In recent years, "assassin" has become a popular word.

When consumers buy an ice cream, they may encounter an "ice cream assassin" who charges dozens of dollars for the product; when they park their car during travel, they may encounter a "parking assassin" who charges more than 640 yuan for 31 hours; when they go out for a meal, they may encounter a "rice assassin" who charges 90 yuan for 8 bowls of rice... Nowadays, the "assassin" phenomenon has even penetrated into the field of home appliance repair.

Home appliance repair has long been in chaos

Recently, the Xinmin Evening News reported an "outrageous" incident. Mr. Xue, who is over 70 years old and lives in Xuhui, Shanghai, received a home appliance repair leaflet, which claimed that "air conditioner cleaning fee is 50 to 60 yuan" and that "seniors over 60 years old enjoy a 50% discount on repair fees." However, when the old man made an appointment for home repair of the air conditioner, outrageous things happened one after another.

The maintenance personnel ostensibly wanted to clean the air conditioner, but during the process they misled the elderly man by saying that the air conditioner did not cool because of insufficient refrigerant and that one unit needed to be filled with 8 atmospheres of pressure, which cost 120 for one atmosphere of pressure. Then they said that the air conditioner needed to have its power meter module replaced, which cost 380 for one.

Originally, it only cost 200 yuan to clean the air conditioner (50 yuan for one unit cleaning + 50 yuan for labor), but in the end the old man spent 2,400 yuan. When the old man checked the market price, he was dumbfounded. It turned out that 3 kilograms of refrigerant only cost 90 yuan.

After this incident was exposed, there was a lot of criticism online.

Many netizens shared their experiences of being cheated. Some said that they searched for the after-sales service phone number of a certain brand on a search engine, but the result was a large number of fake after-sales services through paid rankings. They were cheated out of more than a thousand yuan for their own air conditioner just in the name of "system failure"; some netizens said that they made an appointment with a repairman on 58.com, but the air conditioner was cleaned for 70 yuan in the morning, but could not be turned on in the afternoon; some netizens said that they cleaned the range hood, which was originally agreed to be 100 yuan, but was finally charged more than 400 yuan.

There are many traps in home appliance repair, not just in the areas of air conditioners and range hoods, but televisions are also a "hard-hit area".

Previously, a netizen posted a video to complain that the TV he bought for 2,700 yuan accidentally broke into pieces. He contacted the brand's official customer service for repair, but was told that the price of replacing the screen would be 4,600 yuan.

If the high price of screen replacement is an isolated exception, then the fact that home appliances clearly have no problems but need major repairs is truly outrageous, outrageous to the extreme.

Some time ago on TikTok, blogger @yuya吃充吗 shared such an outrageous thing.

According to the blogger, her TV recently had a blue screen and could not enter the system, so she contacted a repairman. After checking, the repairman told her that they had to replace the motherboard, which would cost 600-700 yuan. Since she thought it was too expensive, she bought a USB flash drive online for 10 yuan and a system upgrade service for 15 yuan. Unexpectedly, she only spent 25 yuan to repair her TV.

As soon as this incident happened, it attracted more than 47,000 comments, almost all of which questioned the TV brand and complained about the "assassin" phenomenon in home appliance repairs.

In addition to major repairs when there is no problem, some consumers also encounter the "troublesome" situation of repeated repairs and repeated breakdowns.

Some time ago, a consumer reported on Heimao Complaints that the Japanese brand TV he bought on November 1, 2020, had frequent automatic restarts/shutdowns and could not be turned on in August 2022. During the warranty period, the brand's official repair stated that this was not included in the 3-year warranty. In desperation, the consumer had to spend 704 yuan on repairs, but less than a year later, in May 2023, the same problem occurred again, and the other party charged the same repair fee.

A TV that costs less than 6,500 yuan has been repeatedly repaired, broken down, and charged for repeatedly. In the eyes of this consumer, this is simply a great suffering.

In fact, the chaos of home appliance repair has long become a hot topic for consumer complaints. A search on Heimao Complaints found that there were 5,468 complaints about TV repairs and 5,184 complaints about air conditioner repairs. In addition, there were 2,933 complaints about refrigerator repairs and 2,457 complaints about washing machine repairs.

How many traps are there in home appliance repair?

In sorting out the massive complaints about home appliance repairs, it is found that such traps can be roughly divided into four categories:

1. Counterfeit repairs are rampant, and official repair outlets are limited.

Although brand manufacturers have official repair outlets, investigations have found that with rising rents and operating costs, brand manufacturers' repair outlets are usually far less than copycat repair outlets. Some brands even have only one or two regular after-sales repair outlets in a municipal area.

At the same time, some counterfeit outlets will pretend to be official after-sales, which makes it difficult for consumers to find official repairs. Even if they can find them, they will be forced to choose counterfeit repairs due to the long waiting time for repairs, and thus fall into the trap of unscrupulous merchants.

Earlier, it was reported that Ms. Lu from Nanning, Guangxi, had a refrigerator at home that broke down. She searched the Internet for the 400 after-sales service phone number, but was defrauded of thousands of yuan. Ms. Lu first paid 800 yuan for the door-to-door repair fee, and then the repairman asked her to pay another 1,600 yuan on the pretext of replacing parts. Unexpectedly, not only did the repair fail to fix the refrigerator, but when it broke down again, even the after-sales service phone number was no longer in service.

2. Prices are not transparent, and high-priced "assassins" frequently appear

"Clear pricing" should be the basic code of business conduct, but in the field of home appliance repair, price opacity has long been a chronic problem in the industry.

If you check various major appliance brands, you will find that only a few brands on the market have provided detailed repair fee lists. On the other hand, the repair prices of most brands are either unclear or relatively lagging.

For example, Gree also provides charging guidance for minor repairs, medium repairs and major repairs outside the warranty period on its official website, but the charging standards are still in 2021.

It is precisely because of the lack of transparency in prices that maintenance personnel have the opportunity to rip off customers during home appliance repairs.

Recently, Xiao Song, a netizen, found that two Gree air conditioners at home were not cooling, so he contacted a home appliance repair service company through a web search. When he first contacted them, the other party said that "it is not expensive to repair, only 50 or 60 yuan", but after the repair, he found that the door-to-door fee + repair fee + fluorine refilling fee was as high as a staggering 5,160 yuan. At this time, Xiao Song realized that the so-called 50 or 60 yuan was just the price of a pressure unit of Freon. Xiao Song then called Gree's official after-sales service, but the customer service told him that fluorine refilling was free!

3. Over-repair and not treating people the same way

Home appliance repair is a relatively professional field, which touches the knowledge blind spot of most ordinary users. Another problem brought about by this information asymmetry is excessive and induced repairs, that is, repairs without illness and major repairs for minor problems.

In March this year, netizen Li Fei found that the range hood he had used for years at home was always not exhausting smoke smoothly, so he found a maintenance company on 58.com. After the maintenance personnel came to check, they said that there was a problem with the exhaust pipe and charged 300 yuan to widen the exhaust port. Before Li Fei could react, the exhaust pipe had been installed. Then the maintenance personnel deceived him by saying that they would install a check valve to resist high temperature and prevent oil smoke, and the total cost would be 1,600 yuan.

But even though Li Fei spent more than 1,600 yuan, the range hood did not work properly. He checked online and found that the exhaust pipe was only 20 to 30 yuan, and the most expensive check valve was only 100 yuan, but he had wasted 1,600 yuan and was completely wronged.

4. Falsely marked prices and arbitrary price increases

In the field of home appliance repair, false pricing is a common tactic to cheat customers. When facing novice users, many repair outlets usually use low-price repairs as a gimmick, but once the repairman comes to check, the price will often increase exponentially.

Previously, on Douyin, @小莉帮帮 released a program about false prices for home appliance repairs. In this program, the repairman promised to repair the TV for 550 yuan, but after checking and removing the TV, the after-sales staff called and said that the TV screen was broken and the repair fee soared to more than 2,000 yuan.

Anyone would probably feel resentful about seeing the price of home appliance repairs arbitrarily increased like this.

The question is, the chaos in home appliance repair has long caused complaints from consumers, but why has it not been resolved? This is related to the emergence of the "assassin" phenomenon in home appliance repair and the root cause of the difficulty in solving it.

What’s the difficulty in solving the chaos in home appliance repair?

In summary, the reason why home appliance repair has become a "wallet assassin" of consumers lies in two aspects:

The first is information asymmetry. Information asymmetry on prices leads to the phenomenon of random charges and random price increases; information asymmetry on outlets leads to users who want to find official after-sales service often find fake repairs; information asymmetry on professional knowledge leads users to let unscrupulous merchants "fool" them and waste their money in vain.

The second is the issue of profit distribution. In recent years, the hardware profits of major home appliance manufacturers have generally declined, and they can only rely on membership services, software and advertising to increase revenue. Whether it is opening more after-sales outlets or repairing and replacing parts, for manufacturers, it will bring greater resistance to revenue and profit growth. Therefore, objectively, the official after-sales force has shrunk, or outsourcing to third-party companies has become a common choice for brands.

For maintenance personnel, due to low wages, maintenance costs and service fees are difficult to meet normal living needs, and part of the fees collected need to be handed over to the company, which directly leads to the phenomenon of "cheating as much as possible and charging as much money as possible" in home appliance repair.

Nowadays, home appliance repair has long been caught in a vicious cycle. To change the current situation, it is not a one-day job, nor is it the responsibility of one party. It requires long-term efforts from multiple parties.

From a brand perspective, any responsible brand knows that strengthening after-sales service, improving after-sales outlets, expanding after-sales teams, and strengthening after-sales management can not only reduce the chaos in home appliance repairs to a certain extent, but also contribute to the long-term development of the brand. However, facing the extremely long after-sales service cycle, the sharply increasing after-sales operating expenses, and the continuously declining hardware profits, brand manufacturers have no choice but to choose to ignore it helplessly.

It is in this situation that perhaps a more prudent approach for brands may be to make gradual improvements. For example, in terms of self-repair services, a more transparent price information disclosure mechanism can be established; in terms of repair and maintenance knowledge, more knowledge can be popularized; in terms of punishment for chaos in home appliance repair, stricter standards and controls can be established, etc.

From a regulatory perspective, the home appliance industry and relevant regulatory authorities should further strengthen the review and screening of repair agencies, eliminate counterfeit repairs, and protect the rights and interests of consumers.

However, given the complex environment of the home appliance repair market, it is unlikely that this stubborn problem will be cured in a short period of time, regardless of the efforts of brands or regulators. As long as the low income problem of home appliance repair practitioners cannot be solved, the chaos may continue to exist.

So how can consumers avoid the numerous traps of home appliance repair? I am afraid that consumers must not only understand the "mine avoidance" strategy, resolutely not choose brand products with poor after-sales reputation, forcing brands to work hard on after-sales service, but also develop the good habit of contacting official after-sales when there are problems, and contacting the Consumer Association when their rights are damaged, so as to make it difficult for unreliable third-party repair agencies to move forward.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.