How did the healthy cat that raised 500 million yuan in Series C two months ago become a Ponzi scheme?
Who would have thought? Exercise and fitness can also play Ponzi scheme. This time, the leek reaper in the sports circle is the mysterious company 3354 Health Cat in the industry.
"Healthy cats" are suspected of illegally absorbing public deposits.
This morning (August 27th), the Press Office of Guangzhou Public Security Bureau issued a circular: "According to reports from the masses and investigations by public security organs, Tianhe Branch of Guangzhou Public Security Bureau today filed a case for investigation on Guangzhou Elephant Health Technology Co., Ltd. ("Healthy Cat "platform) suspected of illegally absorbing public deposits, and approved the arrest of nine suspects, including Yang (male, 40 years old, from Anhui), the legal representative of the company."
As soon as the news came out, the victims said that the company cheated sports students on the grounds of the General Administration of Sports and listing in the United States, and many teachers and students were cheated, leaving students in debt before entering the society. The nature is very bad.
What the hell is going on?
Health was launched on March 20 15. Official propaganda supports retired athletes and college sports graduates to innovate and start businesses with the business model of "technology * * *" and make use of the advantages of O2O to grow rapidly.
Its entrepreneurial scenes include: online appointment for teaching under the private education O2O service line; Build "* * * Smart Community Sports Center" in all communities across the country, and put smart sports equipment in communities; Sales of sports health products; Organize quality activities, social activities, etc.
To put it simply, in the early days of its establishment, it started with the O2O teaching service of private education in the fitness industry, and most of the private education started on the platform were college students in the Department of Physical Education.
What makes healthy cats a scam is this private education appointment service!
Private education is a link between professional athletes and fitness people. Sports professionals can sign up for private education with relevant sports certificates to start classes for healthy cats. Registered students can choose their own courses and pay the fees.
Therefore, in order to gain users, healthy cats have made presentations in major sports colleges and universities across the country. On 20 15, Yang Huali, CEO of Elephant Technology, and other responsible persons went to Huazhong Normal University, Wuhan Institute of Physical Education, Beijing Sport University and other physical education normal colleges to give lectures.
In an interview with Nanfang Daily that year, Yang Li explained that healthy cats were founded because there are more than 60,000 sports students and more than 7,000 retired athletes in China every year, but the conversion rate of these people who continue to engage in sports-related business every year is less than 10%. "On the one hand, there is a large demand, on the other hand, there are many convertible resources, and there is no conversion. There is a gap in the middle, and this is our opportunity. "
20 15 is the time when the sports industry in China is in the ascendant. At this time, "Internet sports" entrepreneurship is also at the forefront. Healthy cats and other sports O2O platforms emerge one after another.
Normal single mode of healthy cats
According to the cost of each student's class, Healthy Cat will provide a certain proportion of subsidies to each registered member of Healthy Cat Private Education, ranging from 2% and 5% to 10%, and adjust according to different time periods. In other words, in addition to the class fees paid by students, private education can also get teaching subsidies from the platform.
On March 28th, 20 15, after the launch of "Healthy Cat", it was announced that it would provide value-added services of coach reservation and course reservation, that is, private users could earn class fees and class subsidies by teaching.
As an O2O fitness platform, healthy cats are as important as O2O platforms such as Didi taxi and Meituan takeaway. Therefore, in the early days of its establishment, Healthy Cat, like other O2O platforms, gave extremely high subsidies to those private teachers who started classes. Other O2O platforms give a coupon at most, and healthy cats give real mo.
Every time a new person is invited to become a private tutor, the private tutor can get an allowance. The more people invited, the higher the personal status level, and the higher the monthly fixed allowance, which can only be obtained if the performance indicators are completed.
According to the number of people invited, ordinary private teachers can be promoted to small, medium and large captains. When the number reaches 1000, they can become city directors. When the number reaches 5000, he can be promoted to the general manager of the provincial branch. The general manager can get an allowance of 5,000 yuan per month, and a commission of 1% for achieving the performance target of 800,000 yuan.
More and more private teachers are beginning to find that they can complete transactions by registering students' accounts and get subsidies by paying their own class fees. Some private teachers say that the most time to arrange classes is from 7 am to 6 pm, and a class even reaches 200 people.
These data are all false, but the return is true. The private tutor said, "We all take 10 days or months as the unit. Take the investment of 654.38 million yuan as an example. After one month, we can get a cash back of 6,000 yuan, and after deducting the withdrawal fee, we can get more than 5,000 yuan. "
In order to get higher returns, some people start to invest their savings and even lend money to "healthy cats" from various channels.
Xiao Liu, a student of a physical education institute, said that he joined the "healthy cat" in early May this year and won a reward of 654.38+10,000 yuan on May 8. Then he chose to continue to invest, and invested 1.4 million yuan before and after. However, since the end of May this year, private education has been unable to extract subsidies from the platform, and the hours invested cannot be extracted.
College students are trapped in it.
According to public information, after June 20 15 1, the subsidy of healthy cats to private education users was reduced from 15% to 5%, once every 20 17 years to 1.5%, and the withdrawal period was finally extended from three days to ten days. However, since February this year, the subsidy of "healthy cats" to private education users once rose to 15%, but then gradually fell back to 10% and 8%.
Many people who broke the news admitted that as long as they registered a series of "trumpets" on the client, they could book courses and "swipe their bills" from the personal education number. "Even if there is no class, there is not much monitoring on the' healthy cat' side, and there is no corresponding abnormal warning. It can be said with certainty that most of the above personal education numbers are in the process of brushing. "
Brushing a bill is no stranger to many people. For example, when Didi takes a taxi to enter the market, it often provides high subsidies, such as 10% commission per order. So some drivers use a brush machine.
Cheat subsidies, but this promotion was blocked by the platform, thus maintaining the healthy development of the industry.
However, if the "platform" and "driver" brush the bill together, is the purpose just to obtain high turnover? The result is a terrible money bubble and a fake carnival.
The highest rate of return on monthly subsidies also exceeded 50%. Such a high subsidy is undoubtedly attractive to students in physical education institutes on campus.
The backstage of Chengwu Healthy Cat Private Education shows that in less than two years, the accumulated subsidy is as high as nearly 900,000 yuan through the investment principal circulation bill.
I plan to start looking for a job after writing my graduation thesis this summer. But now, Cheng Wu, who is in debt of one million yuan, has no intention of continuing his studies.
In addition, an undergraduate from a well-known sports university in Beijing joined the list of healthy cats in May this year, and he invested nearly 654.38+10,000 yuan. According to him, some of his classmates made a lot of money through healthy cats. "Some people even bought cars and houses.".
Teacher Chen said that in practice, the supervision of the platform is not strict, and private tutors open a trumpet to pay class fees in the name of students. Then every few days, the platform will refund the class fee and subsidize it according to a certain proportion of the class fee.
In view of the high return, Mr. Chen has more and more recharge hours.
As of May, the recharge amount of his personal account expenses in the app reached 500,000 yuan. But since May, all the money has been withdrawn. Mr. Chen contacted the person in charge of the platform and did not get any statement.
A number of registered users of the Healthy Cat app private education, they introduced that they have basically not attended classes since registration. Many private education programs brush their own classes, and then the platform returns class fees and subsidies. Due to the high return on subsidies, private teachers are increasing the amount of recharge.
Founder of "Retired Athletes"
Self-proclaimed "the future of sports in China"
The founder of Healthy Cat is Yang Huali, who calls himself "Brother Elephant". According to public information and previous interviews, 1978 was born in Yang Huali, Anhui Province, and studied martial arts since childhood. According to Yang Huali, he won three national Sanda championships in 1990, and worked as a security guard, fitness instructor and manager of hotel recreation center after retirement.
Anhui Tianma Taxus Technology Co., Ltd. was established in 2007;
On 20 15, Yang Huali founded Elephant Technology. The first product is the fitness cat App, which claims to help retired athletes turn around beautifully. Turn them into personal tutors for various projects, mainly students who have just graduated from sports colleges or are still studying. He also provides private lessons for healthy cats at a cost of 65,438+0,000 yuan/hour.
May 20 15, healthy cats were online for less than two months. In an exclusive interview with Sina Guangdong, Yang Huali said: Now there are 3,000 private education services in the platform. It is worth mentioning that there are more than 40 world champions in these private education.
Besides, Yang Huali has many titles: member of China Democratic League and vice chairman of China Fitness Qigong Association. Director of Marketing Department of National Traditional Sports Branch of China University Sports Association, member of Guangdong Youth Federation, director of Guangdong Emerging Industry Finance Association, entrepreneurial tutor of Physical Education College of Huazhong Normal University, and entrepreneurial tutor of Tai Ji Chuan College of Henan Polytechnic University.
In addition to Yang Huali himself, Tianyancha shows that the main leaders of the company are all from universities:
Huangshan,1July, 1997, a teacher of Physical Education College of Huazhong Normal University. 201510 June 13 served as the legal person and chairman of Wuhan nature sports industry development co., ltd.
Wei Jian, 20 10, lecturer of physical education department of Fudan university. 20 15 1 1 worked in Shanghai zuozhiqi sports investment co., ltd as the chairman.
Zhuang Zhiyong, 165438+2009 10 to 2065438+September 2003, served as the coach of Tai Ji Chuan, Wushu Center of Guangdong Institute of Sports Technology; 20 15 1 1 general manager of Guangzhou elephant sports development co., ltd. ..
Guo Huixian, 20 1 1, was a lecturer in the Department of Physical Education of Beijing University of Chinese Medicine in July, and worked as a physical education teacher; 20 15 1 1 served as the chairman of Beijing jianmao sports industry development co., ltd.
Sun Min, who appeared on the boards of several companies, was confirmed by many people to be Yang Huali's wife. She is the national martial arts champion and runner-up in double swords. She graduated from Shanghai Institute of Physical Education and used to be a teacher at Shanghai University.
In addition to these four companies, Guangzhou Elephant Network Technology Co., Ltd., as the absolute majority shareholder of Elephant Technology, has two other shareholders with backgrounds of Shanghai Institute of Physical Education and Chengdu Institute of Physical Education, besides Yang Huali.
250,000 students and teachers in the Institute of Physical Education.
Everyone is in debt of hundreds of thousands.
According to official data, the platform now has about 250,000 private teachers.
In addition to retired athletes and physical education teachers, most of the private education of healthy cats are college students of physical education department, especially in Beishangguang. I just wanted to find a part-time job to reduce the burden on my family. Cheated to add leverage to brush a bill, borrow money, overdraw credit cards, borrow relatives and so on. , and heavily in debt. The amount is generally more than several hundred thousand.
The nightmare of these 250,000 athletes began in May this year.
In May of this year, healthy cats had an unavoidable crisis. However, in June, Elephant Technology announced the completion of the 500 million yuan Series C financing: the investors included 10 domestic sports industry companies from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Fujian, Guangxi, Shandong, Anhui and other places, as well as more than 30 Olympic champions and world champions in various events.
Trying to stabilize the rhythm of cashing in private education, but unfortunately failed.
Then, the healthy cat issued a notice of closure, prohibiting coaches from withdrawing subsidies and class fees on the grounds that there was a problem with the cash withdrawal system. There was no reply at this station for three months. In other words, all the classes that are bought by the bill are frozen in the platform and become "classes to be cashed out". Those private tutors who brush the platform with their own pockets for large-value transactions were cut as leeks.
The personal trainer who used to borrow money to raise healthy cats realized that he had been cheated by such a big circle. However, the class they bought by Bill was really there. When a person buys a class, he can enjoy it for a long time, even if he is over 100.
Healthy cats "thieves shout to catch thieves" and deduct 75% of the principal of private education.
Since August, some "healthy cats" have reported cases to Guangzhou police one after another, arguing that elephant companies are fraudulent.
According to many private teachers, the elephant company breached the contract by paying for classes.
"It was the company staff who asked us to brush the bill." Teacher Chen bluntly said that the company staff told the private teacher that it would take performance and a lot of turnover for the company to go public, and they would also set goals and tasks within the group.
"By the end of June, the money couldn't arrive in time for more than a month, asking us to add positions. Adding a position is to do the performance again. "
"In May this year, it was said that the system was debugged and the funds could not be returned. In June, the company's personnel were still sending requirements to shareholders, doing mall performance, taking orders, and completing listing big data. " Miss Liu from Tianjin has the same reaction. She kept a large number of relevant chat records and company announcements, and questioned that the act of swiping the bill was intentional by the company.
According to reports, the announcement of "Healthy Cat" in June showed that the class fees of private tutors will be "converted into automatic contracts", that is, the money that private tutors can't withdraw will be automatically invested in course contracts to continue their business.
On August 10, Elephant Company announced that it had reported the case to Guangzhou Tianhe Public Security Bureau on the grounds that some private education users of "Healthy Cat" "maliciously cashed out during the promotion period of the company".
Healthy Cat also said that the company cashed in more than 654.38 billion yuan, and a large number of private teachers who cashed out in the early stage attacked it online.
The private education that did not hesitate to borrow money to increase the trading volume of the platform was finally threatened by the platform with the legal weapon of "illegal brushing". The personal trainer has come out to complain, and the healthy cat has denied that he is encouraging brushing and asked him to sign a settlement agreement.
The so-called "reconciliation agreement" is to let the private teacher admit the brushing behavior, and deduct all subsidies and 70% of the principal: 6 months 1 time ***2 times to return 30% of the principal in cash, but the other 70% of the principal will be deducted from the e-commerce products of Health SaaS or "20% of the treadmill advertising revenue of the agent's sports equipment". if
What will happen if you don't sign it? Healthy cats are all planned for them.
If you don't sign, the healthy cat will provide the data to the police: "What evidence do you have to prove that the company asked you to brush the bill?" If there is no evidence, it is malicious to brush the bill, or sign a contract to write off the money, or our company provides the data to the police. Malicious brushing will go to jail. "Stop fooling around and write a repentance book. I'll pay you back some money.
And carrot and stick: we wait for the company to continue to develop, and when it goes public, everyone can be financially free.
Less than half a month later, on August 27, the "healthy cat" was finally characterized by the police as "illegally absorbing public deposits".
Related Q&A: What should I do to get a cat health certificate in Shenzhen? How much will it cost? How long will it take? Unlike dogs, cats don't need health certificates. You can take your cat to the pet hospital for vaccination, and then you will get the proof of epidemic prevention. It doesn't matter if you don't. Some residential property management does not require cats to have dogs with proof of epidemic prevention.
Related question and answer: Is "Cloud Cat Slave" willing to spend money to rent a healthy cat to suck for a few days? Cats are spiritual animals. Let them rent it as a commodity. Have you ever thought about how cats feel? Cats have a strong sense of territory, even when they go to a strange environment, they will have a stress reaction.
Cats in the cloud, as the name implies, are spiritual favorites, and may not have been actually raised. To really keep a cat, you must really love her. It's not a whim that you keep her for a few days. When you really keep her, you should adapt to everything, because the first time you meet her, she can't treat you as everything and be close to you as you think. A few days together may not get a cat's heart. Even if there is eye contact, leaving after a few days is a merciless abandonment for her.
To really keep a cat, you have to tolerate her hair loss, you have to serve her three meals a day, and you have to be careful of her little paws. Sometimes she didn't mean to catch you, even if she was careful. . .
Every time I look at pictures of people drying cats, I feel cute, but who knows what's behind it. If you want to raise it, raise it seriously, or forget it if you don't. As for renting, I don't know whose idea it was. I don't quite agree.