Just after the long holiday, a Weibo post by the well-known actor Sun Yizhou drew public attention back to a "crab card" scam. Sun Yizhou said on Weibo, "I received a crab card by express delivery. I thought it was from a friend. I scanned it and felt something was wrong. I searched again and found that it seemed to be a scam! Pies will not fall from the sky, and crabs will not fall. If you receive a crab card out of nowhere, or anything else that has no source, be careful! Don't scan the code!"
The crab card you received unexpectedly may be a scam. While marveling at the "smart" methods of fraudsters, what most people don't know is that the "crab card" routine is much more than that!
New scam? Change the soup but not the medicine
The "new scam" of committing fraud under the guise of sending crab cards has actually been around for a long time. On Xiaohongshu, if you search for the word "crab card", nearly 80% of the search results that pop up are similar case studies and warnings about "crab card fraud".
Among them, most users intensively posted “crab card” fraud cases and fraud prevention reminders around the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day this year. Among the "crab card" fraud cases posted by different users, the exposed fraud methods are very similar - they all use the pretext of giving away "crab cards" to remind users to win prizes or receive gifts from merchants, induce users to join groups or submit relevant information to relevant pages, and then commit fraud.
According to confirmation from the Shanghai Public Security Bureau, “This scam is a part-time bill-brushing scam.” In the past, criminals directly posted false part-time job information such as likes and fake orders through short videos, adding social accounts, grabbing red envelopes, etc., attracting target groups under the banner of "high salary and ease" and then committing fraud. But in the new scam, "criminals are delivering hairy crab redemption cards, wet wipes, mobile phone holders, etc. on a large scale. On the pretext of receiving prizes, they guide victims to scan codes and join the group to commit fraud."
In this regard, many netizens have commented, "This crab card fraud is too damaging. Autumn and winter are originally the seasons for crab harvest, and there are festivals during this period. If you receive a crab card and scan the code, you will be easily deceived. If you encounter a similar situation, you must be cautious. When receiving a similar card, you must identify the brand and verify it, and do not blindly fill in the information."
Five major chaos of "crab card" itself
In addition to fraud under the guise of "crab cards", there are also many problems that have occurred with "crab cards" themselves in recent years. According to incomplete statistics from Sina Technology, currently, most consumers often encounter the following traps during the consumption process of "crab card":
First, it is difficult to redeem the "Crab Card". Since Crab Cards need to be redeemed and withdrawn through the redemption channels provided by merchants, and many have redemption time limits, many users often receive reminders such as "missed redemption time" and "out of stock" when redeeming, making it difficult to redeem Crab Cards.
Second, some merchants label crabs as "Type 888", "Type 1888" and other models, leading consumers to mistakenly believe that these models are related to the actual value of the crabs. In fact, there is no relationship between the two, but consumers often make wrong purchases because of this.
Third, the quality control of hairy crabs is poor and the quality is poor. Some merchants include the weight of rope and water in the total weight, but do not clearly indicate it on the coupon. At the same time, because hairy crabs are fresh and perishable products, some users are prone to find residual crabs, dead crabs, etc. after receiving the goods.
Fourth, some merchants falsely advertise their origins and promote "water crabs" or "bath crabs" as authentic brand hairy crabs.
Fifth, the validity period marked on some cards is relatively vague. For example, it only states "valid within one year", but it is not clear when the validity period begins, resulting in consumers "missing" the pick-up time and being unable to redeem.
Lawyer: Crab card’s validity period is an overbearing clause
According to the complaint information of the Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Commission system in the third quarter of this year, 324 complaints and 19,700 pieces of public opinion information were received about crab cards and crab coupons. Behind the popularity of "crab cards", consumer chaos related to it is also emerging in endlessly.
In this regard, lawyer Song Jingkui of Beijing Sunshine Law Firm analyzed that Articles 16 and 20 of the "China Consumer Rights Protection Law" both stipulate in principle that the goods or services that operators should provide to consumers should abide by social ethics, operate with integrity, and not set unfair and unreasonable conditions. They also stipulate that they should be true and comprehensive, and should not make false or misleading publicity.
Song Jingkui further pointed out, "The crab card with a validity period is a formal clause, and more generally speaking, it is a king clause, because the crab card is a prepaid consumption card, and the consumer pays for the goods in advance, which means that the merchant uses the funds prepaid by the consumer for free. In this model, The consumer did not pick up the goods, and the merchant did not incur any costs. Therefore, the consumer has the right to refund the card or ask the merchant to continue shipping. If the merchant is not ready to deliver the goods at the beginning, and the illegal income constitutes a certain amount, it may constitute a formal crime of fraud."
Under various tricks, when consumers choose "crab card" consumption, on the one hand, they should be more familiar with the market conditions, understand the origin or the general market price of crabs of the same quality, and comprehensively choose companies with good operating reputations for consumption. In addition, they should also try to pick up the goods as early as possible for inspection. If you encounter problems when using the "Crab Card", you should negotiate with the merchant in a timely manner. If necessary, you can directly complain to the market supervision and management department or file a lawsuit in court.
Text丨Sina Technology Zhou Wenmeng