Chapter 26: Contacting the Dealer Company

Qiu Jing never sent another message to Liu Man, and Liu Man wasn’t brave enough to ask her about the results.

During the afternoon, she started live-streaming again. She added her Weibo to the introduction on her homepage. During this time, a lot of students were preparing for their end of the year exams. She didn’t have as many viewers but still had some familiar fans watching her stream.

“Sis signed up for a Weibo account! I’m going to follow her.”

The notifications of new followers from Weibo came up constantly. Liu Man didn’t check on them. She spread out her rice paper and planned to continue writing.

“You weren’t live-streaming during yesterday’s evening. What were you doing? (smirk)” –I’m here for the shoes.

“I went to have dinner with a friend and went straight to bed because I came home late. I’m going to feast with my two roommates tonight, so I’m live-streaming now instead of tonight. Oh yeah, yesterday, I mailed you the AJs you ordered for. Remember to retrieve the delivery!”

Liu Man had just been talking to her viewers, when her cat suddenly leapt onto the table. Her golden furred body covered most of the camera. Thanks to Yu Zhan, who gave Liu Man the cat food, Daylight had a great appetite these days, and her belly was always round and full. Although when she walked with her four legs, she still used her elegant cat steps, and there was no covering up she was now a fat lady cat with a round belly.

“Ohhh, Daylight is still so cute. (heart-eyes) I want to pet and hug her so much!” — Peach is a fairy.

“Daylight seems to have gotten fat. Looks like the cat food sis buys this time has no quality issues.” — Pancake.

“Oh, yeah, sis. About that fake cat food shop, did you get to report them and receive a refund?” — I’m Tingting.

Tingting’s question reminded Liu Man. She had been too busy these days, so she forgot anything to do with a refund, “I’ll check it on Taobao.”

Liu Man changed to Taobao on her phone and checked on her request for a refund. However, she only saw a line of words written in a red font, “Your request for a refund has been rejected. Taobao’s staff examined the pertinent evidence and came to the conclusion that the shop owner did not do anything wrong.”

Liu Man didn’t expect the result to be like this after waiting for such a long time. She tried to dial customer service, but there were twenty people before her, and she needed to wait for at least thirty minutes. It was conspicuous that Taobao was more inclined to the shops, especially since this shop owner’s Taobao level was very high. The shop also looked very official, since they seemed to have completed all of the procedures.

What? So, her hundreds of RMB were just going to be wasted?

Liu Man felt a bit helpless.

When she came back to her live-streaming application, she informed her cat fans, who kept on asking follow-up questions regarding the fake cat food, “Taobao didn’t accept my request for a refund. It looks like I’m just going to have to admit I was unlucky,” She said with a bitter smile.

“Ah, whatever. Count it as a lesson bought with a few hundred RMBs.” — Peach is a fairy.

“It’s great that the kitty is fine, just make sure to keep an eye out for fake cat food in the future.” — I’m Tingting.

“I’ve already commented last time. These immoral businessmen who sell, supposedly cat food from overseas, do a lot of fake procedures. All those counterfeit marks and those permission slips. Even if they were discovered, they have all kinds of ways to avoid refunds. We don’t even have a way to fight them, unless we go to the companies outside the country and ask for proof. We’re just normal citizens, there would be no way for us to contact them. We can’t even find the dealers.” — Pancake.

“Why don’t you just expose the shop here in your live-stream? This way, cat owners can avoid buying their cat food.”

“There are tens of thousands of shops selling cat food from the brand ‘Cats’ Garden,’ because this brand has high-quality cat food. It would make more money selling fake cat food marked as Cats’ Garden’s products. Even if this shop is gone, there could be other ones. There’s no way to tell.”

“Also, Princess Man only has a few hundred fans. Even her Weibo account had just signed up. She wouldn’t make much difference, and I doubt anyone would listen to her.”

Everyone started to join the conversation, and there was a popular debate going on. Liu Man read every comment there was, and the comment that ‘Pancake’ had typed, captured her attention the most.

Dealer…

TL’s Note: Like drug dealers, (as Sydney said).

Liu Man instantly thought of the note that came with the cat food. That Manager Huang, maybe he was a dealer of Cats’ Garden? She tried hard to remember where she put the note.

“I have to do something quickly, and I won’t be able to live-stream today.” Liu Man said with an urgent tone.

A few of her calligraphy fans popped out,

“So suddenly! Are you not going to write anything today?”

“I waited for such a long time! I was so excited for your live-stream.”

Liu Man apologized to each and every one of them before turning off her live-stream.

All the clothes she wore were hung up in her closet. She searched the clothes one by one, scouting through the pockets before finally finding the note.

She dialed the number written on the phone. The phone call was immediately picked up after two beeps.

“Hello.”

The Hong Kong accent made Liu Man pause a few seconds before replying, “Hello.”

The other side seemed to hesitate for a moment, then quickly switched to speaking Chinese with a thick accent.

“Hello. May I ask who you are?”

“I bought cat food from Cats’ Garden last week and saw a note with your number written on it in the box. Are you Manager Huang?”

As the only dealer for Cats’ Garden in Hong Kong, Huang Shiting was usually very busy. However, he did have an impression of what Liu Man had said, because he was the one who told his assistant to put the note in.

TL’s Note: Huang Shiting is now my favorite character

“Yes, I am. What’s your first name, ma’am?” Compared to the cold greeting before, his tone became warmer.

“My first name is Liu,” Liu Man felt that this Manager Huang was too courteous.

“Hello, Miss Liu. Is there anything wrong with the cat food?”

Seeing that the other side was so easy to talk to, Liu Man tried to make her tone as respectful as she could, “No, no, no. There’s not a problem with your cat food. I’m calling you because I want to confirm a few things.”

“Mm, Mm. Go ahead.” Huang Shi Ting was very patient.

“Are you and your team the official dealer of Cats’ Garden?”

“Of course. We are the only legal dealer of Cats’ Garden located in Hong Kong, and every bag of cat food we sell is from their official factories.”

To be honest, Huang Shi Ting’s company was already very big, and there were very few people who doubted the credibility of their products.

“Then are there any dealers of Cats’ Garden in China Mainland?”

“Because of many reasons such as the customs, Cats’ Garden do not currently have any dealers located in China Mainland. All companies in Mainland claiming they are official dealers are fake. Have you bought fake products in Mainland?”

Huang Shiting was smart enough to guess the real reason why Liu Man made this call.

Liu Man quickly said, “Yes. I recently bought a bag of cat food from a shop claiming to be the official dealer for Cats’ Garden, and it was fake.”

Huang Shiting, after hearing what she said, laughed, “There are people from the mainland who came to Hong Kong to buy cat food and sell them in mainland, to earn a profit. However, they wouldn’t be buying a lot, because without our permission, they can only buy a bag each time at Hong Kong’s supermarkets. To tell you the truth, all the shops on Taobao claiming that they can sell you a lot of bags of cat food each time are fake.”

“But they all wrote on their products introductions that they have the permission from the factories, as proof.”

“Those are things that can easily be fabricated. No one would actually take the proof printed from Taobao to find the actual factories in New Zealand for verification purposes.”

Liu Man was already one hundred percent sure that that shop was fake after hearing all of this. But, how could she get credible and authorized evidence?

“The shop I bought from refused to refund me, even now, for I didn’t have enough proof. So, I was hoping if you could print me some evidence to prove that they’re selling fake products?”

Huang Shiting laughed, again, “Miss, you are still too young and unaware of how to do business. Nowadays, there are too many ways to trade products, and we are not the actual factories. We don’t have the right to print copies of proof. We can only prove that what we are selling is real, but there is no way for us to prove what others are selling is fake. However, in this matter, I think I can still help you a bit. Give me your email address, and I’ll have my assistant send you something later.”

Hearing that Manager Huang was willing to help her, she was very grateful, although he wasn’t able to give her what she wanted, “Thank you, thank you so much!”

“To be honest, there is no need for you to not get over the fact that you bought fake cat food. Now that we know each other, from now on, I can provide you with authenticated cat food from Cats’ Garden in a long-term way.”

Liu Man felt that this Manager Huang was a very sociable person and was very generous. She immediately thanked him again.

Huang Shi Ting hung up and told his assistant, “John, give me a copy of a list of all of our products.”

John had been eavesdropping the entire time and had been curious about who was so important on the other side of the call. His boss thought it too trivial to answer questions such as the authentication of their products. However, he didn’t dare to ask his boss.

Liu Man messaged over her email address, and about half an hour later she received a response:

Greetings, Miss Liu,

I am John, Hong Kong branch of Cats’ Garden’s Manager Huang’s assistant. My company has the full power over dealing products from New Zealand’s Cats’ Garden cat food company here at South-east Asia. The attached is a file containing a list of all of our products,

John.

Phone number: xxxxxxxxxxxx

There were two attachments to the email. Liu Man opened the first file, and saw that it was a chart. It had the names of all of Cats’ Garden’s products, the kinds, the specifications, and the ingredients. These information weren’t clandestine and was publicized by the factories. At the very bottom of the chart was a digital stamp from the Hong Kong branch, to show the credibility of this chart.

The second attachment was a document from the New Zealand Cats’ Garden, written in English. The old Liu Man wasn’t quite fluent in English, which didn’t help Liu Man so much. (In addition, she came from Ancient China…) She spent a long time before finally comprehending most of the document. It basically claimed that the only authorized dealer company in China was their Hong Kong branch. This document wasn’t new, it was published a year ago. There was a signature from Cats’ Garden’s chairman.

Although Manager Huang and his team already knew there were lots of people claiming to be legal dealers on Taobao in Mainland China, they were still based in Hong Kong with the factories in New Zealand. There was no way for them to put an end to this, and the claim ended up just becoming a document.

Liu Man read the files while searching for related information on the internet. She spent an entire afternoon, noting down everything she learned on a notebook, which took up about two pages. She felt that even if she couldn’t get a refund, she would still try her best to make that shop which sold fake cat food get what deserved.

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