A RESIDENT surnamed Fan in Longhua District recently reported to the Southern Metropolis Daily that he paid 6,618 yuan (US$940) for an air conditioner (AC) cleaning service.

Fan said that his younger sister helped him find a door-to-door AC cleaning company called Yichenguojihuoyun on 58.com, an online classified information website, to clean the six ACs in his house. Fan thought it might cost only a few hundred yuan. However, the cleaner charged a total of 6,618 yuan for the service.

Fan’s sister explained that the worker told her that the ACs had many problems that needed to be repaired before he could clean them.

After hearing this, Fan became suspicious, so he contacted the company’s boss to get a receipt.

Fan discovered the service fees listed on the receipt were above the market standard. Moreover, the receipt’s stamp does not show the company’s name but instead reads “Shenzhen community service center.”

Fan then got in touch with the boss again and asked for the standard rate, but the boss rejected his request.

The reporter found that a business license was not required in order to post service information on 58.com. An individual can even pretend to be a company when filling in the required information on the platform.

Zheng Bo’en, a lawyer with the Shenzhen office of Yingke Law Firm, told the Daily that the company’s behaviors were against the pricing law, which specifies that service fees should be made according to the standard released by the government.

Zheng suggested that consumers seek help by reporting their cases to the relevant authorities.

At present, Minzhi office of the Municipal Market Supervision and Regulation Bureau in Longhua District is investigating the case.  (Wang Jingli)