Chapter 193: Chapter 177: Refund and Tenfold Compensation, a Fine of 838,000

At almost the exact same moment, the owner of Xiangwei Restaurant, far away in Sichuan, received a notification on the platform.

Product listings removed. Payments frozen. The original 100,000 yuan security deposit now had only a little over 70,000 left.

It was obvious that Pinbei, in order to handle customer complaints, had directly deducted the compensation from the security deposit and transferred it into the buyers’ accounts.

"What the hell is going on? Why can’t I even withdraw the money?!"

Seeing this, Zhang Minxiao panicked and called his operations manager over to make a withdrawal.

"Boss, the payments have been frozen by the platform. We probably won’t be able to withdraw anything until all the customer complaints are resolved."

The operations manager shrugged, a helpless look on his face.

He had tried to talk his boss out of it when he’d first decided to use alcohol to wipe the production dates off last year’s old stock and re-ink them.

But the boss had stubbornly gone ahead, gambling that he wouldn’t get caught. He mixed the new and old stock, and the warehouse workers, who weren’t paid much, didn’t do their jobs carefully.

It was no surprise that a buyer had noticed the poorly cleaned ink job.

"Fucking idiots! What kind of garbage platform is this! I’m gonna call the cops!" Zhang Minxiao was so furious he spun in circles, cursing nonstop.

In a short time, over 30,000 yuan had been deducted from the 100,000 yuan security deposit.

"Boss, I’ll try contacting the platform’s customer service first." Seeing his boss’s bloodshot eyes, the operations manager shrank back a little and found something to do.

Zhang Minxiao nodded, not saying another word.

As for calling the police, he didn’t have the guts. If there was nothing wrong with his products, he wouldn’t be afraid. But the fact was, he had indeed mixed the 6,000 bottles of old stock from last year into the orders he shipped out.

He might be all bark, but deep down, he was terrified.

"Hello, I’m from the operations team at Xiangwei Restaurant. Could you please tell me why we are unable to withdraw our funds?"

The operations manager asked, feigning ignorance.

"Hello, I’ve checked for you. Your store currently has 1,159 after-sales tickets, which has triggered the platform’s alert system. You will need to resolve all after-sales support tickets before the withdrawal function can be unfrozen."

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

"You fix this!" Zhang Minxiao glanced over, suddenly agitated, and pointed at his operations manager.

"Uh... Boss, the platform’s policy is to refund the purchase and pay three times the price in compensation. Should we do that too?"

’This boss is a real piece of work,’ the operations manager cursed inwardly, but on the surface, he maintained a worried expression, as if concerned for his boss.

’The boss is a son of a bitch, but I have to make a living.’ He had no choice but to endure it.

"Refund and pay three times? No way! Tell our customer service to offer the buyers 10 yuan in compensation per order. Do it before they contact the platform. Just get rid of these fucking morons!"

Hearing this, Zhang Minxiao quickly shook his head.

Refunding and paying triple would kill him. Even though the Food Safety Law required it, he didn’t want to lose any money.

The operations manager gave a despairing smile. He was helpless with a boss like this.

When he relayed this message to the customer service staff, they sneered and decided to phone it in. No matter how much the users cursed at them, their only response was the scripted line: "Give us a good review for a 10 yuan gift."

In the end, these unsatisfied users naturally skipped the store’s customer service and went straight to the platform’s customer service.

The users immediately felt the difference in service. They had just been infuriated by the store’s customer service, but when they got to the platform’s reps, they were immediately offered a full refund plus three times the price in compensation. If they showed even the slightest dissatisfaction, the rep would directly offer ten times the price.

This wasn’t shopping; it was practically wealth management!

The original price for three bottles of Crispy Pepper Tribute Vegetables was 23.9 yuan. A refund plus triple compensation was a gain of 72 yuan. A refund plus ten times compensation was 239 yuan.

If the operations manager hadn’t taken down the product link, Xiangwei Restaurant’s sales figures would probably have shot up by another hundred thousand units.

The users were happy, but Zhang Minxiao was about to have a mental breakdown!

After the "refund plus ten times compensation" plan went viral, users who had received faulty products immediately posted their evidence and demanded tenfold compensation.

Pinbei’s customer service reps were also very obliging. It wasn’t their money being deducted, after all, so they processed the refunds and compensation payments with great efficiency.

Before noon, Xiangwei Restaurant’s 100,000 yuan security deposit had been completely drained, and the deductions started coming out of their sales revenue.

When other merchants on Pinbei heard the news, they immediately held meetings with their warehouse staff, warning them to be extremely careful when shipping orders from now on.

They had come to understand a simple truth: you could make money fast on Pinbei, but you could lose it even faster.

Pinbei’s method of freezing payments and deducting from security deposits, while seemingly high-handed, made many legitimate sellers feel that on a platform that protected buyers like this, as long as you did business honestly, you wouldn’t have to worry about making money.

Meanwhile, some of the more dishonest merchants ganged up, tagged Chen Yansen on Weibo, and cursed him and his entire family tree.

Uninformed netizens initially thought Pinbei was being too tyrannical by arbitrarily freezing merchants’ funds.

But after seeing the pictures of altered production dates and videos of moldy food posted in the comments by buyers who had received tenfold compensation, they immediately felt that Chen Yansen’s punishment had been too light.

They turned around and started cursing the crooked merchant instead!

"From now on, I’m shopping on Pinbei! The platform has your back!"

"This Pinbei is legit. When things go wrong, they really step up! I heard the merchant was threatening to call the cops, but nothing happened for ages. In the end, it was Pinbei’s legal team that called the police first!"

"The owner of this store really asked for it! He wanted to call the police, right? The platform granted his wish in a heartbeat."

Netizens commented gleefully in the replies.

Before long, someone posted the link to Xiangwei Restaurant’s Taobao store. A huge crowd of netizens then flooded their Taobao page, taunting the customer service: "Got any more in stock? I only eat expired tribute vegetables!"

"Give me two bottles of ’82 Crispy Pepper Tribute Vegetables. I’ll have it with my Lafite!"

"You garbage merchant, go out of business already!"

Some netizens even started repeatedly placing and then canceling orders, causing the store’s return rate to skyrocket several dozen times over.

Seeing this, the operations manager at Xiangwei Restaurant had no choice but to delist all their products.

「The next day」

The local Market Supervision Association and Inspection Institute launched an investigation. They quickly issued a notice stating that Xiangwei Restaurant would be penalized for passing off substandard goods as quality products.

They also contacted the head of Pinbei’s customer service department to coordinate on the case’s progress, as it had already become a viral topic.

「Three days later」

Xiangwei Restaurant had paid a total of 538,000 yuan in compensation to buyers and became the first merchant to have its partnership terminated by Pinbei.

At the same time, Xiangwei Restaurant also had to pay Pinbei a 100,000 yuan technical service fee and 200,000 yuan in economic damages.

Pinbei used this negative incident to make a name for itself in the e-commerce world.

Many new users, drawn by the platform’s reputation, downloaded the Pinbei app, intending to try the "wealth-management-style e-commerce platform" for themselves.

Pinbei’s punishment of Xiangwei Restaurant may have scared off a wave of unscrupulous merchants, but many more only saw that Xiangwei Restaurant had achieved over a million yuan in sales within half a month of joining.

’As long as we’re making money, who’s afraid of a fine?’

Besides, it wasn’t as if Pinbei punished merchants without reason. Take Xiangwei Restaurant’s fraud, for example—they would have been heavily penalized on any platform. Pinbei was just more ruthless about it.

After learning the results, Chen Yansen had the HR department hire a few more security guards.