The night before the Double Eleven, the drums of the promotion became more and more dense. Until 8 o’clock, Wang Hai’s two mobile phones were still ringing in turn. He assigned his subordinates a task of snapping up 1 million yuan, and it took one day to spend more than 10,000 yuan.
Today, he is not only a professional counterfeiter, but also the boss of several companies. When he was interviewed, he just got off work. When he was hungry, he picked up the jujube clip walnut on the table and stuffed it into his mouth — — This jujube clip walnut was also bought for testing. "Maybe the sulfur dioxide exceeds the standard," he said indifferently. "Sometimes you can’t avoid it."
This is the 21st year of counterfeiting. In 1995, he bought two pairs of Sony headphones, and realized that they might be fakes, so he bought another 10 pairs. According to the Consumer Law, he put forward double indemnity, who was called the first person to crack down on fakes in China. For more than 20 years, from the physical store to the network platform, he hid behind sunglasses and walked on the balance beam between "counterfeiting" and "businessmen", and achieved his career in the controversy.
Register multiple ID "Prepare for War" Double Eleven
The box has been piled from the ground to the ceiling, and most of it is wine, as well as some health products. It’s worth 300 thousand yuan, and it’s all stored in Wang Hai’s office in Tianjin, waiting for inspection.
This is only a part. According to Wang Hai, in order to "prepare for the Double Eleven", they bought about 600,000 liquor in batches at more than a dozen receiving points in Beijing, Tianjin and Xi ‘an.
In this double eleven, he will focus on meat, health care products and clothing, and it is estimated that he will claim 10 million yuan.
The battle began more than two months ago. Due to being blacklisted by many merchants, Wang Hai had to register multiple IDs to receive goods in different places. Even so, he was repeatedly discovered by businesses. On October 2nd, I bought a batch of clothes with a price of over 10,000 yuan. After placing the order, the merchant indicated that it was out of stock. But almost at the same time on the same day, the same batch of goods purchased by another account of Wang Hai’s team was successfully delivered.
This is not the first time he has encountered this situation. Since he started counterfeiting on the e-commerce platform, more than 30 accounts have been blacklisted. Among them, some merchants directly told him that your ID has been blacklisted, so it cannot be delivered.
Yes, even the express delivery has been sent downstairs, and it was urgently recalled by the merchants. Wang Hai told the Beijing Youth Daily reporter that in August and September this year, they set their eyes on a health care product, spent more than 90,000 yuan to buy a batch, sent it downstairs by express delivery, and turned back without waiting for receipt, and told Wang Hai that it was a manufacturer’s recall, and then asked the manufacturer, who said that the express delivery had damaged our goods.
In order to successfully complete the Double Eleven campaign, Wang Hai dispatched a seven-member team from September and began to select "key targets". The main target of the crackdown is to sell the top ten or top twenty products on the list.
Four people in the team are responsible for finding projects. First, buy some target goods in small batches, bring them back and test them yourself. The test paper is also bought from the Internet. If there is something wrong with the test, it will be sent to the laboratory for re-testing.
Over the past two months, they have focused on finding out more than a dozen products from more than 100 kinds.
"The difficulty of this job is actually not great," Wang Hai said. "There are too many problems, and you can find them with your eyes closed."
If there are problems with the test results of two different laboratories, the rest will be handed over to the purchasing staff. Three purchasers bought a dozen products in large quantities with different accounts, hoarded them in different places, saved enough and transported them to companies in Beijing and Tianjin.
On the 10th, Wang Hai allocated another 1 million yuan to the purchasing team, preparing to snap up another wave on the Double Eleven in the evening. The shopping cart is full, just waiting for midnight.
From physical stores to the Internet
At 3 o’clock in the afternoon on the 11th, the rush hour has passed, and he spent only 160,000 of his 1 million purchase money. Compared with the difficulty of spending money, e-commerce companies almost earned a lot of money in this carnival. More than three hours later, Ali issued a notice: "The total transaction amount exceeded 100 billion, of which wireless turnover accounted for 82.42%."
Internet economy has changed people’s consumption pattern and also changed his anti-counterfeiting ecology.
Before 2014, he only had two teams, Shangchao and E-commerce. With the development of Wechat business, this year, he set up a Wechat business Anti-counterfeiting Team, and half of the cases of counterfeiting and suspected fraud were from the Internet.
However, compared with physical stores, e-commerce counterfeiting is more difficult. The false propaganda of physical stores is mainly product advertisements, brochures and packaging labels, and the evidence is easy to obtain and save. Besides the brochures and packaging labels, the false propaganda of e-commerce often appears on the Internet platform. If the evidence is not retained by screen capture and other means in time, it will be difficult to collect evidence after the website modifies the content.
Chen Yinjiang, deputy secretary-general of the China Consumer Protection Law Research Association, told Beiqing Daily that e-commerce can’t see, hear and touch products like traditional transactions through remote and virtual transactions on the Internet, and it can actually feel the existence of products. In addition, the means of transaction is to pay and express goods through bank transfer, and there is no real contact between the two parties during the whole transaction, so the probability of false propaganda and counterfeit goods in e-commerce is relatively greater.
It is precisely because of these problems that many professional counterfeiters are reluctant to invest too much energy in e-commerce, because evidence collection and litigation are more troublesome.
"Look at these Wechat business, just like guerrilla warfare, they don’t even know where people are." Wang Hai opened WeChat, displaying a public account of Wechat business. He told the reporter of Beiqing Daily that many micro-businesses selling fake and inferior products are selling things in the circle of friends, which is more difficult than defending rights on platforms such as Taobao and JD.COM. Since the establishment of the Wechat business Anti-counterfeiting Team, they have taken over two or three anti-counterfeiting projects in Wechat business, but they all ended in reconciliation.
"But Internet shopping is a trend." Wang Hai said. Since the target was locked, they have done every step of evidence preservation, including screen shots of web pages and real-time video recording of shopping. For the target suspected of price fraud, it is also necessary to record the commodity prices in stages. At the same time, it is also necessary to send the materials obtained for notarization to a notary office, and send the purchased items to a testing agency for testing.
"As an intermediary, the e-commerce platform has the obligation to review and remedy afterwards. If the purchased goods do have quality problems, they should actively assist in safeguarding rights." Yue Shenshan, a lawyer of Beijing Yuecheng Law Firm, explained, "If consumers find a commodity problem, they can ask the platform to provide the information of the merchants. If they can’t provide it, they can claim their rights from the platform."
Relevant employees of Alibaba’s public relations department said that they have been fighting fakes and false information and using big data to fight counterfeiting.
"We will, as always, persist in the fight against counterfeit goods, and more brands can join in to help us fight counterfeit goods. As for what Wang Hai does, it is his personal freedom." For Wang Hai, a professional counterfeiter, the relevant staff of Ali Public Relations Department said, "We have no attitude towards him, and we insist on trying to be ourselves."
Justice is also a business.
Unlike ordinary consumers who are gearing up for the "one-click shopping cart" at 12 o’clock, he doesn’t care about the discount, just wants to spend all this 1 million shopping "special fund", according to the provisions of the Food Safety Law on food safety — — "Consumers who buy food produced by producers that does not meet food safety standards can get 10 times compensation; The food seller, that is, the distributor, sold ‘ Knowing ’ Only foods that do not meet food safety standards will bear compensation for losses and pay compensation of 10 times the price. "
"Profit-seeking" is the conclusion made by many businesses. Although professional counterfeiters have existed for more than 20 years, there has always been controversy about this group. Some people call them "market scavengers", while others accuse them of claiming for compensation. "They say I’m not a real consumer," Wang Hai said with anger and laughter. "Do I have to drink a bottle of wine or give it to someone to be a consumer?"
He doesn’t hide the profit form of using claims to make money, and he doesn’t care about the external evaluation. "Counterfeiting this matter can achieve justice in itself. It has nothing to do with motivation. " Wang Hai said, "I do this thing, and profit is not the first pursuit."
Today, he has three groups of anti-counterfeiting teams with nearly 30 people. Every month, he has to pay more than 300,000 yuan for this. This is not a small sum, but the team has basically achieved self-sufficiency by relying on anti-counterfeiting claims. Wang Hai told the reporter of Beiqing Daily that up to now this year, he has received compensation of five or six million yuan for counterfeiting.
"Except for the cost of testing, the profit is very small. It is not at the same level as the profit of being a liar. " Wang Hai stressed. The company is mainly engaged in three kinds of businesses to help consumers defend their rights and fight counterfeiting; Knowing and buying fakes; Employed by enterprises, counterfeiting for enterprises. The third is the focus of his business. Once, a well-known brand of water purifier came here and paid him 500,000 yuan, asking him to crack down on counterfeit products.
Compared with ordinary consumers and businesses, legal professionals are more supportive. In their view, professional counterfeiters generally have professional ability to distinguish fakes and legal knowledge of rights protection, and the chances of successful claims will be much greater. Professional counterfeiting plays a positive role in purifying the market and protecting consumers’ interests.
"If the merchants don’t have fakes, what are you nervous about? If you have fake goods, or you are not confident about the goods you operate, you should take measures to solve the problem of fake goods quickly, instead of blindly entangled in who should be in charge. " Chen Yinjiang said, "Objectively, if there are no professional counterfeiters, it is difficult for punitive damages stipulated by the Consumer Law to play a real punitive role."
From single-handedness to team fighting
"Counterfeiting is a technical job and cannot rely on experience." Looking at the wine piled to the ceiling, Wang Hai said.
After more than two months of action, three projects, health care products, wine and seafood, are going to go through judicial procedures. The four lawyers in the team are always on standby, just waiting for the test results to come out, and then they can move on to the next step.
Compared with going it alone more than a decade ago, today’s Wang Hai is not the same in terms of personnel strength or quality inspection and rights protection. He set up a hotline and received several phone calls every day. This batch of wine with problems also "crashed" into their sight.
Still in the summer and autumn of this year, one day, Wang Hai received a video. The reporter at the other end of the video took a business without a production license and used alcohol to blend wine to pretend to be grain wine.
After watching the video, Wang Hai immediately arranged for someone to collect evidence. After confirming the authenticity of this video, he bought a large number of liquor from the dealer and sent it for inspection. According to Wang Hai, in addition to using alcohol to blend wine to pretend to be grain wine, plasticizer was added to this "trophy".
"However, relying on the news is still relatively small, and more is found by my own team." Wang Hai said. In his team, everyone is an expert in a certain field. "For example, if I want to fake meat products, then the person I am looking for is either a meat producer or an inspector. In short, I must know this field very well."
As his reputation for counterfeiting is growing, many other people who are keen on counterfeiting will also provide him with information. "After all, he knows the law better."
Li Chengshun (a pseudonym), a Beijinger, is also an enthusiastic counterfeiter. In 2005, when Li Chengshun was taking a bath, there happened to be a washing machine washing clothes in the bathroom. He inhaled the chemicals volatilized from the laundry detergent and immediately suffocated.
It happened that Wang Hai also paid attention to this brand of laundry detergent, but his concern at that time was whether the chemical components in it were carcinogenic. Li Chengshun, who was injured, contacted Wang Hai after consulting a lot of information and told him that this chemical composition is not carcinogenic, and your research direction is wrong.
Two people who are determined to fight counterfeiting have thus become comrades-in-arms from a distance. Li Chengshun has a good English and a deep understanding of electrical appliances. Over the years, he has helped Wang Hai find out more than a dozen problem products.
Not all counterfeiting is smooth sailing.
A few years ago, they stared at a kind of preserved fruit. "I found many institutions in Jiangsu for testing, and all of them detected sodium cyclamate, but when I got it tested in Beijing, I couldn’t detect anything." Wang Hai said. To be on the safe side, they abandoned the case.
Throughout the country, they have 30 or 40 appraisal institutions that they often go to, and the annual cost of testing is 200,000 to 300,000 yuan. This is not only because of the huge number of items they submit for inspection, but also because they will take the next step only if they ensure that there are problems detected by more than two appraisal agencies.
But it is still inevitable that the lawsuit will be entangled. In September 2014, Wang Hai’s team bought a health care product that claimed to be made of Cordyceps sinensis. After the inspection, it was found that there was no cordycepin. After sorting out all the evidence, Wang Hai filed a lawsuit, but was counterclaimed by the other party as infringement of the right of reputation and claimed 5 million yuan from him.
Wang Hai, who thought the evidence was in his hands, lost the first trial. Wang Hai refused to accept the appeal, and the second trial happened on November 11th this year.
Law tightens professional counterfeiting.
"Not all of them are for money." Talking about the upcoming lawsuit, Wang Hai said, "We bought more than 50,000 yuan for this thing, and even if we win, it will be 150,000 yuan. But we have invested a lot of manpower and financial resources. "
After more than 20 years of counterfeiting, he is smarter and more peaceful.
As the first person to crack down on fakes, he bought only a handful of fakes. Before buying something, he will turn over the information of other people’s businesses. "first understand the main information, who sells it; Then understand whether there is any scientific basis for the efficacy of the products he introduced; Look at the cost and price. " It is reported that when he goes to the street to buy a steamed stuffed bun, he has to take pictures of people’s flour color.
In his early years, he also had a fight with Chengdu Food and Drug Administration. In recent years, he has become more and more willing to cooperate with government departments. When cracking down on fakes in Shenzhen, I took 80 or 90 people and followed the police to a fake village. There was no conflict, and the other side saw him in this position and ran away before entering the village.
Although his strength and momentum have increased, he is still very cautious. He never took off his sunglasses in front of the media. For more than twenty years, the image has been like this. In his own words, this is called "risk management".
Finding out the counterfeiters is the most fulfilling moment for him. But how long this sense of accomplishment can last is still unknown.
On August 5th this year, the "Regulations on the Implementation of the Law on the Protection of Consumers’ Rights and Interests in People’s Republic of China (PRC) (Draft for Comment)" solicited opinions from the society, among which Article 2 stipulated that consumers’ rights and interests shall be protected by this Ordinance if they purchase or use commodities or receive services for their daily consumption needs. However, these regulations do not apply to the acts of natural persons, legal persons and other organizations other than financial consumers who purchase, use goods or accept services for profit.
In the eyes of many professional counterfeiters, this regulation means that the law tightens the professional counterfeiting behavior.
"It can’t be said that because they are professional counterfeiters, their anti-counterfeiting behavior is mixed with their own interests, and their rights protection can’t be protected, otherwise enterprises can evade their responsibilities." Lawyer Yue Shenshan said, "The ultimate result of safeguarding rights is to make enterprises take responsibility for the quality of goods."
This edition/reporter Yang Baolu Zheng Lin
Photography/reporter Yang Baolu