“Did Jiangnan really allow us to withdraw this $60 today?” Bezos asked himself, still finding it hard to believe.
That’s right, $60, withdrawable. It seemed like a completely ridiculous proposition!
But the withdrawal was real. Bezos even checked his Western Mustang Bank account and found he indeed had a $60 deposit.
And as everyone knew, deposits in a bank account were always withdrawable; they weren’t like coupons.
“Hahaha, I didn’t expect the Jiangnan Group to actually do something so stupid!” Tucker burst into manic laughter. He immediately picked up the phone and said, “I’m reporting this to the Secretary immediately. Have him arrange for people to buy gold coins on the Oriental Amazon website, and then find a way to get all the social security numbers. I’ll also have all Americans withdraw cash from Western Mustang Bank. I want to drain all their cash!”
Tucker was overjoyed at this moment, believing he had made a great contribution by being the first to discover this astonishing loophole.
“No, it shouldn’t be like this… The Jiangnan Group wouldn’t make such a mistake. There must be something wrong!” Bezos bit his lip, but he couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong.
However, after Tucker excitedly dialed the Secretary’s number, his expression quickly turned grim, and he eventually hung up the phone with a dejected, wry smile.
“What happened?” Soros asked.
“It’s… the Secretary just told me that Western R&D Bank is an online bank. Besides its headquarters, it has no other physical branches anywhere in the world. So, if you want to withdraw cash offline, you can only go to that single branch.”
“I heard that this branch only has one window operating cash services…” As Tucker said this, Bezos understood the Jiangnan Group’s strategy.
That’s right, this $60 could indeed be withdrawn, but it had to be done at the counter window of the offline branch. The problem was that Western Mustang Bank was established as an online bank. Although it had an external cash legal framework, banking law didn’t stipulate that a bank must have branches all over the country. As long as it had one window for cash withdrawals, it was sufficient.
But the issue was that a workday was only 8 hours. Even if this window worked non-stop, and could complete one deposit or withdrawal every minute, it could only withdraw $3,600 per hour, $86,000 per day, and about $30 million per year. For Western Mustang Bank, this was a perfectly manageable amount.
If a user wanted to withdraw this $60, they would first have to travel to the city where Western Mustang Bank was located, and then possibly wait in line for several hours to get the cash… These restrictions would be enough for 90% of users to abandon the withdrawal.
As for arranging their own people to abuse the system, the Western Mustang Bank’s promotion clearly stated that withdrawals for this event had to be handled by the social security account holder themselves and could not be handled by others.
Therefore, it was impossible to extract hundreds of millions of dollars from Western Mustang Bank; it simply didn’t exist.
“Can this fund be transferred to another bank account and then transferred through other banks?” Bezos asked.
“It’s impossible!” Tucker shook his head. “This promotion also stipulated that the dollars obtained through the event can only be withdrawn directly and cannot be transferred to other banks!”
“Then this is still a scam!” Bezos suggested, “We can arrange for people to create a buzz, expose this deceptive trick, and let all participants online realize they’ve been deceived and collectively sue Western Mustang Bank and Oriental Amazon.”
“Even if these two companies can avoid legal liability through comprehensive disclaimer clauses, they cannot escape the reputation of deceiving and fooling consumers!”
“It’s useless!” Tucker shook his head again. “In fact, headquarters has also been paying attention to this promotion. They discovered the entire strategy for this withdrawal event at 9:00 AM and have been simulating various response scenarios, including the idea of using online public opinion to attack them.”
“Although this $60 cannot be directly withdrawn or transferred to other banks, it is still stored in the Western Mustang Wallet. This money can be directly used to purchase Western Mustang Funds or to shop directly on the Oriental Amazon website!”
“The Western Mustang Fund is very popular right now. Almost every fund purchase has to be made at a premium of over 40% above the original price. So, using this money to buy Western Mustang Fund is not a loss. Many people are willing to spend money this way!”
“And the minimum fund purchase is $1,000. So, to buy a fund with this money, users would have to deposit thousands of dollars more into their wallets. Do you think they are losing money?”
“Both of these are functions that allow spending $60, and all online users actually know in their hearts that direct withdrawal is impossible. They are all capitalists and wouldn’t do such foolish things. They are already prepared for this $60 to become a voucher.”
“As a result, not only can the $60 be withdrawn directly, but it can also be used to buy funds or shop directly on the website. Users are satisfied. In fact, many forums already have users praising the Oriental Amazon’s promotion.”
“Also, don’t forget that the main social media platform on the entire internet right now is Weibo, an ally of the Jiangnan Group. And the Jiangnan Group is also skilled at manipulating online public opinion. They have crushed countless opponents by relying on various online opinions. If you compete with the Jiangnan Group in manipulating online public opinion, unless you have an absolute moral high ground or legal high ground, you cannot win!” Tucker said with frustration. After working at Goldman Sachs for so long, this was the first time they felt so dejected.
“There’s still a loophole, which is that the $60 can be used to shop directly on Oriental Amazon! We can arrange for our people to specifically purchase items worth around $60 on Oriental Amazon, and then request delivery to a remote address, thereby bleeding Oriental Amazon dry using this method, enough to kill them!” Bezos sneered.
“You don’t need to think about that either. Oriental Amazon has a response for that,” Tucker said, smiling even more bitterly.
“Oh, so they still used vouchers?”
“No, not vouchers, but this $60 can only be used to pay for shipping fees!” Tucker said.
“Shipping fees? There’s such a thing!” Bezos was stunned.
“Yes, shopping on Oriental Amazon requires paying shipping fees. According to Oriental Amazon’s published shipping fee rules, if you purchase items delivered by Walmart, excluding large items, the shipping fee is a fixed $5 delivery fee per order.”
“And the $60 cash in the account can only be used to pay for the shipping costs each time!” Tucker explained.
“A $5 shipping fee! Is it that cheap?” Bezos was shocked. Nowadays, in the US, the shipping fee for any online purchase is basically over $10.
Except for letters, even if you buy a small glass bead, you need to pay a $10 shipping fee. The reason letters are so cheap is that they are delivered by the post office and enjoy US government subsidies. After all, a postal worker rebellion is a terrifying prospect, ranking alongside librarians as the two most terrifying rebellious professions.
And now Oriental Amazon has reduced a single shipping fee to $5, which undoubtedly cuts the existing postage costs in half.
Upon hearing this news, the $60 issue became irrelevant in Bezos’s mind. What he cared about most now was the shipping fee. And the more he thought about it, the more he sweated. A $5 shipping fee per order was a sharp blade capable of killing Wanxian Pavilion!
“Sir, what method did Oriental Amazon use to reduce the shipping fee to such a terrifying level!” Bezos couldn’t help but ask.
“As I said, this $5 is only for purchasing items delivered by Walmart!” Tucker said.
“Walmart! What’s the connection with Walmart here!” Bezos felt he had already been sufficiently shocked, but he didn’t expect an even greater shock awaited him.
“This is our oversight. We also didn’t expect Oriental Amazon to reach a cooperation with Walmart! We only discovered this situation recently!” Tucker said, biting his lip.
“Take the ice cream you want to buy now, for example. You can click on the shop and see which store is selling your ice cream! And the price of this ice cream is the same as the price sold by Walmart!” Tucker said.
The rest was self-explanatory. With the appearance of Walmart, many inexplicable problems with Oriental Amazon were all connected, and Bezos finally understood why Oriental Amazon could sell fresh goods. It turned out to be all thanks to Walmart; Oriental Amazon had reached a cooperation agreement with Walmart!
“There’s no way to stop it!” After figuring this out, Bezos slumped powerlessly onto his chair. “Oriental Amazon must have established its distribution points around Walmart’s stores and then used these points for delivery, which is how they managed to reduce the delivery price to $5 per order.”
Bezos was indeed very smart. Hearing the word Walmart, he instantly understood all of Oriental Amazon’s tactics.
“Cooperating with large chain supermarkets… Why did I never think of this method!” Bezos hit his head hard. He had worked so hard to solve the fresh goods problem back then, and even spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to build a cold chain, yet he never thought that such a thing could be directly resolved through cooperation with large supermarkets.
At this moment, Bezos understood that Oriental Amazon had become an unstoppable existence.