This year's Double 11 shopping festival has just passed, and Tmall has achieved another success, with the turnover exceeding 10 billion in 2 minutes 05 seconds and 100 billion in 1 hour 47 minutes, and the turnover of the whole day reaching 213.5 billion yuan, far exceeding the sales performance of previous years. Netizens can not help but sigh: After a year of hard work, finally participated in a project of 100 billion. However, as the transaction volume continues to rise, consumers have reflected that there are problems with the price of goods, and the price of many goods during the Double Eleven is not much different from that on the day. Tmall and some merchants are suspected of price fraud.

The more common forms of price fraud in daily consumption life include fictitious original price, false price, false discount, vague price, inflated price, price discrepancy, such as vague indication of free sale, additional conditions, processing products and other information that affects consumers' purchase decisions, or failure to fulfill price promises, lying about government price limits, lying about cost prices and other behaviors. The reason why the Double 11 shopping festival can be held in full swing so that millions of consumers can not sleep at night, the most attractive part of the event is the deep discount undoubtedly. How to reasonably safeguard their legitimate rights and interests in the Double Eleven shopping Festival and identify the fraud routines of those bad merchants not only requires life experience, but also requires the filling of legal knowledge.

Legal definition of price fraud

According to the Provisions of the National Development and Reform Commission on the Prohibition of Price Fraud (hereinafter referred to as the "Provisions"), price fraud refers to the use of false or misleading price forms or price means by operators to deceive or induce consumers or other operators to transact with them. Merchants take advantage of the information advantage relative to consumers, so that consumers based on the false price form to make the wrong intention to buy goods.

In China and even the world's largest shopping carnival Tmall Double 11, many good and bad merchants are more or less playing the tricks of price fraud, which is mostly with fictitious original prices and false discounts. According to the definition of the Notice of the National Development and Reform Commission on the interpretation of the relevant provisions of the Provisions on the Prohibition of Price Fraud (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"), "fictitious original price" means that the original price marked by the operator in the promotion activities is false or fabricated, and does not exist or has never had a transaction record; "False discount" means that the pre-discount price marked by the operator in the promotion activities or the pre-discount price calculated through the actual transaction price and discount range is higher than the original price. Although the "Notice" is only a normative document of the department, it has certain reference significance in judicial practice.

2. Original price in promotional activities

Whether it is the fictional original price or the false discount can not be wrapped around the premise of "original price", and in the shopping carnival such as Double Eleven, consumers often have a misunderstanding of the original price of goods, and generally believe that the original price of goods is the price marked by the line on the sales page or the price marked on the commodity tag. It should be noted here that the tag price, that is, the ex-factory price, is the reference price of the market circulation customized by the manufacturer or dealer when the goods leave the factory; The crossed price is more complex, its interpretation is entirely in the business, the business will usually be in the sales page to explain the crossed price, the price may be the brand counter price, the commodity tag price, the brand supplier provided by the genuine retail price or the product on the e-commerce platform has shown the sales price. In judicial practice, only when the merchant does not clearly explain the crossed price will be identified as the original price. Therefore, neither the crossing price nor the tag price can be directly identified as the legal original price, and the original price of goods in such promotional activities as Double Eleven has different identification standards.

According to the definition of the "Notice", the "original price" in the promotion activities refers to the operator's transaction within seven days before the promotion of this trading venue, there is the lowest transaction price of the transaction of the instrument; If there is no transaction within the previous seven days, the last transaction price before this promotion is used as the original price; Where operators carry out continuous promotional activities and it is difficult to accurately calculate the profits of a single commodity or service (hereinafter referred to as a commodity) in the first promotional activity, the settlement price of a single commodity in the first promotional activity shall be used as the original price when calculating the next price promotion activity. Therefore, in judicial practice, the definition of the original price of goods during the promotion period has time and transaction limits, and the original price of goods during the promotion period can be calculated.

Consumers' consumption habits are the pursuit of cheap, if the face of their favorite goods are significantly lower than the original price of promotional activities, naturally inevitable impulse to buy, but at this time the original price marked by the business is the real original price of the goods, consumers not only need to wipe their eyes, but also need to have a "number" in mind.

Iii. Compliance suggestions of merchants

Today's consumer market is full of various roles, ordinary consumers, malicious competition peers, professional claimants, e-commerce platform risk control departments, market supervision and administration of law enforcement personnel, coupled with the people's court guarding the last barrier, can be described as layers of containment and supervision. No matter what the purpose of these market players, they make merchants move towards higher compliance standards without looking back.

Take professional claimants as an example, they will browse around to find some target merchants and goods with weak compliance awareness or intention to play the pricing routine, start tracking and recording the price of the target goods on the eve of major promotional activities such as Double 11, and when the time is ripe, they will wantonly buy the goods involved, and demand returns and compensation in the name of price fraud after arrival. At the level of civil liability, according to the relevant provisions of the Contract Law and the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests, the perpetrator of price fraud will bear the punitive liability of "one refund and three compensation". At the level of administrative responsibility, in accordance with the Price Law and the Provisions on Administrative Punishment for Price Violations, the party shall be ordered to correct, confiscate the illegal income and impose a fine of less than 5 times the illegal income; If there are no illegal gains, a fine of not less than 50,000 yuan but not more than 500,000 yuan shall be imposed; If the circumstances are serious, it shall be ordered to suspend business for rectification, or its business license shall be revoked by the administrative department for industry and commerce. If it is true that businesses violate the law, under the attack of professional claimants, whether it is civil liability or administrative punishment liability, it is enough to let large businesses drop a layer of skin, and small businesses may close down.

The author gives the merchant level compliance suggestions: 1. Be careful with "original price" or "factory price", "counter price" and other similar expressions; 2. Pay attention to retain the transaction information before the promotion to prove the source of the original price and the promotion price; 3. If you want to use the crossed price, it should be explained in detail and placed in a prominent position; 4. Label the product discount range after careful calculation.

Fourth, consumers' response ways

In order to prevent becoming a victim of price fraud by bad merchants in the Double Eleven shopping Festival, the author also suggests that consumers do their best to have more awareness of risk control and rights protection.

First, pay attention to and retain the price changes of goods before promotion. After December 2016, Taobao platform canceled the display of recent transaction details on the sales page of goods, Taobao external explanation is to protect the privacy of merchants, but discerning people can see that this has left a better hiding for merchants malicious brushing and price fraud. Consumers should pay attention to keep the price of the goods before the promotion, because if the situation of price fraud occurs later, consumers must initially prove that the merchant's behavior is doubtful.

Second, if the negotiation fails, timely complain to the platform rights protection department or the industry and commerce administration department. After the merchant's price fraud routine, the first step is definitely to negotiate and communicate with the merchant, and pay attention to saving chat records when communicating. Generally speaking, merchants will not easily admit their own fraud facts, if consumers are willing to settle the matter, apply for a refund without reason, if you want to pursue to the end, you can complain to the platform rights protection department, business registration or platform registration of the market supervision and management department, by a third party to mediate or investigate.

If the complaint is not accepted or the fact of price fraud is not found after investigation, and consumers are still convinced that their rights and interests have been violated, you can contact our firm, we will represent you to the people's court on the basis of objective facts, to safeguard your legitimate rights and interests and market fairness and justice.

This document to the terrible and poor hand chopping party and diligent shop owners, I wish you a happy buy, sell big!