(Yicai) Aug. 10 -- 58.com, which has long been plagued by accusations of posting inaccurate information, is now the subject of a rumor claiming that the Chinese classified advertisement website is selling job hunters’ resumes. 58.com needs to improve its data security and the accuracy of its posts in order to regain consumer trust, a researcher told Yicai.

Rumors are swirling online that 58.com has been collecting resumes from people looking for jobs through its recruitment posts and then selling them to educational and training institutions at a high price.

The Beijing-based firm has yet to respond to Yicai’s calls about the matter.

58.com must fix the bugs on its platform to regain people’s trust, Zhang Xiaorong, head of Deepin Technology Research Institute, told Yicai. This is not the first time that it has been accused of passing on personal data. It has leaked a huge number of CVs before.

And there is also a problem with the accuracy of information posted on the website that needs looking into, Zhang said.

58.com has always stressed that it attaches great importance to verifying information posted by users, but the threshold for accepting posts is very low and any violations are not dealt with strictly, so the platform is not monitoring its content properly, Zhang said.

Chinese tech firm Sina’s complaint platform Heimao has received over 18,000 complaints about 58.com, most of which are about false advertising. For example, one person said he saw a recruitment ad on 58.com and traveled to another city for an interview only to find that the post did not match what was described on the website. But the recruitment agency that had posted the ad refused to refund his CNY300 (USD42) application fee.

58.com has found itself in hot water with regulators several times. The firm was summoned by the Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the Cyberspace Administration of China in September 2018 for posting a large amount of information about unlawful properties for sale or rent, as well as information of people who claimed to be real estate agent but without license. It was ordered to stop posting any information about housing in certain districts of Beijing.

58.com, which was set up in 2005, was the first Chinese classified ads company to go public in the US. The firm listed in New York in October 2013 but then went private and delisted in September 2020.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Kim Taylor