On the occasion of the May Day holiday, China Youth Daily has released a consumer avoidance "pit" guide based on new policies and hot cases, helping you identify clich é s, dismantle hidden clauses, warn high-risk scenarios with just one click, and sharpen your "sharp eyes". Be wary of the "pseudo science" marketing of health food. Recently, 15 consumer associations and consumer protection committees in Beijing and other places jointly released consumer insights reports related to kitchen stores, cultural tourism and other fields. Among them, it is pointed out that "being deceived when buying health products" is no longer exclusive to the elderly. The group aged 26 to 45 accounts for 79.8% of the nutrition and health consumption market, while the "quick health", "quick beauty", "quick weight loss" promoted by businesses have become an insurmountable "pit" for young consumers. At the same time, disputes over nutrition and health consumption exhibit three major characteristics: the upgrading of false advertising technology, the concealment of illegal additions, and the concentration of risks in new consumption scenarios. The relevant regulatory authorities have noticed this phenomenon. On April 17th, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued a notice on maintaining the order of the advertising market and creating a good consumption environment, which stipulates that ordinary food advertising with health benefits or disease prevention and treatment functions, as well as illegal and irregular behaviors such as claiming "zero sugar", "zero card", "no additives", "no preservatives" without factual basis and violating relevant standards and regulations, shall be investigated and punished in accordance with the law. The State Administration for Market Regulation reminds consumers to have a scientific understanding and rational consumption. When purchasing health food, they must remember to choose a legitimate sales venue, check registration or filing information, check suitable population, check production date and shelf life, keep purchase vouchers, choose online sales rationally, and correctly view cross-border e-commerce products. Tip: For domestic products, check whether they have the "health food" blue hat logo or medical device registration through the "National Medical Products Administration official website"; Overseas products need to be inspected for FDA certification (FDA stands for Food and Drug Administration in the United States). Be careful of product traps in live streaming sales. Will you follow the trend and "buy buy buy" in the live streaming room? The reporter learned from the press conference held by the State Administration for Market Regulation on April 18 that in 2024, the national market supervision departments received a total of 18.625 million consumer complaints, including 13.186 million complaints and reports about online shopping, a year-on-year increase of 4.6%. Among the various forms of online shopping, diverse online live broadcasts such as influencers promoting products, shop owners live streaming, and shopping guides live streaming have emerged one after another. Many issues such as false advertising, quality deterioration, and difficulties in returning and exchanging goods have become hot topics of demand. In 2024, the State Administration for Market Regulation received 402000 complaints and reports about live streaming sales through platform channels, a year-on-year increase of 19.3%. Among them, social grass planting live streaming platforms have grown rapidly, with a year-on-year increase of three times; Next is short video live streaming platforms, with a year-on-year growth of 48.8%. The "Special Action Plan for Boosting Consumption" issued in March this year requires standardizing unreasonable business practices such as "the lowest price across the entire network" in the fields of online sales and live streaming sales, and advocating for high-quality products at actual prices. The State Administration for Market Regulation also stated that it will deploy various regions to continuously strengthen the rectification of chaos in live streaming e-commerce this year. Currently, it is leading the drafting of the "Supervision and Management Measures for Live Streaming E-commerce" and will soon solicit opinions from the public. After observing 146 live broadcasts, the Guangdong Provincial Consumer Council summarized five typical consumption unwritten rules: "discounted prices" are not discounted, information is vague and untrue, limited time and quantity create tension, gift labels are inflated, and "white label" products mislead consumers. It reminds consumers to bravely resist, actively report, and boldly supervise. When live streaming online shopping, they should pay attention to understanding and preventing non-standard promotional behaviors in the live streaming room, establish a rational consumption concept, and not be easily misled by various language; If there is suspicion that the anchor has engaged in false inducement, false pricing, or other behaviors, they can proactively request the operator to provide detailed information about the product and relevant supporting materials. Tip: The above live streaming rooms engage in non-standard promotional behavior, which damages consumers' right to know and fairness, undermines the fair trading environment, and may also violate laws and regulations such as the Consumer Rights Protection Law, the E-commerce Law, and the Price Law. Behind the new online payment methods are hidden risks and hidden dangers. In the increasingly diversified consumer market, payment methods such as "use first, pay later" and "secret free payment" have rapidly become popular on e-commerce platforms due to their flexibility and convenience, but they also bring multiple risks and hidden dangers. 'Use first, pay later' refers to a new consumption model where consumers who meet specific conditions can place an order for 0 yuan when shopping on e-commerce platforms, and then pay when they confirm acceptance of the goods. The latest "2024 Analysis of Complaints Accepted by National Consumers' Associations" (hereinafter referred to as the "Complaints Analysis") released by the China Consumers' Association pointed out that on the Black Cat Complaints Platform, there are over 10000 complaints related to "enjoy first, pay later", "learn first, pay later", and "use first". Experts remind that if consumers use "pay before use" without their knowledge, they may incur overdue fees and even credit risks due to failure to repay on time. 'Password free payment' refers to payment that does not require password confirmation. It is a feature launched by some payment platforms or applications to improve payment convenience. After users activate it, a single transaction amount can be directly deducted within a certain limit. The China Consumers Association pointed out that password free payments are prone to fraud vulnerabilities. If this feature is exploited by criminals, it may pose serious security risks to consumers, such as a significant increase in the risk of phone loss or account leakage, accumulation of large losses from small amounts of password free payments, and strong concealment, making it difficult to detect in a timely manner. After trying, the reporter found that in the opening process, some platforms set "use first pay later" and "password free payment" as default recommended or priority options on the payment page. Compared with the almost barrier free opening process, the closing steps for both are very complicated. With the help of customer service, the reporter searched multiple pages before completely shutting down the relevant services. How to proactively prevent payment risks? The Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Committee of Fujian Province recently issued a consumption reminder, pointing out that the "use first, pay later" model is prone to excessive consumption and impulse buying. Consumers should be alert to excessive consumption and impulse buying, choose legitimate platforms for shopping, carefully read the activation agreement, pay attention to the automatic renewal and cancellation process, protect personal information security, and keep relevant shopping vouchers and transaction records. The China Consumers' Association suggests that consumers adopt three measures: not opening non confidential payments unless necessary, strengthening account security protection, and developing a habit of regular account reconciliation. Once encountering fraud, payment channels should be immediately frozen and evidence should be retained for complaint. If the loss amount is significant, the case should be reported to the public security organs in a timely manner and relevant evidence materials should be provided in cooperation. Tip: Consumers can strengthen account security protection by setting high-strength passwords and paying attention to changing them, disabling non essential payment permissions, and avoiding payment operations in public network environments. Universal operation for platform withdrawal: directly contact customer service and request to close relevant payment services. Cross border shopping has risks, and we should be careful of the "dumping pot" of overseas shopping. With the development of Internet e-commerce, cross-border online shopping has become increasingly popular, providing convenience for consumers to buy overseas goods, but also generating many consumer disputes. Taking the recent collection craze of "millet" (generally referring to derivatives of IP copyrighted works such as animation and games related to Pan anime) that has swept through young groups as an example, many consumers choose to buy the original "millet" on social platforms in order to purchase the original overseas "millet", and the resulting cases such as the loss of payment, false delivery, and wrong version of goods frequently occur, leaving many people with money and goods empty. During the "3.15" period this year, the Consumer Association of Puyang City, Henan Province, based on the "Complaint Situation Analysis" and complaint acceptance statistics, pointed out that the number of cross-border consumer complaints will increase by 78% in 2024. The problems are mainly focused on the mixed sale of genuine and fake duty-free goods, proxy agents "running orders without shipping", and overseas platforms having to bear international shipping costs for refunds. For example, some consumers have reported that they purchased luxury bags through social media platforms and found them to be high imitation after receiving them, but the purchasing party refused after-sales service on the grounds of overseas transactions. The reporter learned from the China Consumers' Association that there may be differences between the quality, safety, hygiene, environmental protection, labeling and other standards or technical specifications requirements of overseas goods' place of origin and China's standards. Therefore, whether cross-border purchasing goods comply with domestic standards and whether claims can be successful need to be analyzed based on specific circumstances, and consumers can only bear the relevant risks on their own. Especially for imported foods that claim to have functions, their management methods are different from those in China, and consumers should be cautious when purchasing. In fact, China implements positive list management for cross-border e-commerce retail imported goods, and anyone who meets the conditions in the positive list catalog can purchase them, including food such as alcohol, beverages, seasonings, edible oil, dairy products, honey, etc. Consumers should choose legitimate and reputable cross-border e-commerce platforms for procurement, and pay attention to retaining shopping vouchers such as chat screenshots, electronic invoices, logistics information, etc. After receiving the goods, they should check the production date and shelf life. While enjoying the convenience of cross-border shopping, it is also important to protect one's own rights and interests. The Puyang Consumer Association also reminds consumers to choose to access the "Cross border Consumer Protection Plan" platform (such as Tmall Global and JD International) and prioritize using the platform to guarantee transactions; Request the purchasing party to provide a video of the overseas counter procurement of goods and a customs clearance certificate; In case of disputes, you can report clues to the Chinese Customs 12360 hotline. Tip: In the context of cross-border shopping, the relevant provisions of the Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Law of the People's Republic of China and the Implementation Regulations of the Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Law of the People's Republic of China regarding "seven day no reason return" and "one refund, three compensations" may be difficult to apply. Be wary of the "knowledge payment" tricks, such as deep "zero foundation and zero threshold", "learning and meeting", "employment", "easy monthly income exceeding ten thousand"... Faced with the dazzling publicity and tempting "pies" and "shortcuts", many consumers impulsively fall into the trap of "easy payment, difficult refund". The "Complaint Analysis" points out that the number of complaints related to education and training services ranks among the top three in the service category, with over 70000 complaints. The consumer experience report released by the Zhejiang Provincial Consumer Rights Protection Committee at the end of last year showed that 46.1% of consumers had encountered situations of low price drainage; 42.7% of consumers purchased courses without publicly disclosing the qualifications of instructors; 36.9% of consumers have encountered the situation of "nesting doll" style charging; 28.7% of consumers purchase course content or effects that do not match pre-sales commitments. The above survey also found that nearly half of the courses have difficulty with refunds. Most platforms that do not support refunds use the argument that there is no refund for knowledge payment as a reason, believing that it is difficult to measure the learning effect of knowledge payment, and that consumers' learning proves completion of delivery. Therefore, returns and refunds are not allowed. In addition, nearly half of the course customer service has difficulty contacting. In response to the chaos in the industry, many local consumer associations and consumer protection committees have issued consumption tips. The Consumer Association of Luohe City, Henan Province reminds consumers to pay attention to checking qualifications and reputation, testing the "gold content" of courses, understanding the professionalism of instructors, and correcting their learning attitude. They should not have a lucky mentality of taking shortcuts. The 12315 Center of the Nanning Market Supervision Administration also reminds consumers to carefully read all the terms in the contract, especially those related to course fees, course arrangements, refund policies, breach of contract responsibilities, etc., and to pay attention to whether there are "overbearing clauses" that exempt training institutions from responsibility and increase consumer responsibility. If there are any doubts or misunderstandings about the terms of the contract, especially regarding the suspected refund clause, it is necessary to communicate with the training institution in a timely manner and confirm in writing. In addition, when paying for training fees, consumers should avoid transferring through personal social media accounts.(outlook new era)