雙十一是光棍節還是假貨節
As China prepares for Singles Day, the world’s largest online shopping event, on Thursday, Beijing-based consumer rights lawyer Wang Hai is gearing up for a record volume of cases.
在中國準備迎來“光棍節”、即全球最大的網上購物節之際，常駐北京的職業打假人王海也在爲迎接創紀錄的案件量做着準備。
Mr Wang has made a 20-year career of pursuing false advertising cases and complaints over fake merchandise. Singles Day, which last year saw more than $10bn in total merchandise sold online by the likes of Alibaba and , is also China’s biggest day for fake goods.
王海處理虛假廣告和假冒商品投訴案件已有20年時間。去年光棍節，阿里巴巴(Alibaba)和京東()等電商的線上商品銷售總額超過了100億美元，而這個節日也成了中國最大的“假貨節”。
Mr Wang pays special attention to Taobao, Alibaba’s eBay-like consumer marketplace that American clothing retailers are trying to have listed on the US government’s anti-piracy blacklist.
王海尤其關注淘寶(Taobao)——阿里巴巴旗下類似於eBay的C2C市場。美國服裝零售商正呼籲美國政府將淘寶列入反盜版黑名單。
The number of complaints over fake or shoddy online merchandise registered by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, the Chinese regulator, has increased 356 per cent since 2013. The SAIC said in a recent report that four of every 10 products bought online in China are either bad quality or fake.
2014年，中國全國工商和市場監管部門受理網絡購物投訴數量比上年增長356%。中國國家工商總局(SAIC)在近期一份報告中表示，網購商品非正品率超四成。
Alibaba, which accounts for 65-70 per cent of China’s annual ecommerce of roughly $450bn-$500bn, insists it is improving its monitoring and refund policies. The company, which also operates Tmall, a website for larger sellers, says it employs 2,000 monitors and has 5,400 volunteer “phantom shoppers” to comb through its websites looking for suspicious goods.
2014年全年，中國全國網上零售額大概在4500億至5000億美元之間，其中阿里巴巴佔比65%到70%。該公司堅稱自己正在改善監督和退款政策。阿里巴巴表示自己僱傭了2000名巡查員，還擁有5400名志願“影子購物者”，共同負責線上巡查打假。阿里巴巴旗下網站還包括爲較大商家提供的零售平臺“天貓”(Tmall)。
Alibaba says the SAIC data on rising complaints are “about our competitors, and not about us”, and that the number of complaints has been “significantly reduced” since last year. It says it now gets fewer than two complaints about counterfeit goods in every 10,000 purchases.
阿里巴巴表示，中國國家工商總局所統計的不斷增加的投訴數量是“關於我們競爭對手的，不是關於我們的”，並認爲自去年以來投訴數量一直“顯著減少”。阿里巴巴表示，現在它的平臺上與假冒商品有關的投訴佔比不到萬分之二。
But according to Mr Wang and other lawyers, Alibaba and its ecommerce peers prioritise defending large online sellers, which account for most of their revenue in the form of commissions and advertising fees.
但根據王海和其他打假人的說法，阿里巴巴及其電商同行會把保護大型線上商家放在首位。電商的佣金和廣告費收入大多來自這些商家。
“The interests of these large sellers comes before anything else,” says Mr Wang.
王海說：“這些大商家的利益優先於其他一切事情。”
One perennial complaint from Chinese consumers about Alibaba is that they are often required to provide a certificate that a product is fake before the company will act against the seller. Such certificates are difficult or impossible to come by as many companies do not issue them.
中國消費者常年抱怨阿里巴巴的一件事情是，消費者往往需要提供商品爲假貨的證明，阿里巴巴纔會對商家採取行動。但這類證明很難或無法獲得，因爲許多公司不提供。
Tian Junwei, a consumer rights lawyer who works for Mr Wang’s firm and specialises in suing ecommerce companies over fakes, says such certificates are the single biggest issue for consumers trying to get refunds. “We get a lot of customer complaints but it’s very tricky to act upon, so most of the consumers don’t pursue it,” he says.
田軍偉也是王海所在機構的一位保護消費者權益的人士，專門負責處理針對電商企業的假貨案件。他表示，這類證明是消費者想獲得退款的最大障礙。他說：“我們收到很多客戶的投訴，但很難採取行動，所以大多數消費者放棄了追究。”
Alibaba insists it puts consumers first. “We take the fight against counterfeiting very seriously and devote significant resources to take on those who seek to harm consumers,” it says, adding that the burden of proof in a dispute is always on the seller.
阿里巴巴堅稱，公司把消費者擺在第一位。該公司表示，“我們非常重視打擊假冒僞劣商品，投入了大量資源打擊意圖損害消費者利益的人”，並補充道，發生爭議時的舉證責任總是由賣家來承擔的。
However, several buyers say they have been asked for a certificate of inauthenticity at the start of the refund stage.
然而，幾名買家表示，退款階段的第一步就是要求他們提交假貨鑑定證明。
When queried on that point, Alibaba said on Tuesday that while under Taobao’s policy the burden of proof was on the seller, “on Tmall there is a burden of proof on the consumer to prove that the product is fake”.
面對這方面的詢問，阿里巴巴週二表示，儘管在淘寶的政策下，舉證責任由賣家承擔，但“在天貓上，由消費者承擔舉證責任，證明商品是假貨”。
The Financial Times was shown correspondence between one customer and a Tmall customer service representative after the customer sought a refund in September for an expensive brand of colouring books he believed were fake. He was told by the representative that “as long as you provide a fake goods certificate with test results, and launch a case against knock-off brands, you will get a refund”.
一名顧客向英國《金融時報》展示了他與一名天貓客服代表之間的對話消息。這名顧客認爲自己購買的一套價格不菲的品牌塗色書是假貨，並於9月要求退款。天貓客服代表告訴他，“只要您能提供附有檢驗結果的假貨證明，並對假冒品牌發起保障維權，您就能獲得退款”。
An investigation in March by daily newspaper Beijing News found that certificates of inauthenticity were “almost impossible to obtain” in China. Journalists said they had called 50 different government agencies and offices and that they were unable to get one.
《新京報》今年3月的一次調查發現，消費者在中國幾乎不可能取得假貨鑑定證明。記者們表示，給50個不同的政府機構和辦公室撥打電話後，他們依然沒能拿到一張鑑定證明。
In the colouring book case, the seller ultimately volunteered that the item was fake and agreed to a refund. The buyer, a Suzhou-based stock broker who gave his name as Mr Song, says: “I was lucky that I was dealing with an inexperienced sales representative who admitted that it was fake. If they had denied it, I would have no way of collecting evidence.”
在塗色書的案子裏，賣家最終主動承認商品是假冒的，並同意退款。買家是蘇州的一名股票經紀人，他要求被具名爲宋先生，他表示：“我很幸運，遇到了一個沒有經驗的銷售代表，自己承認產品是假的。如果他們否認，我根本沒有辦法收集證據。”
The vendor is still selling on Tmall.
目前這個商家依然在天貓上銷售商品。
Alibaba is not alone in the spotlight. ’s direct sales site has received fewer complaints but has still come in for criticism. The company also operates a marketplace-like service with third-party sellers who are harder to police. Last month was criticised after it stationed employees at the Beijing branch of the SAIC. Mr Wang said the staff were “impersonating” SAIC staff over the phone and handling complaints, although said its staff were merely a liaison group who “neither handle nor adjudicate customer issues”.
阿里巴巴並非唯一備受矚目的商家。京東的自營業務受到的投訴較少，但是仍然遭到批評。該公司還運營着類似於網上集市的服務，上面是更難以監管的第三方賣家。上月京東因向北京工商局派駐員工而受到指責。王海稱，該員工在電話中“冒充”工商局公務員處理投訴，儘管京東表示其員工只是“既不處理也不裁決消費者投訴”的聯絡員。
Consumers are not the only ones to have complained about fake goods. Foreign retailers losing sales to counterfeits from China have harsh words for Alibaba.
並非只有消費者對假貨有所抱怨。被中國的仿冒品搶走銷售額的外國零售商對阿里巴巴也多有指責。
Juanita Duggan, president and chief executive of the American Apparel & Footwear Association, says the procedures retailers must go through to get fakes taken off Taobao are “nightmarish”.
美國服裝和鞋類協會(American Apparel & Footwear Association)總裁兼首席執行官朱厄妮塔達根(Juanita Duggan)稱，零售商若想讓假貨從淘寶下架，其必須走的流程猶如“噩夢”一般。
First, retailers must register their brands with Alibaba, a process she says is “marked by delays, submissions and resubmissions of brand authenticating documents, and repeated and unexplained rejections”.
首先，零售商必須在阿里巴巴上註冊其品牌，達根稱這一過程“充滿拖延，要反覆提交、再提交品牌認證文件，並遭到原因不明的反覆拒絕”。
“Assume you succeed in registering. Now, you can submit a request to take down a fake product,” she says.
“假設你成功註冊了品牌。現在，你可以提交讓假冒商品下架的請求，”她稱。
But she says such requests usually go unanswered. And if a retailer pursues claims, that hurts the brand’s “classification with Alibaba as a ‘good faith reporter’, reducing its ability in the future to bust counterfeiters”.
但她表示，這類請求通常都會石沉大海。同時，如果零售商要求索賠，這將損害該品牌“在阿里巴巴的‘誠信報告者’分類，削弱其未來戳穿造假者的能力”。
Ms Duggan says that even if the fake product is removed from the site, “the next day, the same item with the same picture will be for sale again but with a black bar covering the logo showing that the item is a counterfeit.
達根稱，即使假冒商品從網站上刪除，“隔天也會有帶有同樣照片的相同商品再次銷售，不過會帶有遮住品牌標識的黑條，表明該商品是仿冒品”。
“But Alibaba says it cannot take down this counterfeit item because it can’t be proven to be a branded product.”
“但是阿里巴巴稱不能將該仿冒品下架，因爲不能證明它是品牌商品。”
Alibaba says it is committed to improving how it tackles counterfeit goods. “We continue to successfully work with many AAFA clients to protect their intellectual property rights. We remain committed to the protection of intellectual property rights as we continue the long-running battle to eradicate counterfeit merchandise that may appear on our marketplaces.”
阿里巴巴稱，其正致力於改進處理假冒商品的方式。“我們繼續與來自美國服裝和鞋類協會的很多客戶成功合作，保護其知識產權。我們仍致力於保護知識產權，繼續爲根除可能出現在我們集市上的假冒產品打持久戰。”
Mr Wang, however, says that as long as there is a market for them, there will be fake goods.
然而，王海表示，只要假貨還有市場，就會有假貨。
