The high subsidies of internet service platforms such as food ordering platforms and taxi-hailing software have provided consumers with a lot of benefits, but at the same time, some "moths" have also found this "fertile ground", and swiping and cheating are commonplace in the industry, causing huge losses to Internet companies.
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This year, the Putuo District Procuratorate handled a series of cases of defrauding subsidies from the "Ele.me" online food ordering platform, and uncovered a number of "scamming moths". The procuratorate attaches great importance to the problem of new types of economic crimes on the Internet, and strives to crack down on the hidden "moths" in the internet service industry to escort the economic transformation and development. Through three typical cases, the prosecutor shows you the tricks of scammers and reminds relevant parties to be vigilant.
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Case 1: "No business" – self-made "plug-in program" to operate the first order red envelope
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Zheng often used "Ele.me" to order food when he was working in the company. During one order, he learned how to swipe "Ele.me" first-order discount red envelopes indefinitely, so he came up with the idea of opening an online store to sell first-order discount red envelopes.
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In May 2015, Zheng opened a store online, registered new users by means of renting a large number of mobile phone numbers online to set up call transfer, using Android mobile phone emulator software to make up a mobile phone environment, and illegally obtained the first order preferential red envelope of the "Ele.me" food delivery platform (about 15 yuan per order business subsidy). Then the first order preferential subsidy qualification and the operation tutorial for obtaining the first order subsidy qualification were sold in the online store. In just a few months from May to October, Zheng defrauded the "Ele.me" first order preferential subsidy of more than 90,000 yuan.
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Recently, Zheng was prosecuted by the Putuo District Procuratorate on suspicion of fraud.
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Case 2: "Internal and External Collusion" – Subsidies for launching virtual restaurant sets
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The so-called day and night defense, it is difficult to prevent thieves. In the fraud case handled by the Putuo District Procuratorate this year, the "Ele.me" company also encountered internal employees guarding themselves.
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Li, the regional manager of the "Ele.me" food delivery platform, met the restaurant owners Zhao, Qian, and Sun through business contacts. In 2016, the three found Li, hoping that he would use the opportunity to work in the company to facilitate the registration procedures of the three-person platform.
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So Li used the work accounts of himself and his subordinate Chen to register a number of fake restaurants with no physical stores on the "Ele.me" platform, and formulated and approved a series of rebate activities for these restaurants. After that, Zhao, Qian, and Sun pretended to be customers many times to order food in fake restaurants, and at the same time took orders as restaurant owners, staging a good show of "buying and selling".
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Li colluded with the restaurant owner inside and outside, used false orders to swipe orders, and illegally obtained more than one million yuan in rebates from "Ele.me" ordering platform activities. Recently, Li, Zhao, Qian, and Sun were prosecuted by the Putuo District Procuratorate on suspicion of duty embezzlement.
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Case 3: "Careful planning" – the swiping team sends "spies" to infiltrate the company
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At the end of 2015, Zhou and his college classmate Wu conspired to earn "Ele.me" company activity subsidies by swiping orders. After understanding the daily operation of "Ele.me" company, Wu proposed to let Zhou first sneak into "Ele.me" company and help Wu’s team swipe orders internally.
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In March 2016, Zhou entered the "Ele.me" branch as a regional marketing manager through an interview, and had the approval authority to launch the restaurant. He then used the false catering store information provided by Wu to launch 51 virtual restaurants and plan high-value rebate activities.
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Wu’s swiping team immediately used more than 500 miscellaneous mobile phones and calling cards to register multiple accounts to order food in the virtual restaurant, illegally obtaining subsidies and rebates for new users’ first orders on the "Ele.me" ordering platform.
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After review, Zhou took advantage of his position to defraud "Ele.me" company’s preferential activities and rebates totaling more than 570,000 yuan. Zhou was eventually arrested by the Putuo District Procuratorate on suspicion of duty embezzlement.
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[Prosecutor says]
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The prosecutor said that with the Internet of taxi-hailing, catering, tourism and other service industries, there are more and more cases of fraud and compensation of swiping orders. It is not only the "Ele.me" food ordering platform that has been ravaged by "swiping order borers", but other internet service platforms have also generally suffered from swiping orders.
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It is worth noting that many ordinary users feel that swiping orders and cheating subsidies are harmless, and can only be regarded as illegal operations at most. Even they are enjoying the "benefits" brought by this gray industry.
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Taobao still has a market for selling "first order" red envelopes; Baidu search enters "brush order", showing nearly 100 million search results, and various brush order platforms and brush order tutorials are overwhelming; within Internet companies, not only have many employees taken advantage of their positions for personal gain, but there are also cases of franchisees cheating and swiping orders.
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In this regard, the prosecutor reminds those who are swiping orders or have the intention to do so that the Internet is not an extrajudicial place, and malicious swiping may violate the criminal law, and do not regret it because of greed.
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(The character is a pseudonym)
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Image source: Visual China, image editor: Da Xi
