Forced to jump off a building! A platform went bankrupt and sellers had difficulty in getting payment for goods

"That day in Suzhou, we were forced to run to the rooftop." VOVA seller Huang Minghui (pseudonym) looked angry and helpless.

It has been more than two months since the news of VOVA's bankruptcy broke out in September this year. The VOVA incident has been fermenting. During this period, VOVA has not had any relevant person in charge or issued an official statement to explain or take responsibility for the matter. And those sellers who were owed money, after trying all kinds of ways but still couldn't find the person in charge and couldn't get their money back, went to the rooftop.

Sellers complain: tens of millions of dollars in arrears, but the responsible persons have all gone into hiding

A few days ago, Lin Pengfei (pseudonym) and a group of six people came to Yien.com to reveal their recent experiences in asking VOVA for payment for goods, as well as the situations they learned.

"We have now contacted a total of 56 victimized sellers, involving funds of more than 12 million yuan . The largest amount is 1 million yuan, and the smallest is 20,000 yuan," said Lin Pengfei.

Since the VOVA scandal, people have been describing it in two words: "mysterious". According to relevant information and feedback from sellers, companies related to VOVA include: Shanghai Grove Information Technology Co., Ltd., Suzhou Lebei Network Technology Co., Ltd., Ohwa Technology Co., Ltd., and Suzhou Feile Network Technology Co., Ltd.

Among them, recruitment websites, Baidu Encyclopedia, and VOVA's official website show that Grove and Lebei are VOVA's operating companies, while seller feedback shows that Ohwa is the Hong Kong company that VOVA pays them, and Feile is VOVA's logistics provider and also a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lebei. Their supervisor is the same person.

(Photo source: Qichacha)

But when the sellers went to the offices of these companies to ask for explanations and payment, either the offices were deserted or they were shell companies, or the staff did not admit to being employees of the companies involved.

"We sent someone to check, and Grove's Shanghai office has been vacated . " Lin Pengfei told the editor.

Qichacha shows that on October 20, Grove was listed in the "abnormal operation" list by the Shanghai Changning District Market Supervision Administration because it "cannot be contacted through the registered residence or business premises . "

(Photo source: Qichacha)

Previously, someone posted a message on WeChat Moments saying: VOVA did not go bankrupt, but was named by Chinese regulatory authorities and thousands of counterfeit stores were closed. The funds from the closed stores may be recovered through application later.

But the information that Lin Pengfei and other sellers learned from Shanghai was far different. Lin Pengfei said: " The Shanghai Economic Investigation Corps said they did not crack down on Grove, nor did they freeze its funds. They only arrested a few employees inside Grove who made and sold counterfeit goods. "

Another seller, Zhang Xianchu (pseudonym), who went to Grove's Shanghai office twice to ask for payment for goods, also said that the person who received them at the beginning, who claimed to be VOVA's legal officer, vowed that he would definitely pay them for the goods. Now his phone number has been cancelled. Under the arrangement of the local police and Shanghai Economic Investigation Bureau, the detained VOVA platform CEO assistant Chen Yi came out to respond, but he only verbally promised that he would not owe the merchants a penny, and kept answering irrelevant questions.

It is also worth noting that VOVA is closely related to the recently-exploded Shanghai Mocan Network Technology Co., Ltd. According to Zhang Xianchu, Chen Yi admitted on the spot that VOVA belonged to Shanghai Mocan Network Technology Co., Ltd. "They are just one team, several teams." Lin Pengfei said that he learned from a recording that Grove 's employees were transferred from Mocan, and some Mocan employees were transferred from Shanghai Yingtailai Information Technology Co., Ltd.

Ohwa is also a shell company. Lin Peng continued: "Some time ago, he asked a friend to help check Ohwa's office address in Hong Kong and found that it was a law firm ."

Zhang Xianchu and his team encountered an even more bizarre situation at the Lebei office in Suzhou Chenlei Technology Park. "When we explained our intention, the other party denied that they were from Lebei and removed all the things with Lebei logos, including the background wall, glass door waist, cultural wall, front desk logo, etc., in front of us . " Zhang Xianchu said that he couldn't believe the situation before his eyes.

At the same time, the sellers encountered almost the same situation at Lebe's other two offices in Suzhou and Feile. "They all refused to admit that they were Lebe, even though the uncleaned sign at the door clearly showed the words Lebe, or the air conditioners, computers and other items had LEBBAY fixed asset identification cards attached to them." Zhang Xianchu was very helpless: " They all claimed that they were dispatched workers of Suzhou Ying XX Human Resources Group . "

"This is their way of refusing to pay merchants for goods." Zhang Xianchu said angrily: "We contacted a former employee of Lebei, who said that Lebei's employees have been transferred to outsourcing companies and will be fired if they refuse to sign. He is one of those who refused to sign. According to the employee, Lebei is planning to have all employees of affiliated companies sign outsourcing agreements and then cancel the company. "

Finally, the sellers who could not find the person in charge to explain and could not get their money went to the rooftop of Lebei Wuzhong Branch. "We stayed there for two days. On the first day, they denied that they were from Lebei. Later, a legal representative who was supposedly the legal representative of Lebei came out and said that VOVA had nothing to do with Lebei. On the second day, we saw them locking the warehouse and dismantling the shelves and packing up. Several sellers who were forced to hold banners could only go to the top floor. " Zhang Xianchu said: "After a stalemate of 3 hours, they finally gave up the idea of ​​jumping off the building to commit suicide under the persuasion of the police and everyone, but now their life is difficult, after all, all the savings accumulated in the past few years are inside. "

Shopping websites and apps have shown abnormalities, and buyers are saying they have been cheated by VOVA

After the seller broke the news, the editor visited VOVA's shopping website, APP, and merchant service WeChat public account, and made some new discoveries.

As for shopping websites, an article published by Een.com in October mentioned that its homepage still had two products for sale: keyboard and mouse sets and women's shirts. Other sub-categories of products were also sold normally. However, when I visited it a few days ago, I found that it only had this line of words: Sorry, no item found. When I checked it again before publishing, the webpage could no longer be opened. No matter which category I clicked, the same page was displayed.

Results opened a few days ago

Results opened before press time

The situation is similar with APPs. From recent user reviews on the Google Pay APP, we can see that the VOVA APP is not only inaccessible, but also has cheated many buyers.

One person wrote in a review: "OMG! I think this app is a scam. It keeps telling me there is no internet connection to refresh the app . "

Another said: "This is terrible! I placed an order in October and it's been two weeks now and I'm still trying to open the app to see when my order will arrive. The app doesn't work, I've uninstalled and installed multiple times and it still doesn't work."

Another person urged others not to trust VOVA, saying, " They took my money and left me a message like this : 'Please refresh your page.' They didn't send me anything or refund my money. When I complained to them, they just told me I should contact a lawyer."

There are many buyers who complained about VOVA on Google Pay APP

As for the merchant service WeChat official account, it can still be opened normally, but when the editor clicked on "apply for settlement", it showed that the page had been stopped. The WeChat account that popped up for business cooperation also showed: This account has been deactivated. The personal signature also said that I have not been in VOVA for a long time. For any questions about VOVA, please consult the platform staff.

Victimized sellers: I summarized their six routines

Lin Pengfei suffered the biggest loss among the 5 or 6 sellers, so while he was trying to collect the payment, he also summarized VOVA's six tricks.

He said: "I hope other sellers can learn from this. Otherwise, companies like this will easily change their shells and use the same tricks to continue to defraud."

Routine 1: VOVA platform, from the currently known information, the main operators are Suzhou Lebei, Shanghai Grove, Hong Kong Ohwa, Suzhou Feile (Feile is Lebei's wholly-owned holding company), but Feile is mainly the platform logistics party. Here, the platform payment funds transfer is mainly transferred to the sellers through Hong Kong Ohwa (most of the platform sellers are mainland companies), and then the mainland companies need to use third-party payment tools to settle the exchange and receive the payment. In other words, the company that has financial transactions with the seller is a Hong Kong company. If it wants to pursue liability, it needs to sue in Hong Kong or apply to the Hong Kong police to file a case. This greatly increases the difficulty of this case.

Trick 2: When you join the platform, there is an electronic agreement, but it is not officially stamped. When sellers join, they only need to read it, so there is no legal protection.

Trick three: Operating companies and accounting companies. At present, it is impossible to make an effective connection without in-depth investigation through relevant channels. In other words, companies such as Lebei, Grove, Feilo and Hong Kong Ohwa cannot have a vested interest connection.

Trick 4: When the platform crashed, it was September. There was a National Day holiday in the middle, which created a time difference. Then all the employees of Grove were dismissed, and the investment manager did not respond to messages. You could not contact any internal personnel of the platform. After on-site inquiries to Suzhou Lebei and Suzhou Feile, the personnel in these companies were all third-party dispatched workers and knew nothing about the actual situation of the internal companies. Then all the main responsible persons could not be contacted.

Trick five: In this type of case, because it is an economic dispute, the public security organs are unable to file a case, leaving you with nowhere to turn for help and you can only watch them go unpunished.

Routine 6: From the perspective of the current registered capital of the company, the registered capital is not high, and they are all limited liability companies, which only need to bear limited liability. If they need to pay for goods, they only need to pay and settle according to the actual payment of the registered capital. From the current perspective, there are hundreds of sellers, and the payment for goods should be at least tens of millions, so this debt, with a registered capital of one million, is simply not enough to pay off all the payment for goods.

In conclusion, due to the tightening of Amazon's policies this year, many sellers are looking for emerging platforms to spread their risks. However, after several cross-border e-commerce platforms have collapsed in a short period of time, the editor still wants to remind sellers that before entering these platforms, they must do a good background check and try to find platforms with background, strength, strong funds, or support from large companies. Otherwise, it is very likely that they will not make money, but fall into another deep pit. At present, many V OVA platform sellers have nowhere to turn to, and they also hope that relevant government departments can pay some attention and help them recover their losses. At the same time, for cross-border e-commerce platforms, supervision can be strengthened to prevent or reduce the recurrence of such incidents.

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