This year's Mid-Autumn Festival is right next to the National Day holiday, and railway ticket sales have already entered its peak period. Many passengers who did not get tickets pinned their hopes on the waitlist function of 12306.
Recently, a number of bloggers wearing similar railway uniforms have appeared on the short video platform, teaching so-called "tips on waitlisting". Some claim that by constantly sending messages in the background of the 12306 public account, they can be successfully waitlisted in 15 minutes; some guide passengers to use third-party ticketing apps to synchronize orders, claiming to be able to "predict the ticket issuance time." Are these "tricks" really reliable? What trap is hidden behind it?
A third-party app has been rumored to have an AI prediction function. Does it have a high ticket grabbing success rate?
During peak travel periods, it is difficult to get tickets for many popular train lines. Several bloggers wearing similar railway uniforms have appeared on the short video platform, teaching what they call "tips for waiting for tickets."
The reporter found that these videos had a large number of likes and collections on multiple platforms. In the comment area, many netizens left messages saying that they had followed the instructions, and some people, under the guidance of bloggers, claimed to have transferred to third-party platforms to purchase so-called standby and accelerated services.
Many people suffered losses due to their gullible belief in "third-party platform waiting train tickets"
Reporters found on relevant complaint platforms that many passengers encountered trouble because they trusted third-party platforms for backup synchronization.
Ms. Liu from Beijing reported that after she canceled her waitlist on the third-party platform, the other party actually took it upon herself to cancel her waitlist order on the 12306 official system.
Ms. Liu: I was on standby on board 12306. This was a unilateral operation on my part. At that time, I could only standby for hard sleepers, not soft sleepers. On the "Chixing" App, you can choose a soft sleeper standby, and I chose it at that time. After a week, I felt it was useless, so I canceled the order from Chi Heng. As a result, it was also canceled along with the order I was waiting for at 12306. I felt this was very unreasonable.
Ms. Li from Zhejiang first synchronized her ticket order on a third-party platform, and then bought other tickets on the 12306 App. Then she took the initiative to cancel the previous standby order on 12306, but the third-party platform did not perform the "cancel" operation. Instead, it snatched the ticket for Ms. Li, and Ms. Li had to refund the ticket and lost the refund fee.
The third-party app claims to have “high-end hosting and exclusive engine for detecting leaks”
Reporters saw on such third-party ticket grabbing apps that the so-called "alternate butler" not only prompts the "estimated trip resolution rate", but also has a special "exclusive engine for picking up missed tickets" and "dedicated ticket grabbing engine" that you can choose to turn on, claiming to be low-price ticket grabbing, professional ticket grabbing, and after-sales guarantee; some apps have hosting level options, and high-level hosting has 24-hour dedicated personnel to monitor the remaining tickets and monitor the number of additional trains.
In fact, Railway 12306 has repeatedly refuted rumors that buying tickets through third-party platforms will not only not speed up the process, but will instead cause new problems.
12306 has repeatedly refuted rumors: Ticket grabbing on third-party platforms will not speed up the process
On September 19, the "China Railway" public account issued a statement stating that since the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday transportation train tickets went on sale, Railway 12306 has put a total of 7.117 million transactions into the slow queue and refused to issue 1.331 million tickets, curbing malicious ticket grabbing behavior.
12306 specially reminds passengers that they must use official channels such as the "Railway 12306" official website and mobile client to purchase tickets. Railway 12306 has never cooperated with any third-party platform organization, and there are no additional charges such as ticket purchase acceleration packages, ticket purchase membership fees, and carriage seat selection fees. Ticket changes and refunds are handled strictly in accordance with regulations, and at the same time, the security of passengers' personal information is strictly protected in accordance with the law. Purchasing tickets through third-party platforms will not only not increase the success rate, but will also make it slower or fail. When you call the 12306 hotline and mention waiting, you will be automatically reminded of the source of the waiting ticket.
12306 Automatic Voice: The source of standby tickets is the remaining ticket amount generated after passengers refund, change or fail to pay within the specified time. Only those whose waiting order status shows successful redemption can take the bus.
12306 customer service also stated that the so-called message sent in the background of the 12306 WeChat official account is completely wrong.
Such online videos are “pseudo-science” and are essentially rumors.
Legal experts said that content such as the one that can speed up the waiting list by leaving messages in the 12306 background is actually "pseudo science popularization" in terms of communication. It is essentially a type of rumor. What drives its continuous emergence is real traffic benefits.
Zhu Wei, associate professor at China University of Political Science and Law: Some people think they got tickets in this way, but later it turns out that it was actually a coincidence. The accidental connection between the result and the behavior cannot be turned into a so-called popular science. We generally call it "pseudo-science popularization" in communication studies. Pseudo-science popularization is a typical category of rumors. During the holidays, when someone is worried about not being able to get a ticket, he hopes to find another way to get the ticket. Rumor posts like this tend to have high traffic.
After refuting the rumors many times, why are these realistically packaged “alternative strategies” banned repeatedly? Compared with traditional rumors, this type of content is more difficult to identify, and ordinary consumers can easily be fooled. And precisely because they are playing on the sidelines and constantly innovating their tricks, they face considerable challenges in terms of platform governance and regulatory crackdowns.
Ma Liang, professor at Peking University School of Government: Compared with traditional rumors, this type of rumor is highly concealed, confusing and realistic, so ordinary consumers may not be able to effectively identify it. From the blogger's point of view, he is wearing a uniform similar to that of a railway worker. Such a gimmick is also very realistic and attractive, and is very confusing. The continuous escalation of refurbishment operations like this also creates difficulties for us to identify and combat. We need to consider how to grasp this cyclical pattern and conduct more effective governance. For example, before the peak ticket buying period occurs, more publicity and guidance can be carried out, and it can also remind everyone to plan the route in advance.
Is it illegal to post a video wearing a railway personnel-style uniform?
Internet bloggers dressed in railway worker-style uniforms posted such videos, which were very confusing. So is such behavior illegal?
Zhu Wei, associate professor at China University of Political Science and Law: The online blogger himself is not a staff member of the railway department, but he purchased related clothing and pretended to be a ticketing staff of the railway department. The purpose of this is actually to make consumers mistakenly think that they are an official ticketing agency, which is a fraudulent behavior in itself. If such related videos are used for advertising or commercial promotion, this in itself is a violation of advertising laws and also infringes on consumer rights. Even if it is not used to divert or divert traffic, such a video is forging another person's identity and falls within the scope of illegal videos.
Such videos turn travel anxiety into a traffic-harvesting business
Experts say that these online videos teaching so-called "backup tips" actually turn other people's travel anxiety into their own business of harvesting traffic.
The National Day holiday is approaching, and we remind everyone to look for the "Railway 12306" official website and mobile client when purchasing tickets; standby redemptions are in the order of order submission, and there is never a so-called "accelerated channel."
