There are many pits in the education stage.
Besides K 12, the phenomenon of education installment loan in quality education is becoming more and more serious.
Last school season, Ms. Zhang from Shenzhen booked one-on-one online piano sparring for her 6-year-old daughter because she didn't have time to supervise her children's piano practice, taking advantage of the preferential policy of "0 down payment, 0 interest, and limited time discount for the course package in the school season". The course consultant of fast sparring said that Ms. Zhang Can paid by installments because the cost exceeded 1 10,000 yuan. If it is divided into three phases, it can be interest-free and the handling fee platform will bear it; If you are not satisfied, you can also withdraw from class at any time for a refund. In order to dispel Ms. Zhang's concerns, the course consultant also said that the paid students of the Aauto fast sparring platform exceeded 10000, and the monthly income was nearly150,000. There is a very good user growth and cash flow reserve, which is absolutely trustworthy.
In the end, Ms. Zhang chose to pay in three installments. What she doesn't know, however, is that because of the crazy expansion speed of this young company, many users complain that the quality of its teachers is not stable enough, and it is difficult for her favorite tutor to make an appointment.
Fortunately, Ms. Zhang only contacted the pit of education installment loan, and before her, there was a worse training company.
2065 438+08 10/9, 18, the one-to-one platform of Xueba, an educational institution that claimed to raise tens of millions of dollars, was shut down. The company official website showed that "the company's server disk is in arrears", and the customer service phone was continuously "unanswered". The media broke the news that "Xueba 1 vs 1" has a tuition fee of more than 20 million and an employee's salary of about 5 million. 2065438+At the beginning of September 2008, several offline stores of another training institution "Beto International Children's English" closed, resulting in "tuition fees for more than 300 parents are difficult to refund". Parents of the victims of the two institutions reported that because they applied for installment loans to pay tuition fees during the purchase period, it was not only difficult to defend their rights after the institutions were closed, but also the problem of "no classes, and the loans had to be repaid".
As a third-party complaint platform, the data also shows that in the first quarter of 20 19, the national education and training industry effectively complained 17 14. Among them, institutions such as Suntech and erudite education have become the focus of condemnation. Affected by the decline in the complaint resolution rate of Suntech, the main industry respondent, the overall complaint resolution rate of the industry will reach 32.3% in the first quarter. Judging from the types of complaints, most of them are related to the education stage.
From "looking beautiful" to "credit routine" of multi-party game
Why does the education installment loan model, which seems to be mutually beneficial and win-win among educational institutions, financial institutions and students, actually cause so many complaints and negatives? This should also start with the principle of education installment payment model.
The design principle of education installment loan of Internet education finance is that when students sign up for education and training institutions, they apply for loans as tuition fees through financial platforms, and then repay them in installments. The ideal effect is that students overcome the problem of mastering skills limited by economic conditions, education and training institutions increase the number of students for development, and the financial platform is profitable. On the surface, it is indeed a good "business" that can make the three parties win.
However, in practice, this seemingly impeccable triangle model, because it involves interests, every link is developing in the direction of derailment, and finally becomes a "credit routine" that does harm to people.
Exaggerating publicity is all about attracting customers. Like all internet outlets, the initial stage of internet education outlets is also a virgin land that needs to be developed urgently. Whoever is better at horse racing and occupies the largest market share will be more favored by capital and audience, and eventually win the winner of the internet and eat the super big BUFF. In order to get customers quickly and gain more market share, many educational and training institutions are scrambling to play attractive slogans to attract customers. For example, Dana Education has launched a full subsidy scheme of "employment first, then installment payment" in official website, and launched zero-interest installment service. Online, New Oriental has also launched the installment credit service of "class first, repayment later", and all courses above 500 yuan support interest-free installment payment. These institutions all say that students who are dissatisfied with the course can get a refund, but this is not the case. Because there is no specific quality standard for educational products, it is mainly judged by subjective feelings. Once the refund is involved, there will be no disagreement between training institutions and consumers on whether the refund standard and the confirmation service standard are unified.
In addition, since education and training institutions apply for loans from third-party financial service institutions, in the process of loans, except for students' personal information, the rest are operated by sales or course consultants. In order to achieve the performance index, many course consultants will inevitably turn a blind eye when reviewing the students' information. However, when students ask for a refund and have difficulty in defending their rights, most course consultants can delay it. Even with active cooperation, this refund procedure involving students, education and training institutions and financial institutions is very complicated. Once there is a delay, even if the platform promises interest-free, students must repay the money every month before the refund is completed, otherwise their credit records will still be affected.
Financial risks under the expansion of installment loans and burning money
In order to improve the customer acquisition rate, the interest-free installment model is increasingly favored by education and training institutions. For example, VIPKID said that you can enjoy an interest-free period of 5, 10 or 12 through the micro-loan payment of WeChat platform or Zhaolian Finance; Gogokid, as the benchmark of VIPKID, also means that users can purchase courses by stages through ant flower beds, and there is no handling fee; Fast sparring also means that if the user purchases the course in three phases, the handling fee will be borne by the platform. However, such a crazy arms race can indeed increase the number of customers, but it also greatly increases the risk of the operation of education and training institutions. Once users can't pay this fee, plus the existence of refund rate and overdue rate, they finally have to rely on the platform to settle accounts with banks, which increases the financial risk of education and training institutions. In addition, because the platform needs to pay interest to users in installments (for example, some interest-free installments are paid by the platform), this greatly increases the operating cost of the platform. At present, 5 1talk stopped its installment business in June last year because of the recent economic downturn.
In addition to the competition for customers, there is also a crazy competition for market share. In order to seize a larger market share and gain the initiative in competition, many platforms lack hematopoietic capacity.
The pursuit of money has reached the point of quenching thirst by drinking poison, even taking the mode of education installment loan, venture capital financing and double carriage to obtain funds, trying to race around the track. For example, the education installment loan, which is widely used in the industry, operates by inciting the funds of financial institutions, which is equivalent to adding a disguised pool of funds out of thin air to provide financial support for its sustained and rapid expansion. In addition, driven by this psychology, some platforms are accelerating the pace of financing and expanding their armaments. For example, the fast sparring mentioned above is to expand by using the installment loan financing mode under the condition of small volume and small financing amount, but it ignores that this mode greatly increases its own operating costs and financial risks, and also brings great instability.
In other words, the intervention of education installment loan has alienated the original beautiful Internet education into a game full of routines. There is a game between the self-growth of young people and the cruel reality. In order to develop, they choose to take risks with loans, and heavy debts are exchanged for the pain of growing up. The game between education and training institutions and bloody market has changed from the original intention of educating people to a profit-seeking capital game, which has also endangered the healthy development of the whole industry. There is a game between the financial platform and the regulatory authorities. They aim at regulatory loopholes and do not hesitate to lower the risk control standards. They are mercenary, and in the end their money is stained with the blood of education. However, it is not excluded that once these education and training institutions have a business crisis or run away with money, it will be a disaster for consumer financial institutions and students, and the harm can never be underestimated.
Who is digging holes for people with education installment loans?
Education and training institutions are the main promoters of education installment loans. Because the unit price of online education courses for professional and technical training in the market is tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands. Many customers will be more worried when repaying, and the burden will be greatly reduced if they choose education installment loans. It is not excluded that some students who did not have the repayment ability paid the bill, but it also laid a hidden danger of high refund rate for the platform.
Consumer financial institutions are also an important promoter. As a user group mainly concentrated in first-and second-tier cities, mainly urban white-collar workers and young parents, it is the favorite consumption scene of consumer financial institutions with high amount of funds, large demand and small overdue rate, attracting many consumer financial institutions to join the education staging market one after another.
In response to this unhealthy industry phenomenon, the Shanghai Consumer Protection Committee pointed out in the analysis of education and training complaints from October to August that some training institutions, in order to eliminate consumers' concerns about payment, asked consumers to borrow money from their cooperative financial institutions by means of "guidance and recommendation" or "suspected coercion", so that consumers could exchange credit risks for capital guarantees. Some institutions package loans as benefits such as "interest-free" and "installment payment", but say nothing about the restrictive terms and risks of loans, which is confusing. This makes "malicious packaging, lax review, capital risk and other loan risks prominent." In order to truly resolve these risks brought by education installment loans, all parties need to carefully consider and choose.
Related Q&A: Related Q&A: Is it reliable to buy an Audi car on the 5 1 car platform? How many years can it be phased? My sister bought it. She bought an Audi a4. At that time, the down payment seemed to be less than 2000, and she seemed to be 1 year installment. If you feel stressed, you can choose 3 or 5 years. That would be easy. For my sister, this staging mode is more cost-effective than full payment or renting a car outside. The luxury car is her own, and the burden is not heavy. I think she is very happy. I feel that in this big environment, this mode of buying a car by stages with low down payment is very suitable for young people or people with financial difficulties.