"Work from home, earn high daily pay"? Beware! These three types of scams are highly prevalent, and many people fall victim to them →

It claims, “No need to leave home—get paid daily with high salaries.”

For friends looking for a “part-time job,”

Have you ever been tempted by ads like this?

Behind it all, is it a deal or a trap?

Let’s find out together.

Beware of the “get-rich-while-lying-down” gimmick

Part-time cashback is the bait

On February 9, police from the Dongshi Police Station of the Public Security Bureau of Zhijiang City in Hubei received a report from resident Ms. Kong from the area. She saw an ad claiming “moms at home doing order-browsing to make small money,” and after clicking, she followed the other party’s instructions to download an app. At first, the suspect only asked her to收藏 and like products within the app, and for each order completed she could receive a small cashback of a few yuan. A few small cashback payments made the victim let down her guard—however, that was only the beginning of the scam.

After gaining the victim’s trust, the suspect claimed that “adding a membership can increase commissions,” and coaxed her into downloading another app. What started as simple liking tasks became “top-up cashback” tasks. The suspect then demanded that the victim keep topping up, citing reasons such as “adding tasks to the group” and “operational mistakes.”

Officer Chen Wei, Police from the Dongshi Police Station, Public Security Bureau of Zhijiang City: This is a typical “order-browsing cashback” type of fraud. The criminal suspects exploit the victim’s psychology of wanting to make quick money. They first use small cashback to earn trust, then induce the victim to keep transferring money using all kinds of excuses. By the time the victim realizes they can’t withdraw funds, they have often already suffered severe losses.

Police offer this reminder:

Any part-time job that requires you to pay upfront to complete tasks is fraud.

“Insider investment” as the bait

Using “niche apps” to bypass regulation

There is no such thing as “becoming rich just by tapping your fingers.” The scammers’ playbook is often “small benefits to lure you in, then a big harvest.” Claiming “internal channels, no loss guaranteed,” a man in Hainan almost lost 200k yuan because of this so-called “insider information.”

In November 2025, a man surnamed X in Hainan, attracted by a personal finance short video, downloaded a certain niche chat app and joined a so-called “internal deal-making training class.” In the group, the so-called “exclusive mentor” confidently recommended a project called “Aerospace Development Investment Market,” claiming it had insider information. Believing it, he made account transfers to the other party totaling 200k yuan in stages.

At the end of January 2026, when he was ready to withdraw, the other party repeatedly fobbed him off with various reasons, and also instructed two so-called “cash-out operators” to go to an offline bank in an attempt to take out and transfer the stolen funds. At the time when suspects surnamed Deng and Chen were handling the 200k yuan large cash-withdrawal business at a branch bank in another location—specifically an Agricultural Bank branch—the matter caught the attention of bank staff, who reported it immediately to the police.

Police then took action and arrested on the spot the two “cash-out operators” suspected of helping with information network criminal activities. So far, all the 200,000 yuan involved in the case has been recovered and returned to the victim.

Deputy Director Jian Haiping, Longquan Police Station, WuXing District Branch, Huzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau: Scammers often use niche apps to evade regulation, transferring stolen funds by methods like “online traffic diversion and offline cash-out.” We remind citizens: any claims of “insider trading” are related to fraud. We also urge everyone not to rent out or lend bank cards or help others withdraw funds, otherwise you will bear legal responsibility.

Police offer this reminder:

When investing or managing finances, make sure it’s a legitimate financial institution. Any “niche apps” downloaded through recommendations from netizens or via unknown links, as well as any projects claiming “insider information” and “guaranteed no loss,” are all fraud. Guard your money pouch—don’t let the “get-rich dream” turn into a “nightmare.”

The scheme demands you “pay upfront to buy cards”

“High-salary job” turns into a purchasing-for-resale scam

Ms. Zhao in Xiangyang, Hubei, wanted to apply for a “high-salary” sales assistant position. In the end, before she even started the job, the money was almost gone.

At the time, Ms. Zhao was applying for a “job.” It turned out that earlier she had seen a recruitment post for the “Baby King” park on a social platform. The position was a crowd-order guide, and the post promised “flexible working hours” and “generous pay.”

After seeing the recruitment information, the victim added a person who claimed to be the hiring manager “Suli” through an office software app. The other party did not conduct any substantive interview. Instead, they told Ms. Zhao they were “busy attending to customers and couldn’t spare the time,” and asked her to “help in an emergency.”

This so-called “help” was acting as an agent to purchase a supermarket gift card. The scammer “S” claimed that they needed to deliver cards to customers, so Ms. Zhao should pay upfront to buy them, and promised to reimburse the card cost in full plus round-trip travel expenses. To ease Ms. Zhao’s doubts, the other party asked for her bank account details, claiming they would have the “company finance department” transfer the money immediately, and soon sent her a forged electronic receipt showing “transfer successful,” stamped with a red official seal.

Police checked Ms. Zhao’s chat records with the scammers on site and exposed the fake nature of this “transfer screenshot.”

Wu Xuan, Deputy Director of the Hanjiang Police Station, Fancheng District Branch, Xiangyang Municipal Public Security Bureau: This kind of scam is a compound variant of “paid hiring” and “impersonating someone you know to help.” The fraud process is carried out from online traffic diversion to offline execution, and the entire process is highly misleading. Scammers exploit the period when job seekers are anxious to find work and eager to perform well, and at the same time rely on ordinary people’s trust in the process of bank-to-bank company transfers, as well as any time lag that may exist between making a bank transfer and the funds arriving. They make the bank transfer screenshot look extremely convincing to trick job seekers into carrying out advance-payment actions such as “acting as an agent” and “paying upfront” according to the instructions. Once the job seeker takes photos of the physical card they purchased and sends them over, or provides information such as the card number, password, and the like, the scammer will immediately drain all the money on the card, and the so-called “employer” will instantly disappear.

Police offer this reminder:

Any behavior that asks you to pay an application fee, clothing fee, training fee, or deposit before onboarding is highly likely to be a scam. The recruitment process of legitimate companies will not treat paid fees as a prerequisite for hiring.

Beware of scams

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Compiled by丨CCTV-1 and the CCTV News app

Source: Chongqing News Voice