To The Moon

A woman in Guangzhou, identified as Ms. Qi, has reported that her Alipay account was subjected to continuous unauthorized deductions through Hello Chuxing's ride-hailing service, totaling 109 transactions and amounting to a loss of 6,551.34 yuan since July 25. Ms. Qi stated that she had been using the Hello Chuxing app for carpooling services with Alipay's quick-payment feature enabled. She confirmed that she had not changed her phone number during this period, nor had she shared her password with anyone.

Upon discovering the anomaly, Ms. Qi reviewed her transaction history and found that the unauthorized charges ranged from over ten yuan to as much as 199 yuan per transaction, including instances of a "pay-first-then-refund" pattern that suggested probing behavior. She promptly disabled the quick-payment function and filed a complaint with the 12345 government service hotline. In response, Hello Chuxing's customer service indicated that the account associated with the unauthorized transactions was linked to a phone number that Ms. Qi had cancelled two years ago and is now a non-operational number. The platform suggested that she file a police report regarding the incident.

Regarding Ms. Qi's request for a full refund, Hello Chuxing declined responsibility for compensation and offered only 200 yuan as a goodwill gesture, which Ms. Qi rejected. Meanwhile, a customer service representative from Alipay's Ant Financial unit explained that once a quick-payment agreement is signed, it remains active unless manually disabled, even if the user no longer uses the associated account. When questioned about whether Alipay conducts periodic verification of real-name authentication with partner platforms, the representative stated that no such step currently exists.

On the morning of September 4, Hello Chuxing's customer service contacted Ms. Qi again, stating that the details of the unauthorized charges and her appeal had been escalated. However, due to the large total amount, the platform's maximum compensation limit for customer service cases is 200 yuan, and any further action would require waiting until the actual passenger who used the service is identified and repays the funds. Ms. Qi maintains her position, arguing, "This is a platform vulnerability and a security issue on their end. I just want my money back. The platform should be responsible for resolving issues related to its own users."