Headache! Why is it more difficult for Xiong Haizi to brush off the huge deposits of parents and refund frequently？
CCTV News:Recently, news that parents’ huge deposits have been brushed off by minors rewarding live webcasts and buying game equipment has occurred one after another, and many of them have caused disputes between parents and online platforms.
In mid-November, Master Wang, who lives near Chanba, the eastern suburb of Xi ‘an, found that his son was fascinated by online games and quietly took more than 70,000 yuan from his parents’ mobile phones. In a rage, Master Wang confiscated the child’s mobile phone and found that the child hid the game program in order not to let the parents know. From the bill expenditure, we can see that there are three kinds of mobile games, namely "Ball Fight", "the glory of the king" and "Soul Tearing". Basically, hundreds of dollars are swiped out every ten minutes, and 77,000 yuan is swiped out from the mobile phones of myself and my wife in just 20 days.
At the end of August this year, a 9-year-old girl in Zhejiang also spent more than 10,000 yuan in her mother’s credit card because she was obsessed with online games. Ms. Wang, the parent: "I don’t know what is deducted from the credit card. I said, what is this?" When my son saw it, he said that my little sister had played with Mini World for more than 10,000 times. As soon as I opened the door, I fainted there. "
From the list of Alipay, this kind of transaction called mini-coin was very frequent in August, and sometimes it was successful for five or six times in two or three minutes, from 25 yuan and 50 yuan to 500 yuan and 1000 yuan. The expense of the daughter playing games makes this single-parent family, whose eldest son is suffering from a brain tumor and financial difficulties, even worse. In desperation, Ms. Wang, the mother, had to ask the local media and legal professionals to help contact the game company to discuss the refund.
Gu Weichao, a practicing lawyer, said: "For example, a 10-year-old child in this case buys expensive games, which is obviously inconsistent with her age. Because she is a person with limited capacity for civil conduct, the relevant behavior should be recognized by the legal guardian before it becomes legally effective. For example, in this case, the parents do not recognize her trading behavior. In fact, it is an invalid legal act, and the relevant transaction-related institutions should return it. "
[Complex procedures for obtaining evidence and verifying refund are full of twists and turns]
Although lawyers believe that the relevant institutions should refund the transactions made by minors with limited capacity for civil conduct without the approval of their legal guardians, when Ms. Wang contacted media reporters in Taizhou, Zhejiang Province to help negotiate with the game company, she found that it was not a simple matter to get back the money that had been spent.
After the reporter contacted the game platform on the spot and helped Ms. Wang send proof of identity, bills and other evidence to the platform through the mailbox, on October 15, the platform deposited more than 2,900 yuan into Ms. Wang’s account, which is far from what Ms. Wang said.
Customer service staff of the game platform: "We have verified that it is 2182.32 yuan, and some of it is with the game anchor. We have divided it into 3, 7 or 4, 6. We have already expedited it. We will contact the anchor and it is estimated that it will take a month to handle it."
The reporter also helped Ms. Wang carefully calculate the game consumption again and found that her little daughter’s game consumption in August should be 10015.81 yuan. Subsequently, the reporter contacted Shenzhen Mini Play Technology Co., Ltd., the developer of Mini World game, by telephone, requesting confirmation and verification of the game recharge amount of Ms. Wang’s youngest daughter.
"Mini World" customer service staff: "If he needs to apply for a refund, he needs to contact the platform. Where does the platform mean? One of the things that help him check here is the mobile phone platform. Refund has a process. If the parents of the player need to refund, they need to contact the platform directly."
Customer service staff of mobile phone platform: "In this respect, you can also provide your email address to us, and we can record it and give you a feedback."
After two or three round-trip negotiations, the mobile phone customer service staff agreed to tell Ms. Wang the email number, and Ms. Wang sent the relevant information to the mobile phone platform company through the reporter. Fortunately, after learning about the difficult situation of Ms. Wang’s family, the game developer of Mini World said that it would try its best to coordinate the refund and other related matters for this special recharge event.
Manager Li, head of the public relations department of Shenzhen Mini Play Technology Co., Ltd.: "Because it is a special plot, and then this parent is really poor, that is to say, we can help to drive the partners to help, and everyone can drive this thing together."
[Expert Interpretation: Why is it so difficult to get a refund? 】
In this incident, due to the special circumstances of Ms. Wang’s family, the time for refund was greatly shortened. However, in many other similar incidents, although many parents also chose to report to the police or negotiate with the online platform, the difficulty in obtaining evidence and verifying it made their road of asking for money long.
In an online news titled "An 11-year-old girl stole nearly 130,000 savings from her parents, almost all of which were used to reward anchors", it was reported that an 11-year-old girl used her parents’ old mobile phone to watch live webcasts and play games, and secretly brushed away her mother’s savings of 126,000 yuan. After the mother found out, she contacted the platform to ask for a refund, but after getting the phone number of the payee with the help of the lawyer, she called many times but no one answered.
In the report "A 7-year-old girl recharges 18,000 yuan for playing games: there is no refund channel", a 7-year-old girl used her mother’s mobile phone to play games and recharged 18,000 yuan in two hours. Parents asked the game company for a refund, but at first they got a reply that there was no refund channel for the game. It was not until the incident received media attention that the game company agreed to deal with it.
According to experts, in these cases, because the minors all used their parents’ mobile phone accounts, the biggest difficulty in refunding is how to prove that the money was really paid by the minors.
Zhu Wei, a researcher at the Communication Law Center of China University of Political Science and Law: "The first difficulty is how to prove that it is a reward from a minor, because as far as we know, the reason why the platform does not refund parents is that you need to prove whether the money is played by you or by a child; The second difficulty is that even if the platform wants a refund, because the general platform can only get about 50% of the rewards, and the other 50% is given to the anchor, so sometimes the platform can only refund half of the money, then half of it has to be refunded by the anchor. "
[Multi-factors lead to huge online consumption of minors]
At the same time of frequent refund disputes, many parents also have such doubts: in the world of online games or live video, why do children spend huge sums of money so easily?
Take the online game "Mini World" mentioned earlier as an example. Players don’t need to authenticate when recharging the game, but they can recharge and reward as long as they know the payment password. During the inspection of the online video app, the reporter found that most of the software can be registered and logged in quickly by means of mobile phone number, WeChat, Weibo, etc. When rewarding the anchor, it is necessary to recharge the gold coins or diamonds dedicated to the software, and then buy gifts in virtual currency. Generally, you only need to directly use the user name and account registered when downloading software from your smartphone to pay quickly. Even if parents set up a mobile phone that requires password and fingerprint recognition, it is easy to be cracked. Therefore, if parents let their children download live apps or online games on their mobile phones, it is easy for children to spend with their parents’ accounts without their parents’ knowledge.
When combing the relevant cases, the reporter found that in almost all cases, parents gave their mobile phones to their children, failed to properly keep the payment password, and even opened the secret-free payment function, which caused minors to make huge consumption unconsciously.
[Multi-party joint efforts to realize the health network for minors]
During the interview, experts said that guiding minors to make rational online consumption requires the joint efforts of the platform, society and parents in order to truly supervise minors effectively.
The reporter tested several popular live broadcast software, and found that most of them have settings called youth mode, parental control mode or management tools for minors. After parents choose this setting, they can not only prohibit minors from playing live broadcasts, such as rewarding, recharging and withdrawing cash, but also filter the content watched by minors and control the time of logging in to the platform. In some online games, there are similar anti-addiction system settings. As long as minors register their accounts with their real identity information, the system can supervise the game time and recharge of minors.
At the same time, experts believe that the platform should also inform parents of ways and means to supervise minors’ use of the Internet through more channels and ways in society.
Zhu Wei, a researcher at the Communication Law Center of China University of Political Science and Law, said: "(The platform) must have an obligation to inform all parents how to exercise such a power. Some people say that they have informed, and they will inform online. Online notification is not enough. It needs offline notification, through billboards, through offline publicity, etc., including the media like us to promote together, in order to better help parents to care for their children and avoid this need for a refund. "
At the same time, as the most direct guardians of minors, parents should also be familiar with the network rules and strictly follow the relevant laws and regulations in order to truly protect minors.
Zhu Wei, a researcher at the Communication Law Center of China University of Political Science and Law, said: "The first line of defense to really supervise children is not the platform, not even the law and the government, but the parents! Parents should control their children’s account, and give their children this registration mode that conforms to their identity. Since it is inevitable to contact the Internet, parents should be familiar with the rules of the game. After being familiar with them, use these rules to protect their families and protect their children. "