TST Court of Zhang Ting Company was secretly suspected of pyramid selling for 48 hours： How to detonate public opinion？ What are the key points involved？
Economic Observer Network reporter Ye Xinran On the evening of December 28th, Zhang Ting Lin Ruiyang Company was investigated for pyramid selling, and the related topic was posted on the hot search in Weibo. Its operating brand "TST Court Secret" once again aroused public concern.
According to combing, the news originated from the post titled "Come!" published by WeChat WeChat official account "Li Xu Anti-transmission and Anti-fraud Team" on the afternoon of December 24th! Yes! The article "TST court secret" is suspected of pyramid scheme funds being frozen, and the official response is true "discloses the picture of" Reply on Verification Letter "signed by Yuhua District Market Supervision Administration of Shijiazhuang City and stamped with the official seal.
The reply to the verification letter mentioned that according to many reports from the masses, Shanghai Dalway Trading Co., Ltd. was suspected of using the Internet to engage in pyramid schemes, and State Administration for Market Regulation conducted an investigation on the company’s alleged pyramid schemes on June 5, 2021. The reply also indicated that it had applied to the people’s court for preservation measures according to law because it used financial institutions to transfer or conceal the funds involved, and the case is under further investigation.
The "Li Xu Anti-MLM Team" said in the article that according to the relevant personnel of the Yuhua District Market Supervision Administration of Shijiazhuang City, the frozen funds amounted to 600 million yuan, which was frozen twice, including 300 million yuan for the main company and 300 million yuan for an agent and team leader.
On December 29th, Economic Observer contacted Li Xu, the founder of "Li Xu Anti-transmission and Anti-fraud Team", to learn the ins and outs of this incident.
Li Xu anti-fraud team is a non-governmental anti-MLM research and anti-brainwashing rescue organization. Li Xu told reporters that in recent years, the team has received inquiries and requests for help about whether TST is suspected of pyramid schemes. Through learning about TST’s bonus distribution model from many consultants, after research, it is considered that it conforms to the three major definitions of pyramid schemes in law. In addition, in July this year, the Li Xu team received internal news that the secret subject company of TST Court, Darway, had been put on file for investigation by Shijiazhuang State Administration for Market Regulation.
Therefore, since July, the Li Xu team has disclosed the layered agency model and rebate mechanism of TST from the media. However, after the articles and videos were released, they were repeatedly complained by TST, citing the infringement of reputation and malicious negative hype.
On December 23rd, Team Li Xu sent a verification letter to State Administration for Market Regulation, Shijiazhuang to verify whether TST was suspected of pyramid selling and whether it had been put on file for investigation. On the same day, Li Xu team got the above reply with official seal.
On December 29th, the reporter called State Administration for Market Regulation in Shijiazhuang about the progress of the case filed by State Administration for Market Regulation in Shijiazhuang, and the other party said that the reply of the verification letter would prevail.
According to China’s Regulations on the Prohibition of MLM, the following acts belong to pyramid schemes:
Li Xu summed up the above three points as follows: entry fee, development offline and team remuneration. According to the combing of TST model, Li Xu team thinks that TST company’s model conforms to the above characteristics.
Regarding TST’s alleged pyramid scheme, on December 29th, the reporter called TST to learn more about the company’s business model, and the other party said, "No response."
How to fall into the whirlpool step by step
For the specific operation mode of TST, Economic Observer Network learned from many former agents of TST.
Beibei (a pseudonym), an agent who joined TST as early as 2016, told reporters that TST was introduced by friends in the early years. A friend told her that a 92-year-old girl earned more than 200 thousand a month through TST, and there are many people who earn 300 thousand or 400 thousand a month. My friend also said that he has earned more than 20,000 yuan in just four months, and it is getting better and better.
Beibei began to move, and friends said that joining TST is free of charge and cost, and the product copywriting and pictures released by friends circle every day can be copied directly from the group. After several persuasion, Beibei opened a card from a friend and was asked to fill in the ID number and bank card. At that time, Beibei wondered why she still needed bank card information. The friend explained, "Don’t worry about this, they are star bosses, not bad money, very formal, and will not ask for money in the middle. They will pay you a salary every month according to the products you actually sell." As a result, Beibei officially joined TST.
According to reports, TST agents are divided into blue cards and red cards, and the blue card needs to complete the corresponding growth value when it is upgraded to a red card. Red cards are also divided into different grades, corresponding to different bonus proportions.
Beibei’s "road to growth" has begun. Soon after joining, someone took the initiative to find Beibei and said that they wanted to apply for a card to join TST. Beibei asked her how to open a card when she was online. At this time, Beibei was told that she needed to buy a TST product of 2500 yuan to be eligible to open a card for offline. The other party’s expression is that after you have the qualification to open a card, your sister opens a card, and the sister’s person opens a card again, which means that the son has a grandson, and he will have two, two, three and three things in his life. You can get a commission for the "children and grandchildren" to buy things. These situations have also been confirmed by another former agency interviewed by Economic Observer.
Beibei bought 2,500 yuan of goods and pulled the secondary downline into her WeChat group. However, Beibei found that the account was not getting rich every day, and Beibei went to ask online again, "How do others earn hundreds of thousands a month?" Go online and ask, "How many people are there in your group at present?" At that time, there were more than 200 members in Beibei’s group, and they went online and told Beibei, "Do you know how much money you lost?"
At this time, online no longer emphasizes how much money you can earn, but emphasizes how much money you are losing instead of being the founder or chairman. So how can I become a founder? The answer is: develop 100 people and reach 100,000 yuan for three consecutive months. In order to become a founder as soon as possible, Beibei can’t wait to get off the assembly line to achieve performance, but buys goods from her own pocket.
By the fourth month of hoarding goods, Beibei successfully obtained the qualification of founder, and can register and set up a company by herself, become the chairman, and go public with TST Company. However, after becoming the chairman, there are still rules and restrictions. If the monthly performance does not reach 100,000, it will lose the qualification to earn "children and grandchildren", so Beibei still needs to stock up on goods every month.
"I can only lie to others again."
"In fact, it is already set, but there is no way. With so many goods in your hand, you can only cheat others with the same routine." Beibei said.
After the card is opened, everyone is bound with a membership number. Once the order is placed offline, you can see the performance through your own distribution account, and the management bonus is calculated based on this base, with a ratio of 2.5%-5%. Beibei told reporters that the agent’s bonus income is mainly divided into four parts. In addition to the above management bonus, there are also personal sales bonuses, self-media performance requirements awards, and zero difference bonuses.
(Photo courtesy of the interviewee, the same below)
In this process, relatives and friends kept coming to remind Beibei to be careful of pyramid schemes, but Beibei simply wouldn’t listen. Beibei thinks that Big Brother (Lin Ruiyang) and Cousin (Zhang Ting) are very good and take everyone to make money.
Beibei told reporters that TST used to hold an activity every two months, and various names, including dealer conferences, star concerts, cruise tours, etc., called on agents to stock up on goods. At the meeting, there will be many "successful" agents who will come forward and tell with gratitude how TST saved himself from fire and water, and how the eldest brother and cousin gave themselves a second life. Beibei said, "At that time, I was particularly touched, and I felt that people had great love and I was too small. Because an agent was sick, the boss would pay for his own medical treatment. I really believed it at the time. " Beibei said.
In addition to various conferences, there are other reasons for calling for hoarding. Beibei said, for example, if you buy a product of 20,000 yuan, you can join the elite group, you can add the WeChat of the star boss to the elite group, and you can also let the boss shoot videos. But then Beibei realized that the WeChat was not the boss’s WeChat at all, but the avatar was the boss.
In 2018, the news that TST will be listed in 2019 began to appear frequently in the circle of friends of the agent. However, from many posters and screenshots of friends circle obtained by reporters, it is quite confusing. It is said that TST will be listed in Hong Kong stocks in 2019, and it is said that it is listed in A shares; Some say that TST shares 800 million shares with agents, while others become 100 million shares.
Beibei gradually woke up and began to take the initiative to seek advice and help after TST entered Tik Tok for live broadcast. At the end of 2020, TST began to make efforts in Tik Tok to encourage agents to buy goods in the live broadcast room in Tik Tok, but Beibei found that the price of products on Tik Tok was higher than TST’s own APP. Later, the scheme given by TST is that the higher part is returned to the agent in the form of vouchers, which can be used on TST’s own APP.
However, in March this year, some media reported that the police station in Xule Road, Qingpu received a report saying that when they combed the background of the APP operated by the company on a regular basis, they found that there were about 1,600 records of purchasing by using the company’s vouchers from November to December 2020. After background comparison, it was found that two customers repeatedly used the same vouchers to swipe their bills, totaling about 7.7 million yuan. At that time, it was disclosed that the suspects Zhu and Li had been criminally compulsory by Qingpu police for alleged fraud.
Beibei told reporters that this APP is TST’s own APP. "I was a little scared when I saw an agent go in." Beibei said that she began to consult professionals and gradually realized that this was a trap. "Looking back, it was all pits and thunder."
After going around for years, I invested more than 300,000 yuan, but Beibei made a calculation and didn’t make any money at all. At present, she still has goods of about 10,000 yuan in her hand.
follow-up
According to public information, the legal representative of Darway is Lin Jirong (the famous actor Lin Ruiyang), and the company’s brand "TST Court Secret" was founded by Lin Ruiyang and Zhang Ting in 2013, mainly focusing on cosmetics and skin care products, and its products are mainly sold through the online store "Court Secret APP" and offline stores.
It is reported that TST entered Wechat business in 2014, focusing on the concept of "live yeast", and its main products are TST series skin care products. From 2014 to 2018, TST rose rapidly in Wechat business circle and was called "the first brand in Wechat business". Its official website claims that its ace product TST live yeast has sold more than 100 million bottles. At present, there are 6.36 million TST agents and 1,851 TST founder companies, ranking first in the industry in Wechat business. According to another source, in 2018, Dalway "paid 2.1 billion yuan in taxes" and "a big taxpayer" caused an uproar in an instant. Since then, the marketing gimmick of TST’s planned listing has been continuously spread.
At the same time, the controversy about whether TST is suspected of pyramid schemes can be found in various online platforms. Its official website shows that the TST agency model has "zero" cost input, no need to stock up, and the headquarters issues it with one button; Strict price control, as long as you join, it is the general generation; Free sales model, no performance threshold.
Regarding the current incident, xingxing, the chief lawyer of Tianjin Litigation Law Firm, said that it is still an administrative compulsory measure taken by the market supervision and management department in the process of market supervision, and whether it ultimately constitutes a pyramid scheme crime depends on the notification from the judicial organs. "There is only one essence of pyramid selling crime, that is, defrauding money. This must also be jointly identified through company structure, business model, value carrier and other aspects. Therefore, pyramid selling crimes are mainly difficult to identify in pyramid selling models. Once they can be identified, the efficiency of handling cases by judicial organs in the later period will often be higher. "
However, TST seems to have a new model. The article published by WeChat official account, the anti-fraud team of Li Xu, on December 29th mentioned that TST is turning to a new model. According to the article, in the new model, a member becomes a founder and sets up a company, and the monthly performance appraisal of the company’s performance meets the standard, then the promotion incentive bonus is given to the founder of the member at the next higher level who counsels the member (who must also be the founder). The difference from the old system is that the promotion service fee base is adjusted to direct subordinates, and the proportion is increased to 6%.
Li Xu pointed out to reporters that the hierarchical relationship is diluted here, but it’s still old wine in new bottles. It just changes the commission one by one into the way of redistributing the commission after the unified performance is achieved, and it’s actually a multi-layer payment method.
In this regard, Beibei also said that he is still evaluating the performance of the whole team. The founder still takes infinity, and higher-level companies such as North China still take infinity.
Li Xu has been engaged in anti-pyramid selling for so many years, and has been exposed to many pyramid selling cases. With the rise of new concepts and models such as new retail, social e-commerce and blockchain, Li Xu pointed out that new Internet pyramid selling has emerged under various new banners, but only with a "vest". From the perspective of consumer identification, Li Xu said that it depends on whether his products are cost-effective, and whether there are problems with product quality; It is also necessary to strengthen the awareness of prevention, not to be confused by the so-called star effect, and to be vigilant once you find that you want to develop offline; Don’t blindly believe in high returns, but check against the three characteristics in the Regulations on the Prohibition of MLM.
On December 29th, Weibo, the secret official of TST Court, issued a message saying that Shanghai Dalway Trading Co., Ltd. is a legally operated company. Since its establishment, it has always followed the guidance of the government, adhered to legal operation and paid taxes according to law. I am very grateful to the Yuhua District Market Supervision Administration of Shijiazhuang City for guiding our company to investigate risks. At present, the company is operating normally, and our company will actively cooperate with relevant departments. On the evening of December 29th, the secret live broadcast room of TST Court in Tik Tok was still selling goods normally.