Who has the right to "freeze" the account frozen by WeChat payment?
Not long ago, Liang Xu (a pseudonym), a businessman from Fujian, suffered "an unforgettable rights protection".
On February 1, 2019, when Liang Xu checked the accounts of his tobacco and liquor store, he found that more than 7,000 yuan received through WeChat business the day before had not arrived. His shop began to use the "WeChat Collection Business Edition" to collect money on January 18th. According to the withdrawal rules, the turnover of the previous day will be automatically withdrawn to the bank card the next day.
Liang Xu thought that the automatic cash withdrawal function was suspended during the Spring Festival, but 10 days later, he found that all the business funds for 10 days had not arrived. He called the customer service hotline. The customer service told him that the store account had been frozen due to suspected violation, and it was necessary to apply for unfreezing to resume cash withdrawal, and it was determined that the violation type was abnormal transaction.
At this time, he discovered in the background of the "WeChat commercial collection" applet that there was a relevant message reminder on February 1, but he said, "It is rare to click into the applet to see (information)."
The reporter found that Liang Xu’s experience was not a case. On the complaint website, there are 820 complaints about the freezing of WeChat accounts. Most of these posts reflect that "the WeChat account has been frozen for no reason, and many rights protection are invalid".
With the increasing popularity of mobile payment in people’s lives, the types of people’s fund accounts are increasing, and everyone will master multiple mobile payment accounts. In this context, the use of mobile payment also appears new problems, which deserve attention.
It is difficult to defend rights when mobile payment accounts are frozen.
As a small business shop, the liquidity was not much. In order not to affect the operation, Liang Xu consulted the customer service to apply for unfreezing. According to the customer service instructions, he sorted out the relevant materials and sent them to the designated mailbox.
According to the screenshot of the email provided by Liang Xu, Tencent asked him to submit relevant information such as enterprise legal person, vouchers, enterprise information and proof order, and promised to process it within 7 working days.
But after waiting for a week, Liang Xu didn’t wait for a reply, so he contacted customer service again. Tencent’s customer service said that the relevant email had not been received, and Liang Xu sent it as required again.
Due to repeated feedback from customer service, Liang Xu said that he had sent the materials to the designated mailbox three times before and after. Finally, the result of his waiting was "upholding the original judgment" — — The appeal failed, and the business funds could not be unfrozen and withdrawn.
Subsequently, he continued to complain in the "WeChat Commercial Collection" applet complaint center, filling in relevant information step by step and uploading supporting materials according to the prompts. Until March 13th, Liang Xu complained 18 times before and after the small procedure, and the feedback result was still "upholding the original judgment".
Liang Xu said that during the one-month complaint, he repeatedly submitted materials for more than 20 times, but his account was not unfrozen. Every feedback, the customer service did not reply to the specific information of "abnormal transaction". He said that he did not know which trading rule was violated so far.
He has reported to the public security, the Consumers Association, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Industrial and Commercial Bureau that the reply is not within their scope of acceptance.
In desperation, Liang Xu reported the situation to a local media column group. The column group sent an inquiry email to Tencent’s public relations department, and Tencent replied that due to abnormal transactions in Liang Xu’s WeChat commercial payment account, WeChat platform took relevant risk control measures. According to Tencent’s verification, the merchants submitted the materials on their own initiative for five times, because "they did not provide complete information according to the relevant requirements, resulting in unsuccessful applications for many times".
It is noteworthy that Tencent’s reply to the media did not mention the specific situation of abnormal store transactions in Liang Xu, and the verification provided was also inconsistent with the actual number of complaints in Liang Xu.
Three or four days after the media exposure, Liang Xu’s frozen business funds of more than 50,000 yuan were all received twice. It has been 45 days since February 1st when the account was frozen.
The account is frozen and the funds cannot be withdrawn … … These have had a great impact on Liang Xu’s operation. Due to the tight capital turnover and the default in payment, "two dealers and other partners are unwilling to supply".
The freezing authority of mobile payment caused controversy.
Today’s WeChat is no longer just a social account, but also a fund account. If the platform freezes the account, there will be a problem of fund freezing. According to the law, 18 government departments, such as public security organs, customs and taxation, have the authority to inquire, freeze and deduct funds. So, do mobile payment institutions like WeChat Pay have the right to freeze their accounts?
An industry insider pointed out that the Measures for the Administration of Payment Services of Non-financial Institutions did not give payment institutions the right to freeze customers’ funds, but stipulated the anti-money laundering obligations of payment companies, and did not harm national interests, social public interests and customers’ legitimate rights and interests. Moreover, it is stipulated that if the payment institution knows or should know that the customer uses its payment business to carry out illegal and criminal activities, it should stop handling the payment business for it.
According to this person, in reality, payment companies freeze customers’ funds because of some illegal actions of customers. According to its own risk control model, the payment company matches the suspected problem transactions and conducts risk control operations, while some important transactions will be reported to the regulatory authorities or verified by commercial banks. The payment company has agreed on the above contents in the agreement signed with the merchants. When the above situation occurs to the merchants, the payment company has the right to immediately freeze the merchants’ funds to protect the rights and interests of the relevant cardholders.
Liu Shaojun, director of the Financial Law Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law, pointed out that mobile payment accounts are obviously different from bank accounts. The essence of payment account balance is prepaid value, which is similar to prepaid card. Although the ownership belongs to the customer, it is actually dominated and controlled by the payment institution. Therefore, the legal protection mechanism is far lower than that of the central bank currency and commercial bank currency. "Once the payment institution has operational risk or credit risk, it may cause the payment account balance to be unusable and cannot be withdrawn as bank deposit, causing the customer to suffer property losses."
"Without judicial intervention, mobile payment is generally not allowed to freeze accounts and property at will." Liu Shaojun said that relying on public networks, mobile payment services inevitably face various security risks such as network viruses, information theft and phishing, as well as business risks such as fraud, cash withdrawal and money laundering.
The Administrative Measures for Online Payment Services of Non-bank Payment Institutions (hereinafter referred to as the Measures) implemented by the People’s Bank of China in 2016 put forward clear requirements for payment institutions from the perspective of risk management, such as "establishing a transaction risk management system and a transaction monitoring system, and taking necessary control measures such as investigating and verifying suspected risks and illegal transactions in a timely manner, delaying settlement and terminating services".
The appeal channels of mobile payment need to be increased.
Although the final turnover was paid in full, what puzzled Liang Xu was that WeChat never told us which transaction was abnormal. He expects "WeChat Pay" to tell him "what’s wrong" in time and correct it in time if it violates the rules.
Liang Xu said that the function of "WeChat commercial collection" was no longer used because many complaints were fruitless and there was no way for help.
Liu Shaojun introduced that in practice, because the mobile payment business involves customers, payment institutions and banks, the relationship between power and responsibility is relatively complicated, and it is difficult for customers to protect their rights in case of risk loss.
To this end, the Measures clarify that when payment institutions and commercial banks cooperate to provide fast payment services to customers, they should establish clear and complete business authorizations with customers in advance or at the time of the first transaction, and clearly stipulate the applicable scope of deduction, transaction verification methods, transaction limits and risk compensation responsibilities.
The Measures also emphasize that banks are the main body responsible for the management of the safety of customers’ funds. In the subsequent transactions, whether the bank conducts transaction verification or the payment institution conducts transaction verification on its behalf, the bank will bear the responsibility of paying for the loss of funds quickly.
Liu Shaojun believes that payment institutions need to take effective measures to confirm that customers fully know and clearly understand relevant rights, obligations and responsibilities, increase information transparency, and publicly disclose information such as risk events and customer complaints on a regular basis. When dealing with customer’s error disputes and complaints, it is necessary to timely deal with and establish a sound risk reserve and customer loss compensation mechanism, and pay in advance for capital losses that cannot be effectively proved due to customer reasons.
Lawyer Fan Guomin of Jiangsu Nuofa Law Firm said that WeChat Pay’s identification of violations is too subjective and general, the appeal channels are not smooth, and the appeal rules also have certain defects. For example, its rules clearly state that it is necessary to fill in the adjustment and rectification materials first, and wait patiently for the staff to review before making an appeal. The same sub-merchant cannot submit the appeal application repeatedly within 7 days. After confirming the submission, you can only wait for the platform to handle it.
"WeChat payment needs to pay enough attention to the realization and protection of the main rights of the other party to the contract. Otherwise, in addition to possible breach of contract, it is more likely to constitute infringement of the other party." Fan Guomin said that according to the relevant provisions of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Contract Law, if one party’s breach of contract infringes on the other party’s personal and property rights, the injured party has the right to choose to require it to bear the liability for breach of contract in accordance with this law or to require it to bear the liability for tort in accordance with other laws. (China Youth Daily Zhongqing Online Reporter Li Chao Intern Suoshixin Guo Yangzhen)







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