Chapter 265: 20 Million Snatched Away? Cheng Wei: I'd Rather Have This Traffic

June 10, 11:30 PM.

Market Department Director Hong Jun, R&D Department Director Zhou Xia, and Test Group Director Xie Rui, who lived near the Kuaidi Dache headquarters, immediately rushed to the company upon receiving the risk control alarm SMS notification.

At this moment, Zhang Yuni also realized she had caused a major mess, looking deeply worried.

Typically, for functional modules that have not undergone testing, as long as the issue is detected in time, they can simply be taken offline as quickly as possible.

But after a delay of ten minutes, the number of users participating in the Beijing region had long since exceeded fifteen thousand.

"Why are so many users opening the app late at night!" Zhang Yuni wore a bitter expression; seeing that the Q2 quarter was about to end, not only would her quarterly bonus be gone, but her promotion for the second half of the year was likely in jeopardy.

"What is the situation now?" Hong Jun, the first to arrive, asked Zhang Yuni.

"The event has been hidden first. I have thoroughly checked the red packet distribution, claiming, and usage processes in the test environment, and no bugs appeared; compatibility is also fine, running normally on mainstream phone models, browsers, and operating systems."

From 10 PM to 11 PM, Zhang Yuni did not just sit at her desk in a daze; she first hid the 'Kuaidi Red Packet' event in the production environment, then hurriedly conducted tests.

If both the function and compatibility were normal, her responsibility would be much smaller.

"What is the total amount of red packets distributed, and how many users participated in the event?" Hong Jun continued to ask.

"The duration of the configuration error was 11 minutes and 39 seconds, the total amount was 124,000, the affected users were 15,000, among whom 3,400 were new users." Zhang Yuni replied hurriedly.

"The new user acquisition effect is this good?" Hong Jun paused for a moment, his brow relaxing as the heavy stone pressing on his heart finally lifted.

As long as there were no bugs, the accident level could be downgraded by one rank.

To put it plainly, this matter could be big or small; speaking of it as big, Zhang Yuni violated regulations, causing the company a loss of 124,000 in assets, and dismissal would not be excessive; speaking of it as small, it was merely advancing an event originally scheduled for June 12 by two days.

At this time, Zhou Xia and Xie Rui also rushed over; unable to blame Zhang Yuni, they sat down heavily and immediately started calling for help online to launch comprehensive functional, boundary, and compatibility tests on the 'Kuaidi Red Packet' event.

Gao Qiang, responsible for the Beijing branch business, reported to Cheng Weixing immediately upon receiving the news, then hurriedly rushed to the company.

Fortunately, the risk control system detected the issue in time, preventing too much loss.

As soon as Gao Qiang arrived at the office, he beckoned to Zhang Yuni and pulled her into the conference room.

This incident might have been unintentional, or it might have been deliberate.

In internet business warfare, planting commercial spies in competitor companies is not something that hasn't happened before.

"Director Gao, I'm sorry, this is my problem." Zhang Yuni lowered her head, her face filled with an expression of unease.

Gao Qiang stared straight at Zhang Yuni; the other party looked exhausted, her eyes covered in red bloodshot veins, revealing an expression of nervousness and panic.

"The test environment and the production environment use different backend links; why did you configure them incorrectly?" Gao Qiang demanded coldly.

"The links are different, but the backend UI styles are identical; I logged into both backends simultaneously and didn't notice when switching." Zhang Yuni defended weakly.

Gao Qiang frowned and shouted out the door: "Xie Rui, bring one over."

"Okay, Director Gao, coming right up!" Xie Rui responded, carrying a computer into the conference room.

"Bring up the production environment and the test environment of the system backend separately." Gao Qiang instructed.

Xie Rui clicked a few times, his fingers tapping rapidly on the keyboard; in less than twenty seconds, he had logged into the backends of both the production and test environments in the browser.

Gao Qiang took the computer, stared tightly at the screen, and constantly switched between the production and test environments.

Except for the 'test' suffix added to the link, the page UI styles, including the function menus, were exactly the same, indeed very easy to confuse.

"Alright, I will help you explain to Director Cheng; how it is finally handled still depends on headquarters."

Three minutes later, Gao Qiang stood up, sighed first, and then said helplessly.

He knew clearly in his heart that recently, due to constantly competing with DiDi Dache on subsidy policies, the product team members had not had a day off for two weeks.

Work errors were understandable, but a mistake was a mistake, and punishment was inevitable.

After all, the company's overtime pay was calculated at 1.5 times and 2 times, and not a single cent was withheld.

"Thank you, Director Gao." Zhang Yuni said with deep gratitude.

"Go back and rest first." Gao Qiang waved his hand; the fatigue on the other party's face was not fake.

Zhang Yuni opened her mouth, but swallowed the words before they reached her lips; she wanted to wait for the accident analysis report to come out before getting off work, but she understood it wouldn't be resolved in the short term.

As for going back to rest?

She hadn't thought of it at all; after walking out of the conference room, she went straight to the area where the test group was located and voluntarily joined the testing work.

1 AM.

"Director Gao, the red packet function has no issues; the customer service team is also soothing the users; the current trouble is that the validity period for this batch of red packets is 12 June at midnight."

Hong Jun walked up to Gao Qiang and explained softly.

"Issue a 10 yuan no-threshold ride-hailing coupon to each of the affected users as compensation. Alright, it's getting late, everyone has worked hard, let's get off work first."

Gao Qiang raised his hand to check the time and urged them hurriedly.

"Hong Jun, Xie Rui, Zhou Xia... I'm sorry, I dragged you all into overtime; tomorrow I'll treat everyone to KFC." Zhang Yuni, full of guilt, bowed repeatedly to apologize.

"Hey, it's just getting off work; it's not like there's no overtime pay. When I was at Mama Ali before, I often worked overtime until dawn." Zhou Xia waved his hand and comforted her casually.

Although they were all lying in bed and had been called to the company for a night shift, feeling somewhat unhappy in their hearts, they were all workers, so no one said anything sharp or mean.

Hong Jun and Xie Rui exchanged a smile, then yawned and walked together towards the elevator lobby.

The next morning, Cheng Weixing opened the accident investigation report.

Gao Qiang did not deceive Zhang Yuni; he attached Zhang Yuni's clock-in and clock-out records to the email, showing she had worked overtime for ten consecutive days, and combined with the high similarity of the backend UI styles between the test and production environments, it was indeed the case.

"First, adjust the backend UI style of the test environment;"

"Second, lower the upper threshold of the risk control alarm and formulate a rollback plan;"

"Third, add a secondary confirmation button in the production environment to prevent such accidents from happening again..."

At the end of the email was the optimization plan proposed by Gao Qiang, as well as the accident punishment for Zhang Yuni.

The Q2 quarterly bonus was cancelled, and she was removed from the promotion list for the second half of the year.

Cheng Weixing frowned slightly; this punishment seemed a bit too harsh, but after a moment of thought, he understood Gao Qiang's intention.

"This guy wants to plead for leniency, but he's doing it in a roundabout way."

Cheng Weixing shook his head and cursed silently.

Zhang Yunni was outstanding in ability and diligent in work, an old employee transferred from Hangcheng to Yanjing; to negate all her previous efforts over a single mistake would easily chill people's hearts.

Who can guarantee they have never made a single mistake in their work?

Cheng Weixing thought for a moment, cancelled the second penalty, and only gave Zhang Yunni's Q2 quarterly performance a fifty percent rating.

As for the user-acquisition effect of "Kuai De Hongbao," it far exceeded his imagination.

Since the effect was so good, why wait another day?

Cheng Weixing decided immediately to launch it at once.

On the other side.

Yanjing Kuai De Dache branch.

Gao Qiang opened Cheng Zong's reply email, scanned it quickly, and upon seeing the handling plan for Zhang Yunni, couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

That afternoon, Kuai De Dache's red packets officially went live.

The product manager categorized users into four types in the backend: new users, registered users who hadn't placed an order, old users who hadn't ordered within seven days, and old users who hadn't ordered within thirty days.

This activity could only be initiated by old users, splitting a 100 yuan cash red packet together through the form of opening red packets.

New users could get up to 8 yuan;

Registered users who hadn't placed an order could get up to 5 yuan;

Old users who hadn't ordered within seven days could get up to 5 yuan;

Old users who hadn't ordered within thirty days could get up to 8 yuan.

After a passenger completed an order, this money would be deposited into Sister Chengzi Pay's balance.

On one hand, it could fight for market share in Yanjing's ride-hailing market; on the other, it could enrich Sister Chengzi Pay's offline payment scenarios and improve user stickiness.

The gameplay of free rides plus cash rewards instantly shattered DiDi Dache's market into pieces.

The drivers didn't leave, but all the passengers went over to Kuai De Dache.

After one day, DiDi Dache's daily orders were left with only over 40,000.

Cheng Wei had no time to think too much; he increased the intensity of the activity on one side while urging the product and R&D teams to copy the gameplay of "Kuai De Hongbao."

Whether to copy or not wasn't important; securing the market came first.

Kuai De Hongbao expanded wildly via QQ, WeChat, Renren, and BBS forums; this kind of social-fission red packet possessed natural interactivity and spreadability, far more effective than issuing coupons to new users before.

Kuai De Dache's registered drivers increased by over 3,000 in just a few days, reaching a cumulative total of 17,000, accounting for 25% of Yanjing's taxi market, with daily order volume soaring to 600,000.

Under the strategy of "burning money to grab land," Yanjing started the latest but became the first city to break the 500,000-order mark.

Two days later, DiDi Dache's "Split 108 Yuan Cash Grand Prize" activity went live, but what Cheng Wei didn't expect was that just three hours after launch, WeChat and QQ banned DiDi Dache's activity links.

"Damn it! You dog Ma Wenteng, can your butt be any more crooked!"

Cheng Wei flew into a rage and cursed loudly.

Therefore, DiDi Dache's activity links could only spread through products like Qian Du Tieba, Renren, and Weibo, with effects far inferior to Kuai De Dache's red packet fission activity.

Yet there were many people even angrier than Cheng Wei.

Wang Jianwei, the founder of Yaoyao Zhaoche, sat dejectedly in his office; what was more painful than defeat was being completely ignored.

Before DiDi Dache rose, Yaoyao Zhaoche was the local ride-hailing pioneer in Yanjing, but the two operated on different models.

DiDi Dache and Kuai De Dache cooperated with taxi companies, while Yaoyao Zhaoche cooperated with car rental companies.

From May to June, the price war between DiDi and Kuai De Dache snatched every last bit of Yaoyao Zhaoche's market share.

Wang Jianwei was so aggrieved he couldn't speak; DiDi and Kuai De Dache hadn't targeted Yaoyao Zhaoche, yet Yaoyao Zhaoche was facing closure.

The monthly car rental fees pressed on his shoulders like a great mountain.

At this moment, he remembered to contact investors, planning to ask for another sum of money to transform into taxi operations, but it was too late.

As Yaoyao Zhaoche's angel investors, Sequoia Capital and ZhenFund both refused to provide additional investment.

After seeing the advanced nature of the DiDi and Kuai De Dache models, who would still be willing to invest in Yaoyao Zhaoche?

Even if Wang Jianwei secured funds and transformed immediately, order matching, positioning systems, and merchant resources all required accumulation.

Investing money in Yaoyao Zhaoche would not be a waste of funds for nothing.

Wang Jianwei held on for two more days; on June 14, he announced that Yaoyao Zhaoche would cease operations, and the company entered the countdown to closure.

Yet even at this point, neither Cheng Wei nor Gao Qiang noticed Yaoyao Zhaoche; a small company with only 1,000 daily orders was no different from roadside weeds.

And just like Yaoyao Zhaoche, several such weeds collapsed in one breath, yet failed to splash even a single drop of water in the industry.

The market share ratio between Kuai De Dache and DiDi Dache gradually settled at 7:3; no matter how Cheng Wei struggled, he could not advance further.

Series C funding of 200 million yuan was raised, yet 60 million yuan was consumed in just over twenty days.

The investment liaisons from Qian Du, Jintian Capital, IDG Capital, and Gao Ling Capital felt their eyes go black upon seeing the weekly financial report.

DiDi Dache was also damn expensive!

Little did they know, twenty percent of the funds had been skimmed off by gray-market studios.

DiDi Dache's newly established risk control department soon discovered the existence of the "wool-gathering party" and reported this situation to Cheng Wei.

"You mean to say 20 million yuan of our funds was cashed out by people?"

Cheng Wei, coming from a business background and unfamiliar with technology, had not previously realized the importance of anti-fraud mechanisms.

"Yes, Cheng Zong. The technical department has already strengthened IP and device restrictions and banned a batch of drivers using virtual machines for proxy running or virtual location software to fake orders."

Wang Zhigang, the newly appointed Director of DiDi Security, replied.

"Call the police!" Cheng Wei, nearly driven mad with anger, ordered directly.

At the same time.

Inside a residential house in Yanjiao, Brother Hui's face turned deathly pale; upon discovering his accounts were being banned one after another, he immediately realized what was happening.

He hurriedly called his brothers, grabbed equipment like sim-boxes and computers, and fled Yanjing in a rush.

Over these two months, the five of them had skimmed over 3 million yuan; once caught, they would absolutely face the fate of sewing machines and heaven umbrellas.

By the time the patrol officers arrived, the room had long been empty.

Brother Hui and his group ran fast enough, but some slow-reacting people were still busy swapping out SIM cards, preparing to register a fresh batch of accounts.

Naturally, they were caught red-handed!

The next afternoon, the news that Didi Ride-Hailing had been brutally fleeced made the front pages of Toutiao, NetEase, Sohu, and Weibo.

"Fleeced for a whopping 20 million! Didi Ride-Hailing issues a warning: those who fail to return the funds by the 25th will face criminal liability!"

Thanks to that eye-catching figure of 20 million, Didi Ride-Hailing shot straight to the top of the trending searches.

"I'd rather not have this kind of traffic!"

Cheng Wei was on the verge of tears, never expecting Didi Ride-Hailing's first trending topic to come about in such a way.

(End of chapter)