Doing a "part-time job" unexpectedly made him a "legal representative," and a problematic company appeared under his name

　　The "being made a legal representative" phenomenon brings debt, credit and other crises to workers, affecting job hunting, employment and life

　　Reading notes

　　Some lawbreakers use the pretext of recruiting part-time workers to trick college students into providing their identity information for company registration, making these students become legal representatives of companies without their knowledge, and as a result their job hunting is blocked and they may even be burdened with debts.

　　Recently, Zhou Heng (pseudonym), a resident of Chongqing, when checking his credit report while applying for a car loan, suddenly discovered that there was a trading company under his name, and that the company still had an unpaid bank loan. "When my friends learned about it, they joked that I had come into a 'windfall' and had transformed into 'President Zhou.'" Faced with his friends' teasing, Zhou Heng smiled bitterly and said, "How is this a 'windfall'? It is clearly a 'calamity.'"

　　After some investigation, Zhou Heng found that it was actually because of a part-time job experience during his college years that he had inadvertently leaked his identity information, which was then used fraudulently by someone else.

　　The reporter's interviews found that Zhou Heng's experience is not an isolated case. In recent years, as the commercial system reform continues to advance, company registration procedures and processes have become increasingly convenient. However, some lawbreakers fraudulently use other people's identity information to obtain company registration, especially exploiting the weakness of college students who are inexperienced in the ways of the world, inducing them to leak personal information under the guise of part-time work and other pretexts, making them become legal representatives or senior executives of companies without their knowledge. Some victims have thus had their job hunting blocked and may even be burdened with debts.

　　Part-time jobs seem easy, but actually contain "traps"

　　Zhou Heng, 23, is a designer at an advertising company in Chongqing. In December 2023, having just worked for half a year, he planned to buy a car with an installment loan. After signing the contract, the salesperson notified him that there was a problem with his credit report and that he could not get the loan.

　　"I was stunned at the time and immediately went to check my credit report," Zhou Heng said. Only after checking did he learn that there was a trading company in Sichuan Province under his name, registered in 2021.

　　"I was still in college at that time and had never registered a company at all." Zhou Heng panicked immediately. After some thought, he finally remembered that at the time he had seen someone in a part-time job group recruiting for a part-time job. The work was very simple: serving as a "crowd filler" for mini-program verification, which could be done in a few minutes, with a commission of 70 yuan each time.

　　Zhou Heng said, "How the verification was done and what work needed to be done were not explicitly stated. They only told me that someone would guide me in person." The next day, Zhou Heng met a woman who called herself Sister Zhang off campus. Under her guidance, he logged into Alipay and performed facial recognition.

　　"After I logged in, I handed my phone to Sister Zhang. She operated the entire verification process herself. I did not know what she did, and in the middle I also gave her my ID card." Zhou Heng recalled that the entire verification process took only seven or eight minutes, and he finally received a 100-yuan commission. Later, he also took several part-time jobs involving "activating programs" and "registering official accounts," all of which without exception required an ID card and facial recognition.

　　After discovering the company under his name, Zhou Heng reported the matter to the police station in his temporary place of residence, but was told that "this matter needs to be taken up with the industry and commerce department." Subsequently, he made a special trip to Chengdu, only to be told that he first had to file a case with the public security department or go through administrative litigation before the registration could be revoked.

　　"With a try-it-and-see attitude, I found the company's registered address. Fortunately, the company was still operating, and the other party admitted to the fact of fraudulently using my identity and agreed to change the legal representative. Only then was the problem resolved." In January this year, after more than a month, Zhou Heng finally extricated himself from this incident.

　　Being made a "legal representative" affects onboarding

　　Cases like Zhou Heng's of being made a "legal representative" because of part-time work occur frequently. Another Chongqing college student, Li Hai (pseudonym), who had the same experience, said that he had previously passed an interview with a Chongqing company and reached an employment intention with the company, but during the background check stage, because there were multiple enterprises under his name and one of the involved enterprises had been listed in the business abnormality directory, the hiring process could not proceed.

　　"Although the employer agreed to let me postpone onboarding, I still hope the matter can be resolved as soon as possible." After learning that there were enterprises under his name, Li Hai immediately reported the matter to the relevant departments. In mid-March this year, the Market Supervision Administration of Yuzhong District, Chongqing, where one of the enterprises was registered, replied that it had begun an investigation and would make the relevant administrative decision in accordance with the law.

　　During the interviews, some college students said that because they had become company legal representatives without their knowledge, they were restricted in job hunting and in taking examinations for civil service and public institution positions.

　　Zhou Heng admitted that after the matter was smoothly resolved, he searched for relevant information online and joined several rights-protection groups. He found that most victims of "being made a legal representative" face difficulties such as the company being an "empty shell" and being unable to contact anyone, and they can only take the path of deregistering the company to cut their losses. However, to deregister a company, the tax and market supervision departments require that taxes be paid off first and then the deregistration procedures followed.

　　"I ran to the police station, the industry and commerce bureau, and the tax authorities countless times, but none of them could solve it." A victim currently safeguarding his rights, She Nan (pseudonym), told the reporter that staff of some relevant departments suggested that he sue the company registered under his name. "I am the legal representative myself. Am I supposed to sue myself?"

　　Many victims said that in the process of safeguarding their rights, the responses of the relevant departments ultimately amounted to requiring them to prove that "I am not me."

　　The reporter learned that the State Administration for Market Regulation had long ago discovered that a small number of lawbreakers were fraudulently using other people's identity information to obtain company registration, and in June 2019 issued a document requiring market supervision departments to solidly carry out the work of revoking fraudulent registrations.

　　"The difficulty lies in how to prove that one's identity was fraudulently used," said Li Jian, a lawyer at Beijing DeHeng Law Offices (Chongqing). He believes that these people subjectively did not know, but the actual situation is equivalent to actively performing facial recognition and signing to agree to company registration; they simply did not know the purpose at the time. The requirement that registration may not be revoked without the consent of the tax authorities is to prevent tax evasion.

　　Personal information protection brooks no delay

　　"Reselling personal information such as ID cards and facial authentication videos has already formed a 'gray industrial chain' for buying and selling personal information," revealed Chen Bin, head of a financial agency company in Chongqing. Although the relevant departments have stepped up crackdowns, this gray industry has still not been effectively curbed.

　　Chen Bin gave an example: after ID card information is passed down through layers of lawbreakers, the price doubles several times. Some ID cards are purchased for 5 yuan and usually sold for 100 to 200 yuan. If there is a facial recognition video matching the ID card, the price can reach several thousand yuan.

　　Li Jian warned that when identity information is used by others to register a company, becoming the legal representative or shareholder of another company entails enormous legal risks, including possible debt liability, and personal credit and investment operations may also be affected. If the company engages in certain illegal or criminal acts, the company's legal representative may face corresponding legal liability. He suggested that tax, market supervision, public security and other departments should conduct joint investigations and allow revocation or allow victims to deregister the company through other means.

　　"The frequent occurrence of the 'being made a legal representative' phenomenon reflects lax gatekeeping in the company registration process and also shows that personal information protection brooks no delay," said Mo Yuanming, a professor at Chongqing Technology and Business University.

　　He suggested that, on the one hand, legislative departments should accelerate the improvement of laws and regulations on personal information protection, clarify the legal responsibilities for information leaks and abuse, and increase the cost of violations. Supervision over platforms involved in the collection and processing of personal information should be strengthened. On the other hand, market supervision departments should strictly review the registration materials of market entities and establish an early-warning mechanism; tax, industry and commerce, public security and other departments should strengthen coordination and establish a sharing mechanism for citizens' identity information. In addition, channels for safeguarding rights should be kept open, and legal aid should be provided to victims whose identity information has been fraudulently used.