Focus on issues such as difficulty in prepaid consumption refunds and other issues. The top ten typical cases of public interest litigation in "3.15" are released-中国通讯社

The Supreme People's Procuratorate and the China Consumers Association jointly released 10 typical cases of public interest litigation for the protection of consumer rights (details >>) for the first time today (March 15), guiding procuratorates and consumer associations (committees) at all levels to effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.

According to reports, in 2024, the national procuratorates filed a total of 26,000 public interest litigation cases involving the protection of consumer rights and interests, including food and drug safety. The top ten typical cases of consumer rights protection for the "3.15" consumer rights protection covered hot and difficult issues in multiple consumer fields.

· It includes new consumer rights protection issues that arise with new consumption formats and new models, such as difficulty in refunding prepaid consumption, illegal merchants using QR codes to defraud personal information, etc.;

·It also includes typical difficult issues in consumer rights protection, such as false propaganda on medical beauty, false food raw materials information on takeaway, etc.;

·It also includes special and representative issues in consumption of specific groups, such as sales of counterfeit and inferior agricultural materials that damage farmers' consumer rights, and fraud infringe on the consumer rights of the elderly.

This includes 10 cases of the Shanghai Consumer Rights Protection Committee suing Shanghai E-commerce Co., Ltd.’s illegal sale of non-national standard electronic cigarettes to infringe on consumers’ legitimate rights and interests, and 10 cases of administrative public interest litigation for the Langfang City, Hebei Province urged the rectification of blood purification and medical violations, including 2 cases of the consumer rights protection organization filing and the procuratorate supporting prosecution.

The typical cases released this time focus on the prominent issues that the people are concerned about under the new situation of the continuous development of food and drug industries. The cases involved not only include the field of traditional food and drug safety, medical safety hazards such as false propaganda, illegal medical practice, excessive medical treatment, etc., but also involve special consumption forms such as personal information protection, anti-telecommunications network fraud, and "single-purpose prepaid cards".

Top Ten Typical Cases of Public Interest Litigation for Consumer Rights Protection on “3·15”

· Shanghai Consumer Rights Protection Committee v. Shanghai E-commerce Co., Ltd.’s civil public interest litigation for illegal sales of non-national standard electronic cigarettes that infringe on consumers’ legitimate rights and interests

· Sichuan Consumer Rights Protection Committee v. Sun and Liu XXX production and sales of unqualified fertilizers that damage farmers’ legitimate rights and interests

· Jiangsu Changzhou People’s Procuratorate v. Nanjing Biotechnology Co., Ltd. and Chen XXX consumer fraud

· Hubei Huangshi People’s Procuratorate v. Hubei Huangshi People’s Procuratorate v. excessive medical treatment infringes on many consumers’ legitimate rights and interests

·Beijing Chaoyang District People’s Procuratorate urges standardization of single-purpose prepaid card management bank Government public interest litigation case

·Hebei Province Langfang City Procuratorate urges the rectification of administrative public interest litigation case in the illegal medical act of blood purification

·Zhejiang Province Cixi People's Procuratorate urges the rectification of administrative public interest litigation case in which fake food is harmful to food safety

·Shandong Province Qingdao City Procuratorate urges the regulation of express delivery station pick-up code small ticket commercial information placement

·Henan Province Changyuan People's Procuratorate urges the rectification of administrative public interest litigation case in the illegal medical treatment

·The Xixiu District People's Procuratorate urges the rectification of agricultural product quality and safety hazards in wholesale markets

Research and build data models Special supervision was carried out

The number of complaints involving prepaid issues decreased by 40% year-on-year

In the case handling process, the procuratorate has developed data models and carried out special supervision in response to the difficulty of refunding prepaid consumption, fake consumption of takeaway catering, and fake commercial information on express delivery and pickup code receipts.

For example, the People's Procuratorate of Chaoyang District, Beijing found in the review of 12345 citizens' complaints and reports that in 2023, 69,734 complaints involving prepayment issues in the jurisdiction were 3 times that of 2022. It mainly reflects that some gyms, beauty salons, and training institutions closed the store and ran away after collecting prepayment, and consumers' prepaid funds could not be returned, which seriously damaged consumers' legitimate rights and interests.

The procuratorate used the "standard governance of single-purpose prepaid cards" big data legal supervision model to capture the 12345 complaint and reporting data related to prepaid fees and the data of prepaid cards issued by some online platforms, and retrieved data of business enterprises in relevant industries in the jurisdiction from the Market Supervision Administration, summarized and formed a data pool of prepaid cards issued by prepaid cards, and collided with the data of prepaid card filing companies and fund custody data. It was found that the card issuer failed to file 102 clues in accordance with regulations, 64 clues in fund custody cards failed to issue prepaid cards in accordance with regulations, and 206 clues in issuing prepaid cards beyond the limit.

In May 2024, after the Chaoyang District Procuratorate filed a case for the irregular management of single-purpose prepaid cards in accordance with the law, it issued a prosecutorial recommendation to the District Sports Bureau, suggesting that it investigate and deal with enterprises that have not registered in a timely, accurate and complete manner, and issue funds exceeding the limit, and strengthen the supervision and management of the "prepaid consumption" in the sports industry. Chaoyang District Sports carried out a comprehensive investigation and rectification, ordered 116 problematic enterprises to rectify, imposed administrative penalties on two enterprises, effectively solving more than 200 prepaid complaints, and the cumulative amount of sports training enterprises on the fund custody platform increased to more than 3.51 million yuan. At the same time, the Chaoyang District Procuratorate consulted with six administrative agencies including the District Culture and Tourism Bureau and the District Health Commission. Relevant units actively carried out special supervision and inspection, ordered rectification of 372 enterprises, added 102 new registered enterprises, and increased 206 enterprises to settle in the fund custody platform. The cumulative amount of custody funds increased from 1.0522 million yuan to 89.6707 million yuan, and the platform sales rate increased from 60.08% to 95.14%.

After sorting out the 12345 complaint information, the number of complaints involving prepaid issues decreased by 40% year-on-year.