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In reality, more than buying fake goods to make consumers worse is the follow-up rights difficult. Once the consumer accidentally purchased fake goods, often in a difficult predicament of compensation. Merchants may adopt various means to avoid responsibility, resulting in the infringement of consumers' legitimate rights and interests.

Accordingly, Mr. Ge Youshan, executive director/founding partner of JAVY Law Firm, was interviewed by Rule of Law Daily to explain such incidents.

Fake one for three is more difficult to implement

Consumer rights is not easy

In the interview, it was found that many consumers bought fake products sold under the banner of genuine goods and asked the business to “return one to compensate three”, few people wish to get compensation. Some interviewees bluntly said, “rights are too difficult, ‘return one to pay three’ do not even think about it, can refund some money on the good”.

Ms. Hao from Yunnan ordered a baby diaper on a platform. Genuine name “Lion Kingdom”, the brand is “Babycare”, the name of the goods and genuine no difference, but after receiving the goods, the commodity packaging shows “Lion Jade Kingdom”. “Babycate”, after opening the packaging, a foreign flavor comes to the nose. After much communication, the platform agreed to “only refund”, and then no follow-up.

In a third-party complaint platform to “counterfeiting” as the keyword search found that the relevant complaints amounted to more than 30,000, and more than “processing”, the processing results for the “has replied”, “has been completed”, “has been completed”, “has been completed”, “has been completed”, “has been completed”, “has been completed”, “has been completed”, “has been completed”. There are very few “completed” ones.

GeYouShan lawyer pointed out that network merchants selling counterfeit and shoddy products in violation of consumer protection law, e-commerce law, product quality law and other relevant laws and regulations, suspected of violating the consumer's right to know, the right to choose, the right to fair trade, and the right to personal and property safety, its behavior should be punished according to law. If the e-commerce platform fails to strictly fulfill its obligations such as qualification audit and daily management, the platform shall bear the corresponding responsibility according to the specific circumstances; if the platform knows or should know that the merchants on the platform have violated the law or harmed the rights and interests of consumers, and fails to take measures in time to lead to the damage of consumers' rights and interests, the platform shall bear joint and several liability according to the law.

“In practice, consumers who buy fake goods want to defend their rights successfully is not easy, facing too many challenges.” GeYouShan lawyer cited examples, such as the high cost of rights, cumbersome procedures, etc., in addition to the e-commerce platform does not provide consumers with efficient and smooth rights channels, objectively also increased the difficulty of rights.

Platform to strengthen the qualification audit

Improve the complaint handling mechanism

In order to further strengthen the management of counterfeit goods, the State Administration for Market Supervision and Regulation issued the Notice on the National Quality Month 2024 on August 2 this year, which calls for cracking down on infringement and counterfeiting activities. Launching publicity activities to punish infringement and counterfeiting crimes in accordance with the law. A number of typical cases involving product quality disputes were released, and a number of public interest litigation cases in the field of food and drug safety were centrally handled to strengthen the interpretation of the law through cases, strongly deterring illegal crimes and raising the public's awareness of the law.

On August 21, the Supreme People's Court issued the Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law to the Trial of Disputes over Punitive Damages for Food and Drugs, which stipulates that if a buyer purchases food for personal or family consumption and there is no evidence to prove that he/she still purchases it even though he/she knows that the food he/she purchased does not comply with the food safety standards, the punitive damages shall be calculated on the basis of the actual price paid, and punitive damages shall be calculated at the rate of ten times the price, so that ordinary consumers' rights will be adequately protected. Ordinary consumers' rights defense behavior.

Ge Youshan pointed out that the e-commerce platform, as a bridge for online transactions, should effectively fulfill its supervisory responsibilities and strengthen the audit of the names and qualifications of the merchants. For high-risk commodity categories, the platform should consider establishing cooperative relationships with professional third-party quality inspection organizations to implement professional quality testing, in order to effectively fulfill its obligations to consumer safety and security. At the same time, the platform should also establish a sound complaint handling mechanism, and take immediate measures to assist consumers in defending their rights once the sale of counterfeits is detected, including, but not limited to, providing consumers with key evidence such as merchant store information, transaction records, and commodity batch information, so that consumers can be effectively traced back and take the appropriate legal action. For non-compliant merchants, the platform should take immediate measures, such as suspending the operation of the store, deducting the security deposit, and cooperating with the regulatory authorities to pursue their legal responsibilities when necessary.

From the point of view of the merchants, Ge Youshan believes that every link in the production, transportation, sales and even after-sales service of goods should strictly comply with laws, regulations and regulatory requirements; should improve the after-sales service system, provide returns, exchanges, maintenance and other services; for the consumer's complaints, should be actively responded to, and quickly dealt with, to avoid escalation of disputes. Some of the counterfeit merchants have the mentality of “one compensation”, wrongly believing that their illegal behavior involves civil liability at most, but in fact, the serious illegal behavior of the merchants may touch on a number of criminal law crimes, including the production and sale of fake and shoddy goods, the crime of counterfeiting registered trademark, the crime of selling counterfeit goods, the crime of selling counterfeit goods, the crime of selling counterfeit goods, the crime of selling counterfeit goods, and the crime of selling counterfeit goods.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)