“Paid task”, “Guess who I am?”, “Pretending to be Chinese officials”—phone scams are rampant and one must be careful! Recently, a woman in China received a scam call and immediately sensed something was off. Not only did she not fall for it, but she also used DeepSeek to verify it was a scam. She then pulled off a clever move, 'scamming' the fraud group out of 425 yuan (about 230 MYR).
The woman later reported to the police, who praised her cleverness. However, her bank card was frozen due to being involved in the scammers' money flow, and since “fighting crime with crime” could be illegal, she cautioned: “Everyone, please don’t try what I did.”
“Is this 110? I’d like to report a case! I scammed 400 yuan from an overseas fraud group…” This Chinese woman recently posted a video on Xiaohongshu, recounting how she 'scammed' 425 yuan from a “paid task” scam group, adding: “After I took 400 yuan from the scammers, they begged me not to post it online…”.
In the video, she recalled that one afternoon she received a phone WeChat message, claiming to be from a training institution she had taken an online course from 5 years ago, saying they could “refund tuition”. She added the staff on WeChat as requested, and was sent a website to copy into her browser to download some software. The strange behavior made her wary it might be a scam call. “At that point, I started having doubts. I checked with DeepSeek, and sure enough, the software was listed as fraudulent.”
Fraud Group Transfers Money to Entice the Victim
After realizing it was a scam call, she decided to “play along” and joined their group to “play with them”. “Their customer service girl kept guiding me through the steps, and then I was added to another group where there were many people, each with different roles and jobs. They kept chatting, almost like various NPCs acting out a script in front of me.”
The woman said the scam group tried to “sweeten the deal” by first transferring her 205 yuan. After receiving the money, she hesitated about whether to stop, but the customer service sent her another image, saying she needed to top up and withdraw multiple times to get the tuition refund. “The steps were very complicated.” They also claimed she’d get a 220-yuan refund on the first top-up, and so on.
Money in Hand, Immediate Report—Police Praise Cleverness
The woman followed the customer service instructions and placed an order; in 3 to 8 minutes she really received 220 yuan. Once she got the money, she immediately left the group and went to the police station to file a report, causing the scam group to lose money for nothing. The police also praised her intelligence.
However, as the case involved the flow of scam group funds, the woman’s bank card was frozen for investigation. She reminded netizens to be wary of scam calls: “Don’t listen, don’t believe, don’t transfer money. Don’t wait until the scammers actually steal your money before trying to get it back—by then it’s too troublesome.” She further urged not to use her method of dealing with scam groups: “Everyone, please don’t try what I did! Later, DeepSeek told me that ‘fighting crime with crime’ is also likely to be illegal. It’s best to hand the money over right away; my bank card was frozen for a month…” (Source: HK01)