annual interest rate exceeds 300%.
Recently, Time Finance found from the Ju Complaint and Black Cat Complaint platforms that many consumers encountered problems such as "head interest cut" and "violent collection" after borrowing from Tongcheng Travel. There are as many as 782 complaints on the Black Cat Complaint Platform, and there are 621 complaints on the Ju Complaint Platform. In addition to the above issues, they also involve fraudulent consumers and false propaganda.
It is understood that Tongcheng Travel began to develop tourism consumer credit products in 2015: "Chengcheng Baitiao" business, which was originally a computer version, and was officially fully opened on the mobile client in March 2016. Consumers can use this function to pay for air tickets, train tickets, tour group fees, etc. in installments.
In fact, "Chengcheng Baitiao" belongs to installment loans, and another financial product similar to "Jiebei" belongs to "cash loans". Some consumers said that "borrowing 1,000 yuan to charge a 199 channel acceleration fee (head interest) period is 1,029 per month, and the interest rate is 7 yuan a day, with an annual interest of up to 360%.
was founded in 2004. It started with scenic spot tickets, air tickets, train tickets and other businesses in the early years. After Tongcheng Tourism Group was split into Tongcheng.com network and Tongcheng National Travel, the former merged with elong travel agency to Tongcheng elong, which is the main body listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange today. After the merger of the two, Tencent also became the largest shareholder with a 24.9% stake.
Beijing Jing'an Law Firm Zhang Yuezhang introduced to Time Finance that the total amount of interest and various additional expenses exceeds the interest upper limit of the "Regulations on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Laws in the Trial of Private Lending Cases". If the interest rate exceeds the annual interest rate of 36%, it should be defined as usury.
Time Finance contacted Tongcheng Tourism on the above issues. As of press time, no reply has been made.
Blade interest violent collection
Comprehensive complaint content, Tongcheng's financial products are routinely a matter of, before borrowing, you must purchase a membership, deduct 199 yuan of membership fee, otherwise you cannot borrow. This means that the loan is 1,000 yuan, deducted 199 yuan, and the actual amount is 801 yuan, but one month later, you need to pay back 1,000 yuan with principal and interest. Some media calculated the calculations and the interest rate for a day is more than 7 yuan, with an annual interest rate of more than 300%.
Take the name Butternanny to post a complaint in the Black Cat Complaint as an example. The consumer said, "I borrowed money from Tongcheng Financial Services in Tongcheng Travel App. Before borrowing, I asked me to purchase a member of 199, otherwise I would not be able to borrow. If the loan is not successful, I will refund the 199 yuan."
is similar to the above consumers. In addition to involving head interest and usury, the lending services of Tongcheng tourism have also been exposed to have violent debt collection.
According to China Radio and Television China Voice, Ms. Zhang used the "Chengcheng White Note" service in March this year and purchased the train ticket. She said she had already paid back the money during the repayment period, and her sister still received a collection call in April.
Ms. Yang said, "I called me later and said I was overdue. I also told him about my current situation. I was indeed induced to borrow money before borrowing this. The other party said that if I don't handle it well, it will be handed over to a third party for collection in the future. In this way, I will contact my relatives and friends and I will bear the consequences."
It is understood that the "Chengcheng Baitiao User Agreement" under Tongcheng Tourism clearly states that in order to better provide services to users, it is necessary to agree and authorize the service provider to retain any information related to this service through the retaining of any information related to this service by the service provider's affiliated companies and Tongcheng's companies. The information that the platform can obtain includes the borrower's identity information, access to computer IP addresses and other location service information, credit information, property information, including but not limited to financial and tax information, real estate information, vehicle information, funds, insurance and other investment and financial information and liability information.
Beijing Weiheng Law Firm's lawyer He Zhiwei believes that because in the Contract Law and the Judicial Interpretation of Private Lending, the lender shall directly deduct the remaining part of the pre-interest that should be deducted should be handed over to the borrower in the principal, and the loan shall be returned according to the actual amount of the loan, and the interest shall be calculated based on this amount. Although it is your choice whether to deduct it or not, we can only go down if you deduct it.
"So my opinion on this issue is that consumers have no choice. The software shows that the loan is 1,000, and the amount other than 199 is deducted after getting it. This is the obvious 'head-behead interest'." He Zhiwei said.
Over-collect user information
Time Finance Note By downloading Tongcheng Travel APP, it was found that in the APP homepage "Borrow Money·Installation Tour" page, when clicking on the options for withdrawal of money, outbound travel, domestic travel and other services, the page will jump to the "Chengcheng White Note" page and prompt the user to fill in his personal bank account information.
According to China News Service, the platform "licensed" to collect a wide range of information types, including borrower identity information, access to computer IP addresses and other location service information, as well as credit information and property information, including but not limited to financial and tax information, real estate information, vehicle information, funds, insurance, stocks, trusts, bonds and other investment and financial information and liability information.
Regarding whether Tongcheng Travel is suspected of over-collecting and using user information, some industry insiders said that the platform should follow the principle of "minimum personal information is sufficient" proposed by national standards. The platform collects as much personal user information as possible, which is actually contrary to national regulations.
In early 2019, Tongcheng Travel was named by the China Internet Association for suspected excessive collection of user information. Through technical inspections and user reports, it was found that 18 APPs including Tongcheng Travel were suspected of over-collecting user-sensitive information such as "SMS", "Directors", "Location", and "Record".
It is worth mentioning that Tongcheng Tourism has laid out many financial businesses. It is reported that in Tongcheng Travel APP, in addition to many financial businesses including "borrowing money", "crowd funding", "increasing amount + interest-free", "loan supermarket" and credit card processing, there are also many third-party loan APPs in Tongcheng Travel's "borrow recommendation", such as "Moonlight Xia Baitiao", "Shengbei", "Xiaotong Biddong", etc.
Education industry insiders told Time Finance that the consumption method achieved by using financial installment is infinitely arousing consumers' desire and greed for purchases. For the leading Internet travel platforms, by over-collecting user information, using consumers' online consumption traces to generate data, and entering the database set up by the platform, thereby generating a consumer consumption backend model. In the legal context of lacking the right to digital forgetting, users have nowhere to escape under database monitoring and in a more hidden power system, thus forming "prison-style consumption". (Beijing Time Finance Li Hongli)
