Facial-cleaning chain 洗脸熊's prepaid-card store-run stranded members across cities

洗脸熊, a facial-cleaning chain founded in 2021, grew fast on a franchise model: franchisees plied 品牌使用费 and equipment fees, then opened under the brand. Member prepayments went straight into each store's private account, with the head office supplying only a SaaS system and never holding the funds.

In late December 2025 stores across 广东, 浙江, 湖北 and 上海 shut abruptly — some closed the day after still recruiting customers. Members found their cards unusable at other outlets, told they were 'not in the system'. A 1000-member group at the 武汉光谷店 tallied over ¥700,000 of unredeemed balances; 广州海珠区 had logged dozens of complaints since December.

On 2026-01-02 founder 唐华波 admitted the member money sat in store accounts the head office could not control, that the system could not redeem across stores, and that its financial monitoring of franchisees was inadequate — while a stated '24-hour hotline' stayed busy.

广州海珠区市场监管局 summoned the head office and demanded it advance refunds and then recover them from franchisees, warning of fraud penalties. The case turned a 'franchise scale' pitch into stranded prepaid balances and a chain that could not honor its own membership.