investigated this.
At the beginning of May, the reporter contacted Zhou Yan (a pseudonym), a "professional shop keeper" who claimed to be able to provide "full professional services". He asked for the business license of the enterprise, saying that he would like to see the store front and the actual business video, and also need to understand the relevant operating data of the enterprise.
Zhou Yan said that at present, the price of the optional store closing scheme is 15% of the enterprise's debt. The service can be started when half of the price is prepaid, and the rest of the money will be paid after the completion. The whole process takes 2-3 months.
After the service starts, the team of "professional store closing personnel" will intervene in the operation of the store closing enterprise. The original legal representative and shareholders of the enterprise need to cooperate with the team, go to the relevant departments to go through various change procedures, and change the legal representative to the candidate arranged in advance by the team. These people are called "professional debtors".
"After the change is completed, you have nothing to do with this enterprise in the legal level. Even if the relevant departments have to be held accountable, they will not be able to catch up with you," Zhou Yan said.
Where do these "professional debtors" come from?
An Li (a pseudonym), the operator of the "professional debtor" team, introduced that they recruited debtors across the country through social software. Most of these people are social idlers who have little ability to repay. They are not afraid to be "old timers". Even if the court decides, there are almost no assets available for enforcement under their names.
An Li said that he has a cooperative relationship with several "professional store closing personnel" teams, "we can get almost half of the revenue from a store closing project". The "debtor" must cooperate with the store closing team to complete a series of processes before the store closing, such as going to work in the enterprise, going to relevant departments to handle the formalities of changing the legal representative, etc.
For the management of these "debtors", we have a set of methods. "In about three months of a closed store project, we will give these" debtors "food and shelter, and even pay five insurances and one fund in the enterprise". The "debtors" in his team come from all over the world. Some want to get rich overnight without going to work, and some are elderly people. These people "have clean credit information, no criminal record, and no large outstanding debts".
An Li said that after the event, the reward given to the "debtor" was about 30% of the amount of the enterprise's debt. "Although some of them were on the court's list of dishonest persons to be executed, they drove a famous car in the village and enjoyed themselves".
"Professional store closing person" will charge 15% of the debt amount of the closed store enterprise. How can "debtor" get 30% of the debt amount of the enterprise?
Zhou Yan said that in addition to the store closing project, these "professional debtor" teams also took the identity information of the debtor to other financial institutions to make loans for cash, and the store closing enterprises were only "a small part" of their liabilities.
Chen Yinjiang said that according to the existing laws and regulations in China, the conditions for changing the legal representative are not complicated. According to Article 12 of the Regulations on the Registration and Administration of Market Entities, the situations that cannot become the legal representative of an enterprise include: no civil capacity or limited civil capacity; Having been sentenced to criminal punishment for corruption, bribery and other acts, and less than 5 years have elapsed since the completion of the sentence; Served as the legal representative of the bankruptcy liquidation company, and less than 3 years have elapsed since the completion of the bankruptcy liquidation; Served as the legal representative of a company whose business license was revoked or ordered to close due to violation of law, and less than 3 years have elapsed since the date of revocation of the business license; Personal debt of a large amount has not been paid off when due.
In his view, "the 'professional debtor' is a loophole in the low threshold of the legal representative registration management review".
Let "professional closed shop people" have no room to drill
Zhou Yan predicted that the team would be able to change the legal representative in more than one month and complete various procedures. "In the whole process of closing the store, the most unskilled part is to find a" professional debtor ".".
After the change of the legal representative of the closed store enterprise, the routine of Zhou Yan's team is, "In the next month, you should do another wave of recharge activities, try hard to sell classes and persuade parents to save". The closing team will provide a special third-party account for the enterprise. The original legal representative is still doing the recharge activity, but from the book and contract, it has nothing to do with it.
After the amount of money has reached the predetermined amount, they will close the shop overnight and start the follow-up work.
"Professional things are left to professional people." Zhou Yan said that his store closing team is very professional, "it can ensure that there is no worry about future care". Aftercare services include comforting customers after the store is closed, pretending to provide customers with a refund or store transfer scheme, delaying time, and even "cross dressing" to become rights protection customers.
"We have done several orders before, and the lawyers in the rights protection group are all arranged by us, so we usually can't go to the stage of prosecution." Zhou Yan said that the team has rich experience in dealing with rights protection customers, and can rely on "dragging" to make customers lose patience, "playing is a psychological game".
"The 'elimination method' has an impact, so we should hurry up." At the beginning of May, Zhou Yan sent a message to reporters urging that if we want to find them to "close the store", we'd better finish it before July.
Some industry experts pointed out that they should revise and improve the laws and regulations to make them empty.
The Regulations for the Implementation of the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Consumers' Rights and Interests was promulgated on March 15 and will come into force on July 1. It stipulates that if an operator who provides goods or services in the form of receiving advance payment has significant business risks that may affect the normal provision of goods or services by the operator in accordance with the contract or trading habits, the advance payment shall be stopped. If the prepayment operator has the behavior of fleeing for money, the relevant administrative department shall order it to make corrections, and may, according to the circumstances, impose a single or concurrent warning, confiscate the illegal income, and impose a fine of not less than one time but not more than 10 times the illegal income, or impose a fine of not more than 500000 yuan if there is no illegal income; If the circumstances are serious, it shall be ordered to suspend business for rectification and its business license shall be revoked.
China Youth Daily · Intern reporter of China Youth Network Liu Yinheng Chen Xiao Reporter Huang Chong Source: China Youth Daily
