Scam and Account Safety: Stop Payment Fast, Verify by Callback, Check Your Credit Report

Fraud losses are rarely recovered, so the cheapest defence is recognising the pattern before you pay.

The hard rules

Treat anyone who asks you to transfer money, share your screen, install an unknown app, click a link or read out a verification code as a red flag. Hang up, then call back on an official number. The seven most common scam types are fake order-brushing rebates, fake investment, online loans, fake customer service, impersonating police or prosecutors, "pig-butchering" romance scams, and honey-trap order-brushing. All of them ask you to send money first. Two sentences stop most of them: a real loan never needs a deposit, and the police have no "safe account".

Seeing a face or hearing a voice is not verification

AI can fake both. Before any transfer, hang up and call back using the number already saved in your contacts, or ask a mutual acquaintance. Don't call back the incoming number or a new number sent in chat. If the other side says "bad signal" or "in a meeting" and won't do a live video call, treat it as a scam.

Already sent money? Call 110 or 96110 immediately

Right after a transfer is the only window: police can request emergency payment stopping and a rapid freeze, and banks must cooperate. Once the money is moved through layers of accounts it is almost unrecoverable. Call before you investigate on your own. If 96110 calls you, it is the police trying to stop you, so pick up.

Never lend or rent out cards and accounts

Renting, lending or selling your bank card, SIM or payment account is itself illegal: fines of one to ten times any proceeds (up to 200,000 yuan if there are none), up to 15 days' detention for serious cases, credit-record entries and account restrictions. If you knowingly help someone receive and move criminal funds you can face up to 3 years in prison for assisting information-network crime. "I didn't know what he used it for" is not accepted automatically: payments for your help, or very unusual transaction history, can be used to show you knew. Part-time jobs asking you to collect money, withdraw cash or transfer it pay a few hundred yuan and cost you a criminal record; in one case a person was detained for 10 days and fined 1,000 yuan even though prosecutors did not charge him.

"Package my documents" loans

Helping others "package" documents to get bank loans for a commission is treated as fraud. In one case, a 126-person ring got over 30 million yuan from more than 80 banks; of 80 people sentenced so far, 76 received terms of 1 year 4 months to 6 years 6 months. Whoever signs is the borrower, and the debt and credit record are theirs.

"Just lend your face for a verification" (AB loans)

When an acquaintance asks you to "do a face scan" or "witness" something for a loan, or to read out a verification code, you are the borrower, not a guarantor. The bank will chase you after the money goes to your acquaintance, and a written promise from them to repay doesn't bind the bank. If you really want to help, ask exactly what role you are signing as; to guarantee, sign a guarantee contract. If you have been loaned in your name, report to police and call the bank at the number on its official website, keeping chats and transfer records. If your ID is lost, report it immediately and keep the receipt: a Guangzhou Internet Court judgment went against a bank that could not prove the victim herself did the face scan.

Check your credit report twice a year, free

You get two free reports a year online. Use the People's Bank of China Credit Reference Center website or your mobile bank, not third-party "check your credit" apps, which collect your data. Adverse records stay for 5 years from the end of the matter, and objections must be answered in writing within 20 days. Identity theft for loans is often found only when a mortgage is refused, years later.

Before you sign anything

Read all of it, ask about what you don't understand, and photograph a copy. Never sign on someone else's behalf or on blank paper, and write the purpose on ID photocopies. An e-signature or face confirmation counts as a signature too.

Learn how to size your emergency buffer with our emergency fund guide.

Source and license: adapted from HowToLiveBetter (高性价比人生指南) by eternity4719, Sections 5, 8, 9 and 12, licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://github.com/eternity4719/HowToLiveBetter). We condensed and translated the original entries; see the source for evidence grades and citations. Rules described here apply to mainland China and may change. This is educational content, not investment, tax or insurance advice.