The closure of Zhuhai Gymboree has recently caused heated discussions in the public opinion field!
According to reports, after the closure of three Gymboree stores in Zhuhai since last year, its last two stores in Zhuhai - Gymboree Zhuhai Impression City Center Store and Gymboree Doumen Huafa Fengshang Center Store also closed in April this year. It was shut down on the 10th, leaving hundreds of parents with no way to get a refund for the millions of yuan in training fees they paid in advance. According to statistics from the parents' WeChat rights protection group in Xiangzhou District, more than 490 parents have been involved in refunds, with a refund amount of more than 5 million yuan. Doumen District has also involved hundreds of parents, with a refund amount of millions of yuan.
What is speechless is that when the reporter contacted the handling number announced by Gymboree in Zhuhai after the store closed, the reply was: it is only responsible for answering the phone and cannot handle matters on the Zhuhai campus. When the reporter contacted another person who was said to be responsible for transferring classes as requested, no one answered.
It seems that such a phone call that cannot solve the problem may be just a pretense to deal with the parents. Parents questioned that Zhuhai Gymboree was suspected of using "professional store closeers" to intentionally steal millions of training fees.
’s remarks are not without purpose. According to Phoenix Financial Report, since January this year, Gymboree, one of the largest children’s education and training institutions in the country, has closed its branches in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Nanjing and other places one after another due to broken capital chains. Start handing it over to professional store closers. The inability to refund fees, transfer courses, or even change the legal entity to help the boss escape debts has angered thousands of parents.
This report also interviewed a professional store owner in Nanjing Gymboree who goes by the pseudonym "Jiang Yi". He said that he earned 100,000 a month at the best time and made millions through professional store operation in three years. Ifeng.com Finance said that another professional store owner said that when accepting a store job, the agency owner usually offers 40% of the tuition fee, which is 10,000 yuan for parents, and he will refund 30% to the parents, which is 3,000 yuan. , the remaining 5 points are used as fees for peripheral institutions to accept transfer students, and the last 5 points are profits. He can earn 500 yuan from each parent. The
report did not mention Zhuhai. It is still unknown whether there are professional store owners behind all the closures of Gymboree in Zhuhai, but at least this suspicion cannot be ruled out.
On the one hand, parents are crying and unable to get refunds for prepaid tuition fees. On the other hand, the media reports that professional business owners are making a lot of money. Such a good business with huge profits is earning unconscionable "black money". It is the "hard-earned money" of the victimized parents.
html On April 10, the Zhuhai Administration for Market Regulation responded to parents, saying, "After verification, the door of the store is currently closed and the person in charge has lost contact. Due to the large number of people involved and the large amount of money involved, there is suspicion of fraud, which is beyond the scope of our bureau's mediation." Responsibilities, our bureau decided to terminate the mediation, and immediately locked the company in advance and restricted it. "This is not the first time that parents have difficulty safeguarding their rights and making refunds due to the collapse ofZhuhai Gymboree, and I am afraid it will not be the same. the last time. Prepayment has become very popular in recent years, ranging from fitness clubs, training institutions, barber shops, massage parlors to restaurants, car wash chain stores... It involves many industries and thousands of households, but it is training institutions that have been in the limelight recently. However, with the changes in the market, Other industries adopting prepay are also at risk.
prepaid, who is in charge? How to manage? How to deal with problems after they occur? How to help consumers? These questions are crying out for answers, and it’s better to deal with them sooner rather than later.
In the long run, Zhuhai may wish to take the Gymboree shutdown as an opportunity to study countermeasures, strengthen supervision, plug loopholes, and explore long-term ways to regulate the prepaid industry, prevent risks, and resolve disputes on the basis of fully learning from experience inside and outside the province. mechanism to contribute special zone experience and special zone plans to other cities across the country.
For now, since there is "suspect of fraud", can the relevant departments take the lead and join forces with other departments to find out whether there is consumer fraud, malicious escape, and career closure behind the collapse of Zhuhai Gymboree? The shop owner, handle the matter with fairness and authority, and return the truth of the incident... This is also the most simple expectation of parents for fairness and justice.
Produced by the "Speaking Speaks" column
Reporter Yang Liang
