The epidemic of more than two years has greatly changed people’s living patterns. Even learning musical instruments can be taught online without boundaries. However, once the learning institutions close down, it is difficult to collect tuition fees across borders. Legislative Council member Tang Jiabiao held a video conference today (16th) to discuss with a number of local parents who participated in the collapse of the “instrumental instrument sparring platform” in the Mainland, and temporarily received 33 related requests for assistance. The victims lost a total of RMB 760,000 ( equivalent to approximately HK$850,000).
The parent, Ms. Xu, pointed out that the tuition burden of physical learning of musical instruments in Hong Kong is relatively heavy, so in 2019, through the introduction of the head teacher, she enrolled her son in a musical instrument sparring course on the mainland musical instrument sparring platform “VIP sparring”. She pointed out that she spent regarding 34,000 yuan on the platform in the three years, but following the school was suspended in July, there were still regarding 15,000 yuan of unused class hours. Another parent pointed out that they felt that the platform was endorsed by pianist Lang Lang, and they felt that the image was positive, so they spent more than 20,000 yuan on the platform to enroll their children in courses, but the platform closed down soon following.
Tang Jiabiao pointed out that the epidemic has changed the learning patterns of many students, but the development of e-commerce in Hong Kong is still not as popular as that in the mainland, and “VIP sparring” services for cross-border electronic goods are more difficult to handle. He urged the government and the mainland to establish regulations and mediation methods , to follow up on the event. He reminded parents to avoid large purchases of packages from overseas e-commerce platforms.
