In an open letter posted on Weibo on Thursday, the founder of patient-centric crowdfunding platform Shuidichou, Shen Peng, apologized for exploiting the public’s trust via mismanagement in the company.
Shen, who worked for Meituan-Dianping before launching Shuidichou, recalled that his company was established as a free and open platform for patients who are not able to afford major medical expenses.
However, loose sign-up practices perpetuated by its offline marketing staff, which were brought to light by Pear Video last week, indicated that Shuidichou’s core values and mission were not fully understood by the company’s employees, Shen claimed.
Shuidichou hired marketing representatives to promote its online crowdfunding service to hospital patients in more than 40 cities, but the platform had no effective mechanisms to check the patients’ or their families’ assets and financial conditions. The representatives had set up a pipeline to register and launch crowdfunding campaigns for patients in under 30 minutes after brief interviews.
Shen went on to say that Shuidichou has rolled out new training sessions that cover the company’s core values, missions, and service terms. Only those who pass the examinations will return to duty. The offline marketing team has been suspended, and their commission fees are drawn from funds raised via investors, not crowdfunding campaigns, Shen emphasized.
Shuidichou’s investors include Tencent and Boyu Capital.
“If I cannot manage the platform better in the future, I am willing to hand it over to a charitable organization,” Shen said on Weibo.
