When an appliance breaks down at home, many people's first reaction is to search the Internet for "a certain brand's official repair number." What pops up on the page is often an eye-catching number starting with 400, coupled with the brand logo and the words "National 24-hour Service Hotline", which looks authoritative and formal. But after making a call and having a technician come to their door, many consumers discovered that the person they had called was not the brand’s official repairman at all.
What follows may be a farce of "repairs getting worse, small things getting major repairs". Hundreds or thousands of dollars are spent, and the home appliances are not only not repaired, but are made worse. Why do some of the "official after-sales" products starting with 400 become "Li Gui" that cannot be repaired?
In August this year, Ms. Xu discovered that the air conditioner at home was not cooling. Since the air conditioner had been used for many years, she could no longer find the manual, so she went online to search for the after-sales service telephone number of the air conditioner brand.
Ms. Xu: When looking for the after-sales service number on the platform, I searched for the after-sales service number of the air-conditioning brand, and the one I recommended was this 400 number.
After contacting her, someone took the initiative to call Ms. Xu and make an appointment for on-site maintenance.
Ms. Xu: The air conditioner repairman agreed to come to the house on a certain day and asked about the current condition of the air conditioner. After he came to the house, he said that a part was faulty and needed to be replaced, which cost more than 500 yuan. When he came to the door, his clothes were not formal, and the vest he wore was not from the air conditioner brand. I also asked him, do you only repair our brand? He said no, anything can be done.
It was a sultry summer, and Ms. Xu was anxious to repair the air conditioner. Without much thought, she chose to replace the parts that the repairman asked her to replace. A few days later, new problems with the air conditioner appeared. Ms. Xu tried to contact the previous maintenance technician, but no one answered the phone.
Ms. Xu: After the replacement, the machine cooled down, but the temperature never dropped. It stopped dropping when it was around 28°C. He gave his cell phone number and said he would be responsible for contacting him if there was any problem, but no one answered the call again.
The reporter searched the Black Cat complaint platform and noticed that there were many consumers who encountered similar repair incidents to Ms. Xu. Most of the complaints were about making fake 400 calls, which greatly reduced the repair experience. When searching on the search platform using the keyword "a certain brand's after-sales repair phone number", the correct answers consumers need are often squeezed out by some so-called official repair pages. The content displayed at the front is well-packaged, and clicking on the word "make a call" can jump with one click, making it difficult for ordinary consumers to distinguish.
The reporter dialed the first maintenance number displayed on the home page, and the dialing interface automatically jumped to a number starting with 400. After dialing, a customer service staff asked about the situation, but did not check the product model. After recording the basic information in a few sentences, he entered the order dispatch link and told the maintenance technician to contact him.
In fact, the words of these operators are relatively subtle. They either claim to be "brand specialized repair" or "authorized point", or they are evasive about the question of "whether it is an official repair". Regular official customer service usually first inquires about the specific situation of the fault, gives a self-service solution, and then arranges a door-to-door visit.
The operating logic of the scam has been explained in posts by many well-informed bloggers in recent years. The key lies in the 400 phone number. Many people mistakenly believe that the 400 number is officially exclusive to the brand, but this is not the case.
Blogger: The 400 phone number is only for enterprise users. You can spend money to open a 400 number, and then you can bind a series of mobile phone numbers. For example, if you have four or five customer service staff, you can bind four or five mobile phone numbers to this 400 phone number. If the first one you call 400 doesn't answer, it will be the second person's turn to pick up the call. So this is something that companies can do after they go to the operator and submit their business qualifications. All of these are to mislead you that this 400 is an official after-sales service. Once you think it is an official after-sales service, you will basically not negotiate the price when he quotes it. If he gives you some quotations, it will look very official.
So, how to find the regular brand 400 repair phone number?
Blogger: There is a 400 number on the official website, and there is a 400 number in the manual. The purchasing platform is the sales. You can directly ask for the 400 number. The 400 numbers obtained from these three places are genuine. If your home appliance is under warranty, it is most cost-effective to have it repaired by an official.
The reporter learned that according to current regulations, the 400 hotline requires enterprise qualifications and verification by the operator before it can be opened. But in reality, this supposedly strict chain has become loose: number resources are subcontracted and resold layer by layer, and problems often cannot be traced back to the actual user.
Zhao Jingwu, executive director of the Key Laboratory of Industrial and Information Smart Rule of Law of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, believes that from number issuance, search and delivery to door-to-door maintenance, this is an interlocking gray industry chain, and it is difficult to plug leaks in one link alone.
Zhao Jingwu: There is a certain threshold for applying for 400, but this threshold is only to verify the true identity of the business entity. Generally speaking, applicants usually need to provide business license, legal representative identity certificate and other materials. Number prefix interception can generally only intercept whether the identity of the enterprise subject is true, but it cannot verify whether it is an authorized brand operator. For example, the actual registration subject of the number and the actual controller of the number are not the same person. Some agents handle the transactions in batches. Once the illegal products flow into the Internet, they can usually only be traced back to the registered entity. It is difficult to trace the actual account user or even the charging entity in the first place.
Faced with such sophisticated disguises, how can ordinary consumers identify and take precautions? Zhao Jingwu further analyzed that preventing scams requires operators to strictly control the real-name verification of 400 numbers, search platforms to maintain the bottom line of auditing paid promotions, brands to proactively publicize official repair phone numbers, and consumers to be more vigilant.
Zhao Jingwu: Operators should optimize the identity verification mechanism between the number registration subject and the actual user, and establish an irregular verification mechanism for problems such as "no actual use for a long time after registration" and "obvious discrepancy between the registration subject and the call characteristics". For ordinary users, the easiest way is to directly check the authenticity of the number on the brand's official website, or check the number on the after-sales warranty card and other materials.
Consumers are also reminded here that when looking for a regular after-sales phone number, do not directly use the so-called "official after-sales" 400 number marked in the advertising space on the homepage of the search engine. Prioritize the search from the home appliance nameplate, product warranty card, paper manual, brand official website, official WeChat official account, and brand official APP; after dialing, you can verify the customer service information. Regular brand after-sales service will generally check the product model and purchase information, and will not rush to send orders directly to your home. Most of the 400 hotlines with the "advertisement" logo in the search results are paid promotions by third parties. You can keep a screenshot of the number when reporting for repair. If the maintenance personnel comes to your door, the identity of the master can be verified twice through the brand's official channels to avoid falling into the repair trap of fake after-sales service.
