Clear Identification and Lawful Crackdown on "Professional Store Closers"
2024-04-15
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In recent years, disputes caused by "sudden store closures" at gyms, education and training institutions, and others operating under the "prepaid model" have attracted attention. Several parents have reported that "third parties" have emerged to carry out online and offline communication and coordination work. These third-party groups pulling the strings are known as "professional store closers." They often have a complete set of store-closing procedures and step in when a company faces closure or poor management, helping these institutions "slip away" and evade legal accountability. (Beijing Evening News, April 14)
Under the prepaid consumption model, barbershops, gyms, education and training institutions, and the like sometimes see operators suddenly close their doors, leaving consumers with no way to defend their rights. In particular, some unscrupulous merchants may have been desperately using discounts and other promotions yesterday to attract consumers to buy cards or top up, only to shut down and run off today without warning, leaving consumers facing enormous economic losses. In response, various parts of the country have in recent years been regulating and curbing this through laws, regulations, and administrative measures to safeguard consumers' legitimate rights and interests.
The so-called "professional store closers" refer to groups that help poorly managed companies plan how to close their stores and abscond, and then take over handling the ensuing rights-protection issues. Dismissing employees, reassembling customer service teams, lowering consumer expectations, and inducing consumers to accept unfair proposals are important parts of these "professional store closers'" work. Clearly, the emergence of "professional store closers" objectively further encourages some merchants' behavior of "closing stores and absconding"; on the other hand, it increases the difficulty for consumers to defend their rights, causing consumers to bear greater economic losses. From this perspective, the practices of "professional store closers" are entirely aiding and abetting wrongdoing.
"Professional store closers" present themselves as professionals and pitch their paid services to market entities that are poorly managed or that never intended to operate properly in the first place. Their services consist of how to better help these merchants close their stores and abscond with the money, including how to attract more people to buy cards and top up before closing, and how to cleverly choose the timing of closure. Clearly, for market entities, this is entirely a negative and harmful force: the intervention of "professional store closers" not only makes merchants abandon the idea of trying every means to keep operating and revive their companies, but also makes those merchants who were already preparing to close and run off even more brazen.
Whether from the perspective of maintaining market order or safeguarding consumers' legitimate rights and interests, the emergence of "professional store closers" cannot be ignored. The government and relevant parties should continue to improve the laws and market regulation governing the prepaid model to safeguard consumers' legitimate rights and interests. One current problem is that, since "professional store closers" are a relatively new phenomenon, in many cases in judicial practice it is still difficult to determine their identity and the nature of their conduct at the legal level, so it is hard to speak of subsequent regulation and crackdowns. Therefore, the pressing task is to determine the identity and nature of "professional store closers" as soon as possible by improving relevant legal provisions or issuing judicial interpretations, and then regulate and rectify them.
Of course, if it is verified that "professional store closers" instigated, induced, or assisted some enterprises and merchants in running promotional activities before closing and then absconding with the money, then their conduct clearly constitutes joint fraud and they must be held legally accountable in accordance with the law.
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