The Research On The Legal Regulation Of Prepaid Consumption

As a product of modern electronic information technology innovation, prepaid cardgot favor of consumers and business operators in recent years because of its fast andcompact, convenience to pay, acquisition of cash flow in advance. Prepaid card meetsthe market needs of economic development, but it also brings some negative effects thatcan not be avoided, resulting in the some complications in legislative and regulatoryprocess for prepaid card. Stage of China’s laws and regulations to regulate the prepaidconsumer is still at the stage of departmental rules based, coupled with weak regulatorysystem, the lack of corporate integrity system, our prepaid consumer market to someextent exacerbated the confusion and disorder. In contrast, some foreign prepaidconsumption system has been developed more mature and perfect.Therefore it is necessary to learn from the experience of foreign countries on thebasis of actual situation in China, to develop a comprehensive system of legal norms toguide prepaid card business continues to run on a healthy track.In addition to the preface and epilogue parts, this paper is divided into thefollowing five parts:The first part clarifies the definition of the prepaid card. Taking into account theincreasingly wide range of prepaid consumption of the main trend, the use of thoseconcepts such as "card issuers","business","card purchase","Card holder" has beendescribed, to avoid confusion. In addition, the author has proofed the legality of theprepaid card, which has been controversial for a time.The second and third parts discuss the legal risks and their causes induced byprepaid consumption. The prepaid consumption results in a loss of tax revenue, damageto the interests of consumers, market failure, corruption and other negative effects ofbreeding. These risks are related to the current legal system, ineffective supervision,weak self-protection awareness of the consumers and the lack of integrity system.The fourth part investigates prepaid consumer-related legal regulation of UnitedStates, Japan and Taiwan and other countries and regions. The United States focuses onthe supervision of the funds advanced; Japan focuses on the main issue regulatory;Taiwan, assures maximum protection of consumer rights through the refinement of theprepaid contract.The fifth part is the focus of this paper, it puts forward a series of recommendations for how to deal with the legal risks of prepaid consumption. The key of prepaidconsumption regulation is prevention, intervention by public law, private lawadjustment and self-regulatory organization to guide a combination of the defensesystem built up the legal risks. The same time, compared to the ordinary consumer,prepaid consumers take on more trading risk. It’s necessary to expand the punitivedamages, carry out the burden of proof upside down and open up the system ofcollective litigation, to innovation the ways of relief of consumers’ rights.