CRI听力:Chinese Group-Buying Websites Facing Challenges to Their Reputation

Wowotuan or 55tuan.com is one of the major group-buying websites in China, attracting thousands of online visitors every day. Recently, the company decided to offer a number of gift cards online to thank their old customers. However, these valued online customers who received the gift suddenly found that many of their accounts had been frozen five days after the campaign took effect. The incident aroused suspicion among many of the recipients.

"I logged onto the website and wanted to top up my gift card, but discovered it had been deactivated. Customer services told me their website had been attacked by a hacker. I thought it might be a trap set by the website itself?"

"I thought to myself, why can't the website do anything about it since it is such a big group-buying site."

As questions and inquiries mount, the website claims that they've found a number of people using a fake user generation tool in order to create multiple user accounts and gain as many gift cards as possible. An anonymous tech manager with the website explains someone released the software online teaching people how to gain the gift cards.

"For example, our gift card give-away campaign started at 11am. From 12 pm, someone had started to use the software to gain gift cards. By 1pm, when the campaign ended, the person had gained more than 2500 cards in total. A real user needs at least 2 minutes to log onto our website by entering his email address, but this hacker only spent two seconds logging on with one ID."

One of the accounts shows that a person received as many as 63 thousand yuan through using the software. The company states that they intended to give out 400 thousand cards valued at three million yuan in total. But now these cards are in the possession of only one to two thousand people, thanks in part due to the malicious software.

Group-buying websites so far have been filed with numerous lawsuits and complaints, but this incident seems to have set up another typical case in this growing market. Facing the customers' questions and doubts, the president of the company, Xu Maodong, says they have decided to unfreeze the accounts even though the company will have to suffer some losses.

"We don't want to hurt any customers, so we've decided to release all the accounts, and those customers who already applied for the gift cards will still benefit."

Secretary-in-Chief of Beijing Ecommerce Association, Lin Ya, says all kinds of websites will encounter technique problems, but they must prepare to take responsibility when problem occur.

"The companies who get into such troubles have to deal with it. You can't violate customer's rights for any reason. Once you start such a campaign you have to be prepared for all possibilities, including the risks witnessed here."

Many group-buying websites have been accused of providing short-sighted poor service, gaining very poor reviews among online customers. Many of those that received such criticism have gradually faded out of the market. Eventually, only those who can provide professional services with a high level of responsibility will survive and establish good reputations among consumers.

For CRI, I'm Liu Min.