Group buying price manipulators slapped with fines and outed by regulators
Market regulators inspect the offending catering business in Songjiang.
An official investigates the offending fruit store in Baoshan.
Shanghai's market watchdog on Friday exposed several typical group buying cases involving violation of China's pricing regulations.
Group buying has become an important lifeline for local residents to purchase daily necessities amid the COVID-19 resurgence but a few businesses have been found to be ignoring reminders from authorities, the Shanghai Administration for Market Regulation said.
The businesses have been randomly raising group buying goods' prices and disrupting normal market order, the regulator said.
Among the cases, a couple who operated a catering business in Songjiang District was found "stealing" the photos and articles of food packages offered by a local supermarket, changing the names of suppliers, group-buying prices and purchase contact, and promoting the packages via WeChat groups among residents.
The supermarket alerted authorities after detecting the ploy.
The couple was found to have raised the prices of four packages by up to 120 yuan (US$19) from the original prices offered by the supermarket.
Officials inspect the offending food store in Minhang.
They pretended to be organizers of buying groups, purchased the packages from the supermarket and resold them to residents based on hiked prices, thus cashing in on the price gap, investigators found.
The couple was fined 9,900 yuan and their illegal gains of 1,980 yuan were confiscated for price fraud, the administration said.
In another case, a fruit store in Baoshan District was found selling group buying packages of fruit at short weights, ranging between 1 and 1.45 kilograms.
The case is still under investigation.
Also, a food store in Minhang District was fined 5,000 yuan for failing to mark the prices of vegetables with price tags.
Because the operator also broke through the security seal to do business when the store was still under lockdown, the case has been transferred to police, market regulators said.
Shanghai's market watchdog has strengthened supervision and management of group buying with combined measures that include reminders, education, policy guidance and administrative penalties.
Residents can tip off authorities to pricing irregularities involved in group buying by dialing 12345, a 24-hour public-service hotline, or 12315, China's market watchdog's hotline.
