CCTV News:Recently, a well-known football training institution in Beijing — — The news that Stonehenge touchdown suddenly closed down came out, and a few weeks ago, this training school had just resumed teaching after the epidemic and was even recruiting new students. What makes parents feel more anxious is that many of them have paid tens of thousands of yuan in tuition fees in advance. Can the training institutions refund the tuition fees that may be as high as tens of millions of yuan to parents?
Mr. Xiong, who lives in Chaoyang District, Beijing, began to enroll his children in rugby training institutions in Beijing Jushi touchdown in 2016. So far, he has studied rugby for four years. After January this year, affected by the epidemic, all campuses of the training institution were closed, and his campus has not resumed classes so far. In August, the Chaoyang Park Campus of the institution began to resume training, which made him see the hope of resuming classes. However, just this week, in the WeChat group of his team, a message sent by the coach made him panic instantly.
Just last November, Mr. Xiong had just paid more than 20,000 yuan in tuition fees for two years, and had not attended a class. Such news of suspension of classes made him unacceptable. Like Mr. Xiong, many parents of Jushi touchdown Beijing Direct Campus got the news that they could not continue their classes this week. In the face of this unexpected situation, parents were caught off guard, because just last weekend, Beijing Chaoyang Park Campus was still in normal training and recruiting new students.
It is understood that Jushi touchdown was established in 2012 and is one of the earliest youth American football training institutions in China. Jushi touchdown adopts two modes: direct operation and joining. At present, the campus has covered 14 cities in China, including North, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hangzhou. This time, the crisis of suspension of classes is all directly operated campuses in Beijing. At present, members’ parents have formed a number of rights groups, and now the number has exceeded 2,000. The remaining tuition fees of these parents range from several thousand yuan to more than 50 thousand yuan. According to the current number of rights defenders, the amount involved exceeds 10 million yuan.
What makes it hard for parents to accept is not only the economic loss, but more importantly, they are worried that their children’s enthusiasm will be frustrated. Many parents have not even told their children who are looking forward to resuming classes this cruel fact.
Beijing office staff went to the building, and a large number of coaches and employees left.
The sudden suspension of classes made parents feel unprepared, but in fact, it was not only parents and students who suffered. The reporter learned from the investigation that after January this year, many coaches and employees of Stonehenge touchdown suffered from unpaid wages. Now most coaches have left their jobs, and the office of Stonehenge touchdown has been deserted.
Many parents said that classes resumed on August 8th at the Jushi Touchdown Chaoyang Park Campus. Just last weekend, some people took part in training here. The reporter learned that Jushi Touchdown also attended classes here for more than four years, so is this venue still being renewed? With questions, the reporter came to the venue management office of Chaoyang Park.
Staff of Beijing Chaoyang Park Site Management Office:We have terminated the contract, and they have not renewed the lease. It expired in February this year, so they have not paid us any more. It used to be rented every year, but now it was rented temporarily for a month last month, and now it is not rented.
Later, the reporter went to the office address of Jushi Touchdown in Chaoyang District, Beijing. This joint office space accommodates many companies at the same time. In the office area of Jushi Touchdown, we can see that their signs are still hanging in a conspicuous position, but the empty desks and closed office doors all show that there is no office here, and some items have not been moved through the glass. The whiteboard on the wall says that from January to August, the sales performance of the old members of the top three employees exceeded 500,000.
Since then, the reporter has repeatedly tried to call the official customer service phone number of Jushi touchdown and the phone number of the person in charge, all of which are in a state of being unable to get through or no one answered. Many parents said that now they can only contact the coaches and consultants who sold their lessons directly to them before, but at present, most of them have left their jobs. The reporter also contacted several of them.
Attract parents and employees to be shareholders, share dividends, make a touchdown, or circle money in disguise.
According to public information, Jushi Touchdown won two rounds of financing of 10 million yuan in 2017 and became a star startup company in this field. Then, is the sudden suspension of classes in this large training institution related to this year’s epidemic? Where did the financial difficulties begin?
Many parents said that at the end of last year, Jushi touchdown concentrated on renewing the fees of old members at very favorable prices. Some old members even continued their previous courses for two years before they finished one year.
In addition to allowing members to renew their fees in advance at a low price, Jushi Touchdown also launched a founding member activity in mid-2018. Members can get a five-year course by paying 50,000 yuan, and they can also get dividends from the campus. According to reports, in addition to recruiting members to buy shares, the company also encourages employees to invest thousands to tens of thousands of yuan in the company and participate in internal investment dividends.
In fact, the suspension of classes in the direct-operated campus in Beijing is not the first time that Jushi touchdown has fallen into this crisis. At the end of last year, the two campuses of this institution in Shanghai took measures to close stores, and hundreds of thousands of arrears owed by many students have not been refunded since then. On the enterprise search website, there are dozens of risk warnings about "Stonehenge touchdown", and the company has been listed as "abnormal operation" in October 2019.
Experts believe that since the outbreak this year, institutions with operational problems have quickly exposed the crisis. For consumers, it is necessary to keep evidence such as contracts, receipts, payment records, etc., and take litigation, arbitration and other means to safeguard their rights and interests when necessary.
Stonehenge’s touchdown responded that "there is no death" and the fee was refunded and the class was resumed.
Today, Jushi Touchdown posted a message on its WeChat WeChat official account that "Jushi is not dead". However, the company did not respond to parents’ concerns about whether the fee can be refunded and whether the class can continue. In recent years, there have been news that training institutions have stopped classes and run away. In order to prevent this from happening, the General Office of the State Council issued the Opinions on Standardizing the Development of Off-campus Training Institutions in August 2018, which clearly stipulated that off-campus training institutions should not charge fees for more than three months at a time. However, at present, many training institutions still require members to pay a large amount of tuition fees in advance. We also remind consumers to pay special attention to avoid falling into the trap of low-cost fees when recharging.
