Plaintiff's Lawsuit Against E-commerce Platform for Return Losses Rejected by Beijing Internet Court
TapTechNews August 9th news, today the Beijing Internet Court announced a case. In April 2024, Mr. Lu, the plaintiff, placed an order to buy 4 mobile phones in the self-operated store of an e-commerce platform, and after trying them out, he applied for the 'seven-day no-reason return' but was rejected by the platform. Subsequently, Mr. Lu resold these 4 mobile phones on a second-hand platform at a price more than $1000 lower than the purchase price. Mr. Lu sued an e-commerce platform to the Beijing Internet Court, requesting the court to order the e-commerce platform to compensate Mr. Lu for the loss of $4000 caused by the low-price resale of mobile phones.
The defendant, an e-commerce platform, submitted the order and after-sales situation of its store. The records showed that the plaintiff, Mr. Lu, had generated 209 orders for the goods purchased on this platform in the past six months, including 106 mobile phones; among the 87 after-sales return orders generated, there were as many as 77 after-sales return orders for mobile phones. The defendant, an e-commerce platform, believed that Mr. Lu's extensive application for returns violated the principle of good faith and should not apply the 'seven-day no-reason return' rule.
After trial, the court held that Article 25 of the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Consumers' Rights and Interests stipulates that when an operator sells goods by means of the Internet, television, telephone, mail order, etc., consumers have the right to return the goods within seven days as of the date of receiving the goods, but Article 132 of the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China stipulates that civil subjects shall not abuse civil rights to damage the state interests, social and public interests or the legitimate rights and interests of others. Article 4 of the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Consumers' Rights and Interests also stipulates that when an operator conducts transactions with consumers, it should follow the principles of voluntariness, equality, fairness, and good faith.
In this case, in the past six months, the plaintiff generated 87 after-sales return orders on the involved e-commerce platform, among which there were 77 after-sales return orders for mobile phones. Judging from daily life experience, such a high return rate is indeed unreasonable. During the trial, the plaintiff said that the reason why he bought and then returned the mobile phone was to try out the new machine and found that the mobile phone did not meet his needs and then returned it. However, the trial behavior can be completed by testing in offline physical stores and consulting the details of the goods. The plaintiff's frequent purchase and return behavior clearly does not conform to the purchase, use of goods or acceptance of services for the needs of daily life consumption, which violates the agreement between the user and the platform.
Although the law stipulates that consumers of online shopping have the right to return goods in accordance with the law, the plaintiff's behavior of purchasing and returning many times within six months reflects that the plaintiff failed to fulfill the duty of care when shopping, and when exercising the right to return, it was too casual, unreasonably increasing the operating costs of enterprises and society, disturbing the normal trading order of the platform, contrary to the principle of good faith stipulated by the law, and violating the principles of fairness and good faith in the socialist core values, belonging to the abuse of one's own rights. Therefore, the court does not support the plaintiff's claim for compensation from the defendant.
The Beijing Internet Court made a first-instance judgment, rejecting all the plaintiff's claims. After the judgment was made, neither the plaintiff nor the defendant appealed. Currently, the judgment of this case has taken effect.