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WeChat users renting out accounts for quick bucks could wind up as criminal accomplices
- Renting out WeChat accounts could bring criminal charges in China for aiding scams and money laundering
- Some Facebook users also rent accounts, but without mobile payments, the risks are lower
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There are many ways to start a business and make money on the Chinese super app WeChat. But some users have found a very simple way to make some fast cash without any skills at all: let others pay to use their WeChat accounts.
With WeChat central to so many people’s lives, though, some people end up losing more than they gain.
For some people, the monetary rewards can be quite enticing. Scammers and internet marketers offer as much as 1,000 yuan (US$143) a day to rent WeChat accounts, according to a recent report from the state-run media outlet Xinhua. Two vocational school students in Henan surnamed Li and Bi, for instance, started renting out their own WeChat accounts at 80 yuan (US$11.45) a day last October. At the same time, they were also renting out accounts belonging to friends and classmates, which they offered for 50 yuan (US$7.16) a day.
The two students pocketed the difference and wound up making 10,000 yuan (US$1,431) in just a few months, Xinhua reported. Eventually, though, police took “criminal compulsory measures” against them. These measures could include arrest, detention, summons, bail pending trial or residential surveillance, according to China’s Criminal Law.
The scammers who rented the accounts from the two students used them to join part-time job group chats and post loan scams, according to police. They also reportedly promised to only use the accounts on desktop computers so the owners could keep using them – WeChat accounts can only be logged into one mobile device at a time.
So what did the two students do wrong? State media called the users accomplices to fraud.
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