Chapter 179: Refund Tenfold, Fine of 8.38 Million! (Begging for Monthly Tickets)

The next day at dawn, Chen Yansen rose from bed feeling refreshed and clear-headed.

The floor was strewn with clothes, along with cosplay outfits of Wolverine, Black Widow, Hulk, and Spider-Man; that Black Widow outfit was split open from the belly, the tear running all the way up to the neck.

Chen Yansen walked barefoot to the doorway, lay down on the sofa, and gazed at a wisp of morning light outside the window, which gradually turned fiery red and scorching, lighting up the grey-white sky.

"Didn't read any books today?"

Song Yuncheng, wrapped in a bath towel, walked over slowly and asked.

"Didn't I already flip through books all night last night?" Chen Yansen took Song Yuncheng's hand, held it in his palm and gently stroked it, replying with a mischievous grin.

Song Yuncheng was stunned at first, then caught on, her pretty face flushing red.

Under Chen Yansen's influence, she had gone from being completely clueless about these odd bits of knowledge at the start to gradually knowing more and more.

"The calluses are all gone now, it's smooth." Chen Yansen squeezed Song Yuncheng's hand and said softly.

"Master taught me well, that's how I gained the ability to earn money; otherwise, relying only on the part-time income from the cafeteria and the library, I couldn't even afford my brother's medical bills."

Song Yuncheng said sincerely, her gaze earnest.

Apart from being a bit of a scumbag in romance, Chen Yansen had always treated her quite well, personally training her into a Key Account Director.

And the reason she could hold that position steady was her outstanding performance; even in business development, she was a standout.

"I don't like being called Master."

Chen Yansen frowned; that form of address always reminded him of Ye Qiuping.

"But what if I like it?" Song Yuncheng asked with a smile.

Chen Yansen said nothing, answering with action—he scooped Song Yuncheng up in one arm and headed toward the bathroom.

At the same time.

Suning, Vancl, Dangdang, Letao, and Newegg had all grown interested in joining PinBi.

Although opening flagship stores on PinBi meant diverting traffic to a competing company, they could also ride PinBi's traffic and even poach some of its users.

As e-commerce platform sales climbed steadily, both traditional offline enterprises and existing online platforms were actively seeking external traffic entry points.

Once there was FoxTao, and now there's another one—PinBi.

But the ones who actually took action were only Vancl and Suning!

At this point, Suning's e-commerce had just transformed from 3C appliance retail to a comprehensive e-commerce platform, but digital and home appliances still made up the highest share of its revenue.

Upon learning of JD's sales performance on PinBi, they immediately had their marketing department contact PinBi's business staff to discuss joining matters.

When Chen Yansen returned to the tech park, the Key Account Business Development Department handed up three approved contracts in one go—Suning, Redbaby, and Meibaobao respectively.

Felt like they were all here to fleece the platform!

Chen Yansen didn't mind, approving them all; in PinBi's initial stage, he wasn't turning away this kind of Vertical category products e-commerce site.

Even if they were just tossed into the product pool with only a search entry point opened, it would still add a revenue channel.

Any additional exposure would require paying up.

After handling these matters, Chen Yansen unhurriedly called Chen Nian back; after hearing Chen Nian's request, he agreed readily.

He hadn't even rejected a site like Meibaobao, so naturally he wouldn't reject Vancl.

Besides, he knew clearly that Vancl was under heavy inventory pressure at this point, giving PinBi the upper hand in pricing negotiations.

In addition, beyond platform onboarding, a large number of brands had also submitted applications to join, including Konka, Supor major appliances, Gree, HP, Zara, and Handu Yishe, etc. —mostly A-tier brands, numbering over 600.

Just from the deposits alone, finance had collected over a hundred million yuan.

Just as Chen Yansen was checking the platform data, the customer service department on the second floor was in an uproar.

"Brother Bo, the visitor intake is way too high, we can't handle it at all! It's all complaints!"

Zhu Xiaopeng walked up to Meng Xibo and asked anxiously.

"How many complaint tickets in total?" Meng Xibo struggled to steady his emotions.

"So far it's 278, but most of the visitors coming in now are complaining about that Crispy Pepper Gong Cai from Xiangweifang—issues with expired products, worn barcodes, or moldy goods."

Zhu Xiaopeng summarized briefly.

"Let's go! Come with me to find Old Fei!"

Meng Xibo's scalp went numb the moment he heard complaints had reached over two hundred, and he decided on the spot.

Fei Qiwen was the Customer Service Department Director, and also the workplace mentor Chen Yansen had found for the two of them.

Although Meng Xibo was sharp and had been tempered by a year of project experience at FoxTao, he was still too green when it came to handling crisis incidents and dealing with market supervision associations.

Chen Yansen didn't feel comfortable handing the customer department over to the two of them, which was why he'd poached a customer service director from Taobao.

The two didn't dare delay, hurrying off toward Fei Qiwen's location.

"Old Fei, trouble—there's a problem with a product from Double Twelve; our initial judgment is the merchant passed off inferior goods as good ones, but the method was too crude and got caught by users."

Meng Xibo explained as he went, gesturing for Zhu Xiaopeng to show the photo and video evidence provided by users.

"First freeze the merchant's payment, have customer service soothe the complaining users, try them with a refund-three-times compensation plan first; if users' intent to complain is strong, then go refund-ten-times."

Fei Qiwen gave it a cursory glance and made the call on the spot.

In fact, the company had long ago formulated a contingency plan for this kind of situation, but it required him, the customer service director, to make the decision.

"Got it, we'll head back and handle it right away."

Meng Xibo nodded; once he had authorization, he immediately had customer service contact the buyers who had complained that morning, soothing them with the refund-and-compensation policy.

Then, the link for the involved product was sent to the corresponding business development and category teams, and the link was quickly taken down.

Almost at the same time, the boss of Xiangweifang, far away in Sichuan, received an in-platform notification.

Product taken down, payment frozen; the original 100,000 yuan deposit now had only a little over 70,000 left.

Clearly, to handle customer complaints, PinBi had directly deducted compensation from the deposit and deposited it into the buyer's account.

"What's going on? Why can't I even withdraw cash!"

Zhang Minxiao saw what was happening and immediately panicked, calling over operations to handle the withdrawal.

"Boss, the payment has been frozen by the platform. I figure we'll only be able to withdraw it after the customer complaints are dealt with."

The operations guy spread his hands, his face helpless.

He had advised against it back then, when the boss wanted to take last year's batch of old stock, wipe over the production dates with alcohol, and re-spray the ink.

But the boss had been stubborn, banking on luck, mixing new and old stock to sell together. The workers at the warehouse didn't earn much, so they didn't put much heart into the job either.

It was only natural that buyers noticed the ink hadn't been cleaned off properly.

"Dammit, what kind of garbage platform is this! I'm calling the cops!" Zhang Minxiao was so angry he was pacing in circles, cursing nonstop.

The 100,000-yuan deposit was quickly docked by over 30,000.

"Boss, I'll try contacting the platform's customer service first." Seeing the boss's bloodshot eyes, the operations guy hunched his neck and found himself something to do.

Zhang Minxiao nodded and said nothing more.

As for calling the police, he didn't have the guts. If the product had been fine, he wouldn't have been afraid, of course, but he really had mixed the remaining 6,000 bottles of old stock from last year into the orders and sold them off.

Don't be fooled by how fierce he sounded—he was actually shaking inside.

"Hello, I'm an operations staff member from Xiangweifang. May I ask why our store's payment cannot be withdrawn?"

The operations guy asked, knowing full well why.

"Hello, I've looked into it for you. Your store currently has 1,159 after-sales orders, which triggered the platform's early-warning mechanism. You'll need to finish processing all the after-sales tickets before the withdrawal function can be unfrozen."

The customer service rep on the other side of the screen explained slowly.

"You handle it for me!" Zhang Minxiao glanced over, immediately panicked, and jabbed a finger at the operations guy as he spoke.

"Uh, boss, the platform's appeasement policy is refund-one-compensate-three. Should we handle it the same way?"

The operations guy cursed inwardly at the shabby merchant, but on the surface he still wore the look of a worried subordinate looking out for his boss.

The boss was a real dog, but for the sake of making a living, there was nothing he could do but swallow it.

"Refund-one-compensate-three? No way! Tell the store's customer service to tell the buyers we'll give them 10 yuan per order as compensation—get to them before they contact the platform. Send these damn bastards packing!"

Zhang Minxiao shook his head hurriedly at the suggestion.

Refund-one-compensate-three would be killing him. Sure, the food safety law had provisions for it, but he had no intention of paying up.

The operations guy smiled in despair. Running into a boss like this, he was helpless too.

When he relayed the message to the customer service reps, they gave a cold laugh and simply went through the motions. No matter how the users cursed, their line was always the same script: "Leave us a good review and we'll give you a 10-yuan red packet back."

In the end, users whose demands weren't met naturally skipped the merchant's customer service and got in touch with the platform's customer service.

The users immediately felt the gap in service. Just moments ago they'd been half-killed with rage by the merchant's customer service, and now at the platform's customer service, the first thing offered was refund-one-compensate-three. If they showed even the slightest dissatisfaction, the rep would go straight to a tenfold compensation.

Where was the shopping in this? This was clearly financial management!

The original price of three bottles of crispy chili preserved vegetable was 23.9 yuan. Refund-one-compensate-three netted 72 yuan; refund-one-compensate-ten netted 239 yuan.

If the operations guy hadn't taken the listing down, Xiangweifang's store sales might well have climbed another 100,000 by now.

The users were thrilled, but Zhang Minxiao was on the verge of a breakdown!

After the "refund-one-compensate-ten" compensation scheme trended on the hot search, users who'd bought the defective products immediately posted their evidence and demanded tenfold compensation.

Pin-be's customer service was straightforward too—after all, it wasn't their own money being docked. They refunded and paid out very readily.

Before noon struck 12, Xiangweifang's 100,000-yuan deposit had been docked clean, and then the deductions started eating into the payment funds.

Merchants joining Pin-be, upon hearing the news, immediately pulled warehouse staff into a meeting and warned the rank and file: be careful and conscientious when shipping from now on.

They'd also figured out one thing: making money on Pin-be was fast, sure, but losing money was even faster.

Pin-be's practice of freezing payments and docking deposits might look overbearing, but it made plenty of sellers running legitimate businesses feel that on a platform that looked after buyers like this, as long as you sold your goods honestly, you'd never have to worry about making money.

Meanwhile, some merchants who'd been planning to cut corners immediately banded together, @-ed Chen Yansen on Weibo to curse him out, and gave his ancestors eighteen generations a warm round of greetings.

Netizens who didn't know the full story at first really thought Pin-be was being far too overbearing, freezing merchants' payments at will.

But after seeing in the comments section the photos of altered production dates and videos of moldy food posted by buyers who'd received tenfold compensation, they immediately felt Chen Yansen had been far too lenient.

They turned around and started cursing the shabby merchants!

"From now on, when I buy stuff, I'm going to Pin-be! The platform has your back!"

"This Pin-be is solid—when trouble comes, it actually steps up! I heard the merchant was making a fuss about calling the police, but nothing happened for ages, and in the end it was Pin-be's legal team that called the police first!"

"That store owner really got what was coming to him! Didn't he want to call the police? The platform fulfilled his wish in a heartbeat."

Netizens in the comments section chatted away as they weighed in.

Before long, someone even posted the link to Xiangweifang's Taobao store, and a huge crowd of netizens swarmed into Taobao, taunting the merchant's customer service: "Got any more stock? I only eat expired preserved vegetables!"

"Two bottles of the '82 crispy chili preserved vegetable, please—I'll pair it with a Lafite!"

"Garbage merchant, go bankrupt already!"

Some netizens even kept placing and canceling orders, dragging the store's return rate up dozens of times over.

Seeing this, Xiangweifang's operations guy had no choice but to delist all the products.

The next day, the local Market Supervision Association and the Inspection Office stepped in to investigate, and quickly issued a notice saying they would punish Xiangweifang for passing off inferior goods as quality ones.

They also got in touch with the person in charge of Pin-be's customer service to sync up on the handling progress of the incident—after all, it had already trended on the hot search.

Three days later, Xiangweifang had compensated buyers a total of 538,000 yuan, and became the first merchant to have its partnership with Pin-be terminated.

At the same time, Xiangweifang also had to pay Pin-be 100,000 yuan in technical service fees and 200,000 yuan in economic compensation.

Pin-be leveraged this negative incident to make a name for itself overnight in the e-commerce world.

Plenty of users came because of the buzz, downloaded the Pin-be app, and planned to try out the "financial-management-style e-commerce platform" shopping experience.

Pin-be's punishment of Xiangweifang did scare off a wave of merchants with guilty consciences, but more merchants only saw that Xiangweifang had sold over a million yuan in sales within half a month of joining.

As long as you could make money, what was there to fear about fines?

Besides, Pin-be wasn't punishing merchants for no reason at all. Take Xiangweifang's passing-off-inferior-goods behavior—on any platform it would have been heavily punished; Pin-be just handled it more ruthlessly, that's all.

After learning of the handling result, Chen Yansen had HR hire a few more security personnel.

(End of chapter)