Not long ago, Wall Street English, a well-known training institution, was exposed to rumors that it would declare bankruptcy. According to public information, the tuition fee owed by this adult English training enterprise is as high as 65.438+0.2 billion yuan. It is worth noting that this huge tuition fee is paid by a large number of students to training institutions in advance, including loans. What is the mystery behind such consumption?
Wall Street English is closed.
Students still have to pay back their loans.
CCTV Finance "Economic Half-hour" column video
Wall Street English, an adult English training institution that entered the China market in 2000, regards customer orientation as a middle and high-end group. Although the course is expensive, it does not prevent it from becoming the "darling" of the teaching and training market. At one time, the average annual income growth rate exceeded 40%.
Today, however, overnight, all the 39 learning centers of Wall Street English in the country 1 1 city stopped operating.
According to the query results of Tianyancha, Wall Street English Training Center (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. was listed as an abnormal operation by Shanghai Municipal Market Supervision Administration because its registered place or business premises could not be contacted. At the same time, Tian Yue's risk information also shows that many branches of Wall Street English can't be contacted because of their registered residences or business premises, and they are listed in the business exception list.
The English students on Wall Street feel helpless behind closed doors overnight. Many students constantly reflect their experiences in local police stations, networks and consumer hotlines, and seek solutions to refund tuition fees.
At the same time, a recording of a conversation between Wall Street English executives and employees in August 1 1 was also circulated online. Although the management is noncommittal about the rumor that "Wall Street English will go bankrupt", it makes the consumer road a hot topic on the Internet.
The training institution is closed, can the students' tuition be refunded in time? At present, Wall Street English has not given any official answer, and a more complicated problem has surfaced, that is, students who have obtained loans for training and study are now in an embarrassing situation of "getting loans without studying".
Luo Xiao, 23, is an ordinary white-collar worker. 202 1, 1 year1October, she spent 22,600 yuan to buy a one-year training course in an English training institution on Wall Street. Under the introduction of the sales consultant, she completed the payment by way of loan through an application called "Du Xiaoman".
Only two months later, with the strong recommendation of Wall Street English sales consultant, Ronaldinho bought a one-year training course for 20,500 yuan. This time, she paid by handling a credit card.
Recalling the whole process of handling the card, Ronaldinho said that it was unexpectedly fast. What she didn't expect was that her monthly income was only 5,000 yuan, but she easily borrowed 25,000 yuan. But it also means that in order to pay two tuition fees for Wall Street English, Ronaldinho just needs to spend about 3,000 yuan a month to repay the loan.
A statistical table of Wall Street English filled out by students shows that there are 49 users in Beijing Dawanglu Center alone, and the contract amount for purchasing classes exceeds 654.38+million yuan, with the highest contract amount reaching 570,000 yuan.
According to an online statistical table filled out by the students of Wall Street English Training Institute in Guangzhou, the purchase contract amount of 65 users exceeded 654.38+10,000 yuan, with the highest purchase contract amount as high as1.51.8,000 yuan.
In addition, some volunteers made statistics on English learners on Wall Street. By noon on August 14 and 12, more than 6,000 learners had registered in less than half a day, involving a contract amount of 480 million.
Among these students, 52% pay their tuition fees through loans from banks or financial platforms. Courses are expensive, so recommending loans has become a necessary course sales process for Wall Street English sales consultants. Two or three hours, or even five or six hours, under the strong marketing offensive, there are not a few students who let themselves bear a tuition debt.
In June, 2020, 165438+ 10, a college student, Xiao Xiang bought a one-year course at the price of18,000 yuan in Wall Street English in the center of Beijing's West Ring Square, of which the loan repayment was nearly15,000 yuan, and it was also 1000 yuan every month.
As a college student with a living expenses of only 2,000 yuan, the money is far beyond Xiao Xiang's ability to pay.
Before Zhang Xiao thought too much, the staff who handled the credit card appeared at the scene at the first time. Knowing that Xiaoxiang was still a student at school, he didn't have any proof of income, and even didn't get the credit card, he directly opened a loan line on the application and paid it on the spot.
If you can't attend class, you have to pay back the loan.
Students want to cry without tears.
With the closure of the offline English shop on Wall Street, students are now generally faced with a dilemma: the courses they bought can neither be attended nor refunded, but the loans must be repaid, otherwise it will have a negative impact on their personal credit information.
In order to recover their own economic losses, some students also applied to the lending institutions for loan withdrawal. A number of financial institutions that provide loan services to this student all said that in order to terminate the loan contract, Wall Street English needs to refund the financial institutions first and apply for terminating the student's loan contract. However, when Ronaldinho called the hotline of Wall Street English again, the phone could not be dialed.
If Wall Street English, which has closed down, goes into bankruptcy liquidation in the future, will students still have the opportunity to refund their tuition fees?
As early as 20 19, Weibo English, one of the three giants of adult English training, closed many stores nationwide because of the broken capital chain, and the relevant person in charge "ran away". Until August, 20021year, some students of this training institution in Shenzhen won the case, but because Webb English has no assets to implement, it still failed to get back the tuition.
As a popular scene in the consumer finance industry, "training loan" has always been favored by many financial institutions. However, in recent years, the staged risks of education and training have gradually been exposed to the public. Relevant training institutions can close their doors and suspend classes overnight. Training institutions have already received the money from student loans and will not return it to consumers at all. However, financial institutions will not worry about the default of loan students, because the regulation of "overdue record credit investigation" is the "big hand" to block the "life door" of loan consumers. Students who finally spend money on loans can only admit that they are unlucky.
Half an hour observation:
Consumer finance calls for effective supervision.
As early as the beginning of 20021,the central bank issued an early warning: we should be highly alert to the overdraft effect and potential risks of the excessive rise of residents' leverage ratio, and we should not rely on consumer finance to expand consumption. Consumers should not believe the flicker of businesses. Think clearly about your rights and interests before spending, will you be hurt?
At the same time, we look forward to the introduction of more regulatory rules. Consumer finance is to be developed, but it must not be a black hand for businesses to hurt consumers.
Source | CCTV Finance
How to solve the problem that gyms and training institutions need to pay in advance and spend a lot of money?
Prepaid consumption, popularly speaking, is the recharge consumption of membership cards, which is now very common. Especially in the education and training industry, beauty salons, fitness swimming and other industries. These industries are also institutions that are prone to deviation in recent years, and have become hot and difficult points in current consumption.
At the end of September, Weibo English, which has more than 200 stores, closed a large number of stores due to poor management, and a large number of students were faced with the situation that they could not get a refund and had no classes. The training fee of Webb English is not low, and most students complete it in the form of installment loans. After the collapse of Web English, students still need to repay their loans in order to avoid the problem of credit reporting, and they are still struggling.
10, Changsha old gym miracle fitness custom shop suddenly closed. Although you can continue to exercise in other stores, it is extremely inconvenient for many members, and members have not got a satisfactory answer when they ask for a refund.
Don't think that only physical businesses will close their stores and run away, and so will Internet companies. Xiao Huang is one of them. He is still waiting in line for a refund last year.
In this case, consumers are really not a simple matter.
In order to further standardize the order of prepaid consumer market and protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, the Office of the Joint Conference on Market Consumption Environment Construction in Beijing organized the Beijing Municipal Market Supervision Administration, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Commerce, the Beijing Municipal Education Commission, the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau, the Beijing Municipal Transportation Commission, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism and other units to draft seven documents, including Opinions on Strengthening the Management of Prepaid Consumer Market (Draft for Comment), to guide education and training, fitness and travel enjoyment.
The fitness card shall not exceed 3000 yuan in advance.
Fitness industry is the hardest hit area in recent years. According to this document, gyms should not sell prepaid fitness products with a validity period of more than 3 months and a prepayment amount of more than 3,000 yuan in principle. When the card-selling sports and fitness business premises cannot provide services continuously, the business risks should be announced 1 month in advance, the prepaid balance of consumers should be returned in time, or the follow-up service problems should be properly solved.
* * * The prepaid bicycle fee shall not exceed RMB 100.
The prepayment amount of a single user account for renting bicycles on the Internet shall not exceed 100 yuan.
1, 000 yuan of remedial classes, not by stages.
Training institutions can't guide consumers to use installment credit to pay large consumption, which means 1 10,000 yuan or more. In addition, training institutions must purchase commercial insurance such as "refund insurance" for consumers when making large-scale prepaid consumption of more than 654.38 million yuan to reduce consumption risks.
What about Webb's English loan without my consent?
If you don't agree to bring money, of course not. You need to agree to handle the contract at the same time before you can issue a loan.