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Following the heated debate over the 2019 Xi'an Mercedes-Benz women's rights incident, Mercedes-Benz was fined 800000 yuan for illegal collection of financial service fees. A few days ago, Xi'an citizens revealed that they were charged for financial services when they bought a car in a Dongfeng Nissan 4S store. Feeling that the behavior was unreasonable, photo maker recorded it by video and posted it online. Recently, however, it has been found that all the videos forwarded by the major media have been deleted.

Learned from a number of Dongfeng's 4S stores visited by photo maker, there are still a number of car 4S stores in Xi'an, where the Mercedes-Benz Women's Rights incident took place, continue to charge financial service fees, and more relevant customer service responses: financial service fees can be charged, but there is no unified standard.

According to the video recording, photo maker has some doubts about why financial service fees are still charged after the Mercedes-Benz women's rights incident last year caused the Mercedes-Benz brand to charge financial service fees. In response, a Dongfeng Nissan salesperson explained: in fact, the concept of financial service fees has always existed, even if the relevant regulatory authorities will impose severe penalties every year, but these fees will still be charged. It is just that it is no longer charged in the name of "financial service fee", or converted to other ways.

Photo maker then visited several other 4S stores and learned the same thing. Although the Mercedes-Benz brand was punished by regulators for illegally charging for financial services, the Mercedes-Benz brand still charged the fee in other ways, including interest, according to another salesperson.

In addition, for the current situation in which Dongfeng Nissan charges for financial services, the brand customer service explained that whether or how much financial services fees should be charged depends on how the local 4S stores negotiate with consumers. Therefore, there is no certain standard for the charging standard Dongfeng Nissan, which means it can still be charged.

As to whether the financial service fee is charged, Xi'an Market Regulatory Bureau said that the financial service fee charged by financial institutions is regulated by the financial department, while it is not allowed for 4S stores to charge fees if they do not have relevant business items.

Mercedes-Benz Auto Finance Co., Ltd. was punished a few months later after it was exposed that dealers had illegally charged financial services fees in an incident involving female owners of Mercedes-Benz in Xi'an in April last year. The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission released a penalty information form on Sept. 11, showing that Mercedes-Benz Auto Finance Co., Ltd. imposed an administrative fine of 800000 yuan according to law because of "serious deficiencies in the management of outsourcing activities."

In response, Mercedes-Benz Finance has said, "Mercedes-Benz Finance will not charge any financial services fees from dealers and customers. Dealers are independent legal entities and have a partnership with Mercedes-Benz Finance. We have no authority to restrict dealers."

But in fact, after Mercedes-Benz was exposed for charging financial services fees and other problems, there are still many places to collect relevant fees, even if it is not charging "financial services fees", but it is still charging by magic. Earlier, photo maker visited some 4S stores in Zhengzhou and heard a salesperson explain: "the service charge is the handling charge when doing the installment. It used to be called the financial service charge, but now it is changed to the information service charge." He also said that they had not received a notice not to charge this kind of service fee, and that we would charge it as we should outside. This is actually a change of soup and not a change of clothes. "

It can be seen that even if the punishment of Mercedes-Benz brand reveals the problem of illegal collection of financial service fees in the automobile sales industry, there are still many drawbacks and opacity in the collection of fees related to the automobile service industry. To this end, there are many netizens said: 4S stores do not charge relevant fees to be regarded as news!

This also reflects that the major businesses across the country through "financial service fees" and a variety of "unknown" fees in disguise seems to have become a "hidden rule" in the industry. So the frequent occurrence of such a situation, for the regulatory authorities, repeated punishment and rectification does not have much significance.

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