Hundreds of teachers across China have been defrauded in a pyramid scheme posing as an online tutoring platform, with some victims losing hundreds of thousands of yuan. 

According to local media reports and police investigations, the scheme involved a company that recruited teachers for high-paying, part-time online tutoring jobs. 

Teachers were required to pay upfront “information fees” to access students — many of whom were later revealed to be fake. After initial payments were made on time, the company delayed further payouts and abruptly cut off communication, prompting multiple complaints and police action in cities including Chengdu, Shanghai, and Haikou.

One of the victims, a teacher from the northern Hebei province identified by the pseudonym Yang Yang, told the Shanghai-based news outlet The Paper that she lost more than 110,000 yuan ($15,000) to the scam. 

She joined the platform in October 2024, drawn by the promise of high pay — 600 yuan per session for small-group tutoring and up to 900 yuan for larger classes — and a flexible schedule that fit around her full-time teaching job at private school.

Although she was initially wary of the 1,000 to 3,000 yuan “information fees” required to connect with students, Yang said the platform paid her promptly at first. That early reliability encouraged her to refer other teachers to the same platform, earning additional bonuses for each successful recommendation.

But earlier this year, the company behind the platform, Jinan Haisheng Information Technology Co., Ltd., announced on messaging app WeChat a sudden delay in payments and disbanded the group chat used for communication. Shortly after, the operator, surnamed Zhang, vanished.

According to Yang, she ultimately transferred about 110,000 yuan to the company, including fees paid on behalf of teachers she had referred. But in stark contrast, she and those teachers received less than 30,000 yuan in class payments before the platform stopped responding.

Another teacher, from Chengdu in the southwestern Sichuan province, told The Paper she had referred more than 160 teachers to the platform, earning 200 yuan for each referral. She said she paid the company over 1 million yuan but received only 700,000 yuan in return. After covering payments to the teachers herself, she suffered losses of around 500,000 yuan.

Yang explained that the classes were held via an online meeting app, but the students never turned on their microphones or cameras and communicated only through the chat box. 

The company claimed the students were watching the sessions together in a training center using a projector, making it inconvenient to speak or appear on camera.

However, a later investigation by police and domestic media found the company had filled classes with random individuals to justify charging teachers high fees for student access. After the platform’s operator Zhang disappeared, Yang contacted one of the individuals she had sent money to as part of a teacher referral. The person told her he was a college student who had been hired by Zhang to join the online sessions, earning 50 yuan per class.

Across the country, scammers are increasingly exploiting the demand for flexible side jobs, drawing in victims with promises of quick income and professional growth.

In January, the cyber regulator in eastern China’s Fujian province reposted a warning about scams offering voice acting jobs that required upfront training fees. And this week, Shanghai police intervened to stop a local resident from transferring more than 70,000 yuan for a similar fraudulent course.

As scam tactics evolve, Chinese authorities have stepped up efforts to combat online and telecom fraud. In late 2024, the central government introduced new measures to strengthen enforcement of the Anti-Telecom and Online Fraud Law, which took effect in 2022.

Editor: Apurva. 

(Header image: VCG)