How many people make a fortune by professional counterfeiting？

Original Arts Life Youth Hengcai Development Association

Some time ago, a cucumber shoot made the restaurant owners in Zhuzhou, Hunan scared.

Behind the scenes are a father and son. The two often go to different restaurants to order cucumbers, and there is no problem when they eat them. But a few days after eating, these restaurants will receive rectification notices and be asked for high compensation.

Seeing the news of compensation, restaurant owners suddenly realized, and at the same time complained: this is a professional counterfeiter.

Go back to the beginning of the event. It turned out that the father and son reported the restaurant selling cucumber to the market supervision department on the grounds of "no cold food license" and demanded compensation of ten times the consumption amount.

Such a high amount has made many bosses complain: "I don’t necessarily earn this money by selling cucumbers for one year!"

There is also a boss surnamed Liu who feels more wronged.

There was no cucumber on his menu, but when the father and son went to the store for consumption, they repeatedly asked to make one, and they also kindly instructed him to "smash the cucumber, just sprinkle some pepper and add some vinegar."

Boss Liu did it without much thought. As expected, after the story, he was reported, rectified and compensated. There should be no less processes.

As for why they don’t apply for cold food business qualification, restaurant owners are also very helpless.

First of all, the threshold for handling cold food permits is not low, and special cold food production rooms, independent air conditioners and disinfection equipment are needed. A set costs about tens of thousands of dollars, and small restaurants simply can’t afford it.

In addition, many people who open restaurants simply don’t know that selling cold dishes requires a license for the manufacture and sale of cold food.

Grasping the two points of Xiaochengben and the lack of legal popularization, the father and son have repeatedly succeeded and achieved outstanding results: since 2020, they have reported 49 times.

In fact, there are not a few businesses targeted by professional counterfeiters.

After Chongqing tea merchants sold Mr. Jin Junmei a 100,000-yuan collection, customers took him to court because "the tea has passed the shelf life" and demanded compensation of 1 million yuan from Mr. Jin.

An old man in Guizhou who sells homemade sauerkraut in 9.9 yuan was sued by professional counterfeiters for selling three no products.

Some online shop owners were charged a personal fee of 1500 yuan because "the information on the title sold is inconsistent with the information on the product details page".

The public’s views on these behaviors of professional counterfeiters are also inconsistent.

Some people say that they are like woodpeckers, which have rectified the market environment. After all, fewer fakes are good for ordinary people.

However, the louder voice is: what woodpecker? I just want to make money.

Some professional counterfeiters drive luxury cars, live in luxury houses and earn millions of dollars a year.

What’s more, most professional counterfeiters buy fakes knowing that they are fakes. When they just bought fakes, they didn’t say anything, but they bought many more copies with their backhand, and then they had to pay compensation together. In some people’s eyes, this is to make a big ticket. Moreover, it is not easy for small vendors to make money, so why stare at them and ask for money?

What is even more shocking is that professional counterfeiting has already formed an industrial chain.

The mentoring system is popular in the anti-counterfeiting circle, and newcomers can get the "cheats" for claiming compensation by spending 30 yuan. If you want to learn the whole set, you have to spend 499 yuan to learn from the teacher.

△ Professional Claims "Tutorial", Source: The Paper

According to the mature veteran, this line of business is very profitable:

"Playing a single order is 500+, and two or three orders a day are no problem."

Even, there are slang words in the circle that outsiders can’t understand. For example, "getting on the bus" means forming a group with others to make a bill; "Getting off the bus" is the success of the action; "Fare" means to give money as a benefit when you get on the bus with others.

Take anti-counterfeiting e-commerce as an example. A complete process is roughly like this:

First, "find a car" and look for products with limit words such as "best" and "first"; After the arrival of the goods, on the grounds of suspected false propaganda, find the seller to negotiate 3 times compensation; If the seller does not agree, go to the regulatory authorities to complain; If the seller still insists, he will sue to the court.

Considering the time cost, most businesses will compromise.

Sometimes, counterfeiters also share resources internally, resulting in some businesses being claimed one after another.

There are also some impatient counterfeiters who directly put expired goods on supermarket shelves and put themselves in prison.

It is also for these reasons that the public opinion of professional counterfeiters that "justice is false and profit is true" is always lingering.

In fact, when professional counterfeiters first appeared, word of mouth was not polarized like this, but was uniformly praised.

The first batch of professional counterfeiters can be traced back to the 1990s.

At that time, the land of China was undergoing the baptism of reform and opening up, and making money in the sea became the consensus of countless people.

Under the tide of pursuing material desires, the consumer goods market is very irregular, and counterfeiting is prevalent. In 1994, the government promulgated the Law on the Protection of Consumers’ Rights and Interests, proposing that consumers can buy fakes in double indemnity.

The following year, a young man named Wang Hai put this law into practice.

On March 25th, 1995, Wang Hai bought two pairs of "Sony" headphones at 170 yuan price in Beijing Longfu Mansion.

In order to identify the true and false, Wang Hai traveled to the Industrial and Commercial Bureau, Technical Supervision Bureau and Sony Corporation, and spent a total of three days back and forth.

Wang Hai thinks that the hotel, meals and transportation expenses in these three days have already cost more than 200 yuan, even if the price of two pairs of headphones is compensated for 170 yuan, it will not be worth the loss after all.

So he came to Longfu Building again, bought 10 pairs of fake Sony headphones in one breath, and then complained to Dongcheng District Administration for Industry and Commerce.

This unprecedented operation attracted great attention at that time. In the end, Wang Hai successfully got compensation for 12 pairs of headphones.

After this battle, Wang Hai became famous.

At the end of 1995, China Consumer Protection Foundation awarded him the title of "The First Counterfeiter in China" and awarded him 5,000 yuan.

Southern Weekend called him a "down-to-earth patriot", economist Wu Jinglian wrote an inscription for him as a "market sweeper", and Clinton called him a "protector of consumers in China".

In 1996, Wang Hai was invited to participate in the first program "Who will protect consumers" of CCTV’s "Tell the truth". In the same year, Wang Hai set up a company and became a "professional counterfeiter".

△ Wang Hai in "Tell the truth"

Until now, Wang Hai is still active in the cause of counterfeiting. In November, 2020, he threw out a verification report on the Weibo, pointing out that the bird’s nest sold by Simba was "sugar water", which made the super online celebrity worshipped by countless old irons suffer the biggest waterloo.

Compared with 30 years ago, there are more and more professional counterfeiters today. However, in the eyes of the people and the judiciary, they are no longer pure messengers of justice.

In 2017, the General Office of the Supreme People’s Court proposed in an opinion reply to gradually curb the profit-making anti-counterfeiting behavior of professional counterfeiters.

In 2021, Chen Zhiqiang, known as "the youngest professional counterfeiter in China", was put on file for investigation by the public security organs.

Chen Zhiqiang, from Xuwen, Guangdong Province, began to "debut" in counterfeiting at the age of 18, and sued more than 800 cases in less than a year.

In the end, after suing an ordinary "counterfeiting lawsuit", Xuwen Court held that Chen Zhiqiang "used the merchant’s panic to force the merchant to compromise, repeatedly demanded money from the merchant, and was suspected of extortion" and transferred the clue to the public security organ.

On July 12, 2023, the General Administration of Market Supervision made a simplified license for the manufacture and sale of simple foods such as cucumbers.

To put it simply, it is more and more difficult to make money by professional counterfeiting.

But then again, in fact, professional counterfeiters are theoretically tenable.

Most of the products they reported were illegal according to the law. In reason, there is nothing wrong with exercising your rights within the scope of the law.

However, in love, it is really irritating for some counterfeiters to pick small vendors.

But I think the more critical question is, can food safety related to people’s livelihood really be solved by professional counterfeiters alone?

In the first program of "Tell the truth", Professor Xiao Zhuoji of Peking University asked the following questions to a staff member of a consumer association, and I think it also asked many people’s voices:

People like Wang Hai and others are needed to protect consumers’ rights and interests.

-References-

Extremely popular news. Many restaurants in Hunan have been hit by professional counterfeiting for selling "cucumbers": "father and son who beat fakes" frequently reported that enterprises demanded high compensation .2023-05-18

Legal Daily. Investigation on Grey Industrial Chain of Professional Counterfeiting: 30 yuan can learn the whole process by "learning from teachers" .2019-09-13

Interface news. Wang Hai’s new problem: punching Simba and kicking Luo Yonghao, do fans agree? 2020-12-29

Sanlian Life Weekly. The 18-year-old professional counterfeiter was put on file: the "extraordinary road" to leave the county. 2022-01-26

Design/vision: o.o.

Original title: "How many people make a fortune by professional counterfeiting? 》

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