2019-10-24 08:12
Original title: Suddenly, a 20-year training institution collapsed! Stores in many places have been closed, and 10,000 students have been "loaned"...
Recently, stores of English training institution " Webo English " in Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai and other places have been reported to have closed down due to a broken capital chain. Weiyu, founder of Webo English, published a letter to employees in response to the recent bankruptcy of Webo English, saying that the capital chain was broken due to unsuccessful financing.
As a result, Shenzhen Webb English has also closed down one after another. What is the specific situation?
Webbe English fell into a business dilemma
Funded capital chain breakMulti-campus closed
CCTV reporter Liu Xiaohan: I am now in Huaqiangbei, , Futian District, Shenzhen. This store is the headquarters ofWebbe English in Shenzhen. The store is currently closed. There are no staff members at the scene. Only some students are waiting in the front desk open area.
CCTV Finance reporter saw Lu Yuxing, a middle school student who was about to come to class at Huaqiangbei store. He seemed a little shocked at the scene without knowing it. He told reporters that he had just paid the money on September 2 and had only attended three classes so far. Last week, Webbo's teaching assistant sent him a course schedule to make an appointment and asked him to come over to attend class.
Webbo English Shenzhen student Lu Yuxing: Last week I received a notice and came here to attend class at 4 pm this afternoon. Then the moment I came out of the elevator, I pushed the door open and felt that the door was locked, and then I was very confused. When I received the message, I said that the place had gone bankrupt. At that time, I paid 54,900 yuan.
Then the reporter visited many stores in Shenzhen, and all of them had closed down. Some stores posted notices at the doors. For students who do not want to continue classes, Shenzhen stores proposed solutions, saying that offline courses can be converted into online courses, connected with other schools to continue their studies or arrange for ending courses.
WeBo English Shenzhen student Ms. Xiong: I have no idea. When I came here yesterday, the door was closed, and there was no one. Later I saw some people coming to collect information at the door, and everyone told me that it was going bankrupt and I realized the situation.
Webbo English was founded in 1998. It has more than 150 stores in more than 60 cities across the country, with nearly one million students. Such a large-scale company reported bankruptcy a month ago.
In the early morning of October 12, Gao Weiyu, founder of Webo English, issued an open letter through corporate WeChat to respond to the storm, admitting that due to business failure and the breakdown of the capital chain, the original financing plan was postponed as the performance of Webo English sector continued to deteriorate.
WeBo English Owner of a store in Shenzhen: Anyway, the next few months are not normal. I should have to pay the rent on the 5th of this month, but I haven't paid it yet.
employees "resigned"
20 Why did the training institution suddenly collapse
With the speech of the founder of Webo English, Gao Weiyu, the rumors of the closing of this training institution gradually became a reality. How thousands of employees who were owed wages and nearly one million trainees have become the focus of attention of all parties.
Ms. Zhou is a financial staff member of the Nanshan branch of Weibo English in Shenzhen. She just joined the company at the end of August this year. From the time she joined the company to the announcement of bankruptcy, she has not received any salary so far. Ms. Zhou told reporters that about a month after she joined the company, the headquarters required that all student contracts be packaged and sent to the headquarters.
Webo English Shenzhen Nanshan Branch Financial Staff Ms. Zhou: We were very surprised at that time. The reason it gave was the system upgrade. In the future, it might be a contract to sign an electronic contract directly. Then we sorted out all the contracts and distributed them to the headquarters. Only with a contract can you prove your relationship with us Webo. But after it took away all the contracts, we had no way to prove them to the students.
What made Ms. Zhou very angry was that in August, when the company's funds broke down and employees could not pay their wages, it also held several promotional activities to recruit students and paid additional rewards to sales staff to stimulate employees' sales enthusiasm.
Another foreign teacher from New Zealand James also expressed his helplessness to the reporter. After working in Webbo English for seven years, he was not only detained by Webbo English, but also his passport was detained, forcing him to continue to help students teach for free in this position.
Webbo English Shenzhen store foreign teacher James: Starting from September, we did not receive any salary. On October 10, we found that there was a problem with the company, but they did not tell us foreign teacher. I think we were all cheated. On October 11, they sent us a message that if we leave, we can leave, but they will cancel our residence permit.
An employee who claimed to be surnamed Luo told reporters that the headquarters employees had already discovered that there were abnormalities in the company's operations. In July and August this year, all employees only paid 2,000 yuan in salary every month, and by September, the company did not pay any salary. But the company had been telling employees to work together, so she chose to believe in the company.
WeBo English Shenzhen store assistant Ms. Luo: I kept talking about financing, and then asked us to wait till the 15th. The teachers actually believed that on the 16th, all the teachers were told that they had no salary and had to go to the headquarters to get our wage arrears and resignation certificates. The teacher's social security was also suddenly stopped, and they were suddenly told that the salary for October was gone.
In fact, as early as September 28, a Beijing Webbo employee sent a letter of complaint saying that the six campuses in Beijing have not paid their wages for a long time, and said that each store will be closed in the future, with the signature "A conscientious Webbo English employee." It was this letter of complaint that opened the first gap in the break of Webbo's English capital chain.
Webbo English is suspected of inducing loans
Students suffer from debts
Webbo English mainly charges tuition fees through advance payments, and students pay 30,000 to 40,000 yuan, or even up to more than 100,000 yuan. After the news of bankruptcy broke out, a large number of students applied for refunds, but most of them were unsuccessful. Due to the large amount of prepaid tuition fees, many students pay tuition fees through loans.
Hou Lumin, a white-collar worker who intends to learn English, spent 38,300 yuan to register for Webo English. At that time, he chose to apply for a 24-month installment loan from China Merchants Bank. She told reporters that the installment loan process is very simple. She only signed a student admission registration contract, opened the APP, scan a QR code to enter the payment page, and then could handle interest-free installment business.
WeBo Shenzhen English student Hou Lumin: The salesman was operating with my mobile phone, and he also glanced at his face, but he didn't let me operate anything at all. Today, the bank just sent me the contract, and I strongly requested that I only sent it to me when I needed to use this contract. I'm not at work anymore, which means I have to pay off my loan every month.
Starting from the end of September 2019, many offline stores of Webbo English have been closed. Employees’ salaries are owed, and students have nowhere to refund and are under debt pressure. College student Luo Min signed up for Webbo English in Shenzhen, with a total tuition fee of 36,800 yuan. After only less than ten classes, she encountered an embarrassing situation. Not only was she unable to attend classes, she also had to bear a debt of 35,000 yuan.
WeBo Shenzhen English student Luo Min: At first, I didn’t know that college students could not take out loans, so I think he had a possibility to induce me to take out loans. Now the internship salary is about one or two thousand, so it is difficult to repay the loan.
There are many financial institutions that cooperate with Weber English: Guangfa Bank, Baidu Youqianhua, JD Digital Technology, Du Xiaoman, etc. Webbo English staff said that most of the students' tuition fees are completed in installments, and few are paid in one lump sum, with loan orders accounting for as much as 80%.
Guangfa Bank Shenzhen Branch Installment Loan Account Manager (Undercover): Because our bank has paid the full amount of this payment to Webo, your debt is transferred from Webo to the bank, and the customer still has to repay. If a bank only provides financial services, he will not be responsible for the so-called services, products and other series of merchants.
Lawyer said that Webo English is suspected of inducing students to apply for loans to pay for training fees, which is a "tuition loan". If the relevant staff of Webbo English know that the company's funds are broken and the store is about to close, it is impossible to continue to provide training services, but they fool the students some time before the store is closed, and then run away with the money. In this case, the relevant personnel are suspected of fraud.
Lawyer Chen Keng: For consumers, in this case, they are advised to sue the people's court when the training institution cannot provide training services, demand the termination of the contract and refund the remaining tuition fees. Once Webb English filed for bankruptcy, it had to conduct a liquidation. In the liquidation process, part of its assets would be bankrupt. Then, in its bankruptcy property, its bankruptcy property should be used to repay all its external debts.
Editor: Qin Lumin
