In March last year, five months after accepting Letv Investment Holdings, Easy Car, which had been silent for a long time in the car market, released the second child in the car market and introduced the concept of "eco-car". At the same time that peers have tightened subsidies, Easy-to-use vehicles have repeatedly benchmarked their competitors in subsidies, constantly lengthening subsidy time and increasing cashback efforts.
After a year, the aura of easy-to-use car brought by the bundling strategy with LeTV has already vanished under the negative news of the break of LeTV’s capital chain. However, under the influence of LeTV, easy-to-use car has also been exposed to capital chain problems.
Although the easy-to-use car has been denied many times, according to Sina Technology’s investigation, the easy-to-use car failed to settle the debt owed by the outsourcing customer service company in time, and now the easy-to-use car has all turned into mail customer service and artificial intelligence customer service, which is affected by customer service. The office front desk in Zhongguancun is crowded with drivers and passengers who come to complain all the year round.
In fact, in addition to the customer service company, seven suppliers who have cooperated with Easy Car, including App promotion and SMS promotion, have not received the payment for Easy Car within the contract settlement period. Facing the supplier who asks for money from the door, Wang Rui, assistant to the president of Easy Car, bluntly said: "I don’t owe you any money either. I have broken my promise in seven companies. Now I just have no money and can only wait for the signal from the bank."
Since December last year, Liu, an employee of Aiwoshi Technology Co., Ltd., which has provided App promotion services for easy-to-use cars, has to go to the company headquarters in Zhongguancun at least one day a week.
According to Liu, on December 15th last year, after the media exposed that Easy Car was in arrears with the supplier’s final payment, the product director of Easy Car drew up a payment plan, which was signed by Wang Rui, assistant to the president of Easy Car, and promised him that he would pay 3,035,604 yuan before January 20th and the second payment of 3,414,136 yuan before February 28th.
January 18, 2017
As the date of the first payment approached, Wang Rui told Liu that the bank loan had not yet arrived, and asked him to wait for another two or three days. At the same time, he said: "If you believe in the easy strength, you can wait. If you don’t believe it, you can take legal measures."
January 24, 2017
Liu, who still hasn’t received any easy payment, found Wang Rui again. Wang Rui said: "At present, the company owes SMS, customer service and promotion funds, and there are many door-to-door reminders every day." Subsequently, Wang Rui once again promised to solve the arrears problem in the first week after the year. After that, Wang Rui appealingly paid 440,000 yuan to Liu’s company account, and it is said that the other six suppliers also received about 400,000-500,000 yuan in arrears at the same time.
February 10, 2017
Years later, Liu found Wang Rui again, and Wang Rui said that the loan approval letter from the bank has not been received yet, and there should be a result next Monday.
On February 13th, 20th, 24th and 27th, Wang Rui successively postponed the scheduled repayment date on the grounds that the bank loan was not approved.
According to Liu, as of March 10, Wang Rui still refused to pay the remaining arrears on the grounds of the bank, and even bluntly said: "We only owe you more than 5 million, and I still owe more than 10 million outside. I have to solve it later."
According to Wang Rui,At present, the easy-to-use car owes Liu more than 5 million outstanding payments, and tens of millions outstanding to customer service providers and SMS service providers.As to when the remaining funds can be settled, Wang Rui also said that the next round of financing for easy-to-use cars has entered the drafting stage, and if banks can’t give loans, they can also rely on financing money to pay off debts.
Talking about the current predicament of easy access to cars, Wang Rui said that the main reason was the negative influence of LeTV last year, so banks were cautious and did not dare to lend easily.In Wang Rui’s view, Easy Car still has a certain right to speak in the private car market. Although individual drivers are facing delays in withdrawing cash, there are still a large number of drivers and vehicles operating on the platform. In addition, Easy Car is actively applying for an online car license and is expected to receive the license in mid-March.
Recently, Sina Technology visited the headquarters of Easy-to-use Car Company. In addition to a large number of drivers who came to complain at the front desk of Easy-to-use Car, Easy-to-use Car still maintained normal office order, and people kept coming for interviews. According to a staff member who is easy to use the car, because of the suspension of manual customer service at present, the problem of easy access to funds has led to the slow withdrawal of cash from the driver’s side. Every day, drivers and passengers come to complain, and the police have come forward to appease the driver’s emotions before.
In order to prevent the drivers who come to complain from affecting the office of the easy-to-use car, a signboard has been specially set up at the front desk of the easy-to-use car, indicating that the driver reception service station has been specially set up for the easy-to-use car, hoping that the driver can transfer the complaint position.
In addition to drivers and suppliers, passengers who are easy to use the car are also in a state of panic. After entering the LeTV eco-circle, it is easy to continuously increase its recharge policy. At the Yizhi celebration on July 1, 2016, it was easy to announce the end of the "100% recharge activity" that lasted for 224 days and lasted for the longest time in history. A total of 6.53 million users recharged, with a cumulative amount of more than 6 billion yuan, with a per capita income of 918 yuan.
At the same time, this means that behind the 6 billion recharge, it is easy to prepare an additional 6 billion yuan in the future to replenish platform users and drivers and enhance the stickiness of users and drivers. At the end of last year, after LeTV was negative, Easy Car was also exposed to the news that some drivers were in arrears with suppliers and some drivers were blocked in withdrawing cash, which made many consumers who had recharged easily worry that their money would never return.
Although Wang Rui said that the easy-to-use car platform is still operating normally, many consumers have responded to Sina Technology that they can’t get a car by using the easy-to-use car App and the funds in their accounts can’t be used. According to a driver who is easy to use the car, many drivers also hold a wait-and-see attitude towards the easy-to-use car because it is slow to respond to cash withdrawals and complaints at present, and dare not solicit customers easily.
As an easy-to-use car, LeTV has not brought much help to the easy-to-use car business except replacing all the easy-to-use senior management teams with LeTV teams. Instead, it has made the easy-to-use car a domino caused by the LeTV capital chain crisis.
According to a supplier who is in arrears with the final payment, once the easy-to-use car enters the asset liquidation, the first thing that needs to be paid is the wages owed to employees, water and electricity rent and taxes that need to be turned over to the state, followed by the arrears owed by suppliers and passengers. Therefore, although the easy-to-use car often talks about legal procedures, if you want to get the funds as soon as possible, you can only pin your hopes on the easy-to-use car to get out of the financial dilemma.
Easy access to previous financing situations:
In May 2010, Easy Angel was invested by Xu Xiaoping Zhenge Fund.
In August, 2011, it was awarded a series A financing of 10 million dollars by Morningstar Venture Capital and Qualcomm Venture Capital Company.
In April, 2013, Series B investment received $20 million from Morningstar Venture Capital, Qualcomm and Broadband Capital, and Ctrip subsequently led the investment of Series B with $60 million.
In September, 2014, it obtained over US$ 100 million in Series C financing from GIC and Ctrip.
In October 2015, LeTV acquired 70% equity of Easy-to-use Car for 700 million US dollars and became the controlling shareholder of the latter. At that time, Jia Yueting, the chairman of LeTV, said that it would build an eco-car with Yizhi, and the future eco-car would be free.
(Original title: Easy-to-use car capital chain breaks: all blame LeTV, text/Zhou Xue)
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