What should the Wall Street English people do when the students who borrowed money go to empty the building? -E-commerce-Payment / Fintech

Recently, the news that Wall Street English, an established adult English training institution, has closed its stores spread like wildfire. Last weekend, reporters from Shanghai Securities News randomly visited a number of Wall Street English stores in downtown Shanghai and found that they were all closed and empty. In the past few days, news of Wall Street English employees asking for salary and students requesting refunds has also been fermented on the online platform, and complaints from students about refunds mostly point to educational installment loans recommended by Wall Street English course consultants at that time.

At the request of the police station in the area where the store is located, some of the store’s entrances have security guards who come to ask for refunds before registering.

This is also after Weber English shut down two years ago and brought out the training loan model, it once again triggered a reflection on the risk control of consumer finance in the field of education and training loans.

Wall Street English people go to the empty building, what should these students who borrowed money do? They are likely to face the embarrassing situation of “there is no schedule for the course, no deadline for refunds, and the loan must be repaid”.

Salaries for employees, tuition fees for trainees

Last week, Xiao Hu (pseudonym), who works at the Shanghai headquarters of the Wall Street English Training Center, saw a notice posted by the company’s staff in the company’s WeChat group, that he hoped that everyone would go through the resignation procedures as soon as possible.

Xiao Hu said that the signs had already appeared, and the company had already owed his wages for three months. Considering that resignation before August 13 may not affect the normal payment of social security, Xiao Hu and a large number of employees were forced to “voluntarily” propose resignation.

Following this, “request for salary” and “rights protection” have become the main demands of Wall Street English employees. It is reported that many employees of Wall Street English are applying for labor arbitration to protect labor rights.

However, as of August 15, Wall Street English has not yet officially issued a statement of bankruptcy or bankruptcy.

In addition to labor disputes, the bigger problem Wall Street English faces is that many students urge tuition fees. Many of them have applied for training loans under the recommendation of Wall Street English sales staff.

The reporter found that recently, on the Black Cat Complaint Platform, Station B, Zhihu, Weibo and other platforms, Wall Street English students request refunds and refunds.

Among them, on the black cat complaint platform, many students reported that because Wall Street English institutions closed their stores, but there are still courses that have not been completed, the tuition fee of tens of thousands of yuan should be refunded. In a video on station B, a number of students who were watching the Wall Street English store revealed that they needed to ask for a refund. And these refund complaints mostly point to the education installment loan recommended by the Wall Street English course consultant at that time.

In June 2021, the company was fined 2.5 million yuan by the Shanghai Municipal Market Supervision Administration for “false or misleading commercial propaganda” and ordered to make corrections.

The rebate tide leads to training loans

In fact, complaints about the difficulty of refunding Wall Street English fees have been frequently seen on various online platforms in the past two years. Among them, “education installment loan” and “training loan” are keywords that frequently appear in complaint posts.

In recent years, with the rise of scene consumer finance, the “prepayment + consumer loan” model has become more popular in the adult education and training industry, which encourages students to pay for training through loans, and guides or even induces them to choose consumer finance companies that cooperate with training institutions Wait for financial institutions to apply for loans.

The Shanghai Securities News previously reported that many training institutions use “tuition instalments” to induce students to buy courses. After the students pay the tuition in installments, consumer finance companies and other financial institutions will then pay the loan amount to the after-school training institution in a lump sum.

At this time, there has been a loan relationship between the trainee and the financial institution applying for the consumption installment, and the loan relationship has nothing to do with the education and training institution.

Scenario finance to blame?

With the rapid development of Internet finance, the tuition installment model of “school first, pay later” was originally intended to reduce the financial pressure on the students, but it has changed in bad marketing. The closing of training institutions such as Web English and Wall Street English has once again tortured the “scene + installment” consumer finance model that was originally intended to innovate and facilitate the people.

Once the training institution closes its doors, those students who have borrowed tens of thousands of yuan in installments may face the embarrassing situation of “the course is not scheduled, the refund is indefinite, and the loan must be repaid”.

The reporter learned during the interview that after the Weber English incident, the tuition installment loan model implemented by extracurricular training institutions was mainly concentrated in the field of adult education. It is reported that the Web English incident at that time involved educational installment products provided by many banks such as China Merchants Bank. Since then, in order to avoid reputational risks, many banks and other traditional financial institutions have begun to withdraw from the field of educational instalment.

It is reported that at present, some small loan companies and consumer finance companies are mainly implementing educational installment products. Judging from the student complaints exposed on the online platform, many consumer loans applied for at adult training institutions such as Wall Street English are mostly educational training loan products owned by consumer finance companies that cooperate with training institutions on consumption scenarios.

Take a financial credit service brand of a consumer finance company as an example. Its positioning is to provide personal consumer credit services for the public, and apply purely online without mortgage. The product mainly provides credit in the fields of education, medical beauty, and oral cavity. Services, among which, the education installment can borrow up to 160,000 yuan.

Among them, some Wall Street English students initiated the following complaints on a certain online platform:

In recent years, the Internet economy has spawned a variety of consumption scenarios, such as training loans, rent loans, medical beauty loans, and gas loans. However, the Shanghai Securities News reported that in the past two years, with the closure of some platforms such as long-term rental apartments, education and training institutions, and auto financial service providers, the scene financial was once interpreted as a “triangular debt.”

Many people in the industry believe that scene finance has not changed the financial logic and legal relationship. Some financial institutions “stepped on thunder” scene financial incidents are not the fault of scene finance. The root cause is loss of risk control. That is, some financial institutions did not really grasp the risks, over-relied on the scene platform, and even condoned the moral hazard of the scene platform to a certain extent.