Liu Xue has been in a cold war with her parents for a month.
All of this began with a live broadcast of "short video campus entrepreneurship", under the guidance of the campus entrepreneurship master "Lü Bu", Liu Xue joined an entrepreneurial project called "Traffic King", and she once thought that she had found the direction of her life. But this dream about entrepreneurship came and went quickly, disappearing with the "master", and Liu Xue "cheated" 6,000 yuan from her mother.
"Traffic King" is just the tip of the iceberg of the scam. In the major short video platforms, search for "campus entrepreneurship", you can still find a large number of such accounts that share college students' entrepreneurial projects, and their topics have been clicked as many as 71.733 million times. Some college students who devote themselves to campus entrepreneurship projects want to become Internet celebrities and achieve economic freedom; some hope to subsidize daily expenses through the "traffic king" to reduce the burden on their parents; and others, they plan to make money to buy a commodity that has been planted for a long time, and then quit. They all believe in the myth of short videos making riches.
The Beijing News reporter's investigation found that this kind of short video account that teaches college students how to start a business, while grabbing network traffic, takes the opportunity to sell "entrepreneurial projects" and attract college students to pay to join. The so-called project is actually to continuously pull franchisees into the partnership and develop the downline.
Chen Dong (pseudonym), a police officer who has been investigating related cases for many years, used "endless rats" to describe similar gangs, "Many cases involving pyramid schemes do not meet the standards of criminal responsibility, the chain of evidence cannot be closed, and participants can only report cases to criticize and educate them." "Driven by huge profits, some criminals, even if they are punished, are willing to take risks and start another stove."
Entrepreneurial "mentor" Lu did not post videos on the short video platform, saying that there were big business opportunities on campus, and it was easy to earn 27,000 yuan per month. Image source: screenshot of the blogger Lu Bu short video account
The "Flying Pig" on the vent
Liu Xue's dream of wealth began with a webcast.
On January 6, 2022, in a short video platform, a live broadcast of campus entrepreneurship hosted by blogger "Lü Bu" caught her attention. "It's so easy to make money in college now, I made a total of 1.2 million yuan during college, and successfully led hundreds of college students to achieve economic freedom." On the screen, Lü Bu, a young boy of about twenty years old, is passionately telling his tortuous and brilliant entrepreneurial journey, he is dressed in a famous brand, with a pair of black-rimmed glasses hanging on his sharp face and a polished oil head.
"A girl who studied in a college, after joining the college student entrepreneurship project, only took a year, she transformed herself, became an Internet celebrity with millions of fans, and also liked to mention the open-top BMW..." Lu Bu gushed about one case after another of college students getting rich, from time to time raised her hands, drawing back and forth on her chest, and the brand-name metal watch with the largest size on her wrist was shaken off to "rattle".
Liu Xue envied these people who could get rich quickly. She studied at a university in Tianjin, majored in international business, and among the countless professions, she is the most envious of the fashionable and time-free Internet celebrity bloggers. The 19-year-old never shyed away from her purpose of spending a lot of time every day making short videos: "If you want to make money, go to the Internet, if you want to be famous, go to be a blogger, and if you want to make money and be famous, you can be an Internet celebrity." ”
Lü Bu said that short videos have super interactivity, is everyone can not do without the "spiritual food", not only can harvest traffic, but also can be realized, "entrepreneurship is to be a flying pig standing on the wind outlet, the wind outlet stands right, pigs can fly." Liu Xue picked up a pen and wrote in his notebook, "Be sure to be a flying pig on the vent!" ”
After more than thirty minutes of live broadcasting, Liu Xue did not understand what the short video entrepreneurial project That Lu Bu said was, but her intuition told her that it coincided with her dream.
On the same day, Liu Xue took the initiative to add Lü Bu's WeChat and asked about the method of short video entrepreneurship. "The company will teach you to operate your own account and how to monetize through short video traffic." Lu is not very enthusiastic, he told Liu Xue, a few days ago, just helped an 18-year-old girl to do live broadcasting, rose a lot of fans.
Liu Xue recalled that after some politeness, Lu Bu recommended to her an entrepreneurial project called "Traffic King", saying that the original price of the entrance fee was 9800 yuan, and now as long as 5980 yuan can become a senior partner. After joining the association, the company will provide ready-made video materials and copywriting to help her create a large number of successful entrepreneurial young people.
Liu Xue was ready to act immediately. But the entrance fee is not a small amount for her, and at night, she asked her mother for 6,000 yuan on the pretext of signing up for an English training class. The parents on the other end of the phone not only did not know Liu Xue's entrepreneurial plan, but also felt happy for their daughter's progress.
Like Liu Xue, Lin Yang, a 20-year-old junior, once thought he had met "BoLe". Lin Yang grew up in a not-so-wealthy family in Guizhou, his parents grow vegetables to make a living, in order to reduce the burden on the family, Lin Yang went to the fast food restaurant near the school every weekend to work, 80 yuan an hour. "It's not easy to get out of my hometown, and I definitely have to work harder than others."
In his freshman year, Lin Yang went shopping in Chongqing with his classmates for the first time, "A pair of basketball shoes can sell for more than 2,000 yuan, and it costs 300 yuan to eat an authentic steak Western meal." It was a "new world" that Lin Yang had never seen in his hometown county, and he often felt envious and inferior to those students who lived superiorly.
On November 6, 2021, Lin Yang was attracted by Lü Bu's "arrogant" image in a short video. He felt that Lu did not understand the actual needs of college students, but also proficient in the number of short video operations.
"I've seen a lot of bloggers who have made a fortune because of short videos, which are particularly cool and cool." A few days later, Lin Yang rummaged through the boxes and cabinets in the dormitory, found the only remaining 1306 yuan, paid the deposit, and within a week, he cobbled together 1500 yuan from his classmates and friends around him, and officially joined the college student entrepreneurship project. He saw the "Flow King" as a clipper ship that would change his destiny and decided to give it a try.
"Traffic King" campus entrepreneurship project publicly released promotional posters. Courtesy of respondents
The entrepreneurial bigwig he never met
After entering the project member group, Liu Xue got a specific project teaching video. The Beijing News reporter saw from this video that it was a video recorded by Lu Wu, teaching members how to create human settings. In the video, he first taught members how to compile personal introductions: "Everyone can write like this, they came out to mix with society at a young age, and achieved great achievements, there are two short video Internet companies, these are made up, and the background of the avatar should also be related to showing off wealth." ”
On the last page of the video, it reads, "Internal information, only members to watch, strictly prohibited to leak, the consequences are at their own risk." Liu Xue said that this teaching video has appeared in a number of member groups, "the packaging and words of many short video accounts for campus entrepreneurship are exactly the same as what is said in this video." ”
"The project is an offline store visit, there is no need to go in person, the company will provide a unified store video and copywriting materials, and use your own account to organize and publish it every day." According to Lü Bu, the so-called "entrepreneurship" is to create a successful entrepreneurial youth setting and release some business cases of physical stores to attract fans to pay to join its projects, which can be divided into 10% after the fact.
On the day liu xue first joined the group, Lu Bu invited a "male guest" to talk about the changes after he joined the "traffic king" in the group. In this sharing, the male guests publicized their experience of making money at zero cost using projects such as cleaning the bedroom, recycling used clothes, and opening a small print shop, and declared that as long as they do it in the teaching video, it is easy to earn thousands or even more than 10,000 yuan a month. Looking back on that day, Liu Xue said, "It was like a crazy success learning sharing lecture."
According to the instructional video, Liu Xue registered a new account on multiple short video platforms. Lu bu told her that in the process of packaging people, "showing off wealth" is very important, "let the audience think that you are particularly powerful, they will privately message you, ask you the secret and method of starting a business, so that you will succeed for more than half." Immediately afterward, Lu did not promise her that as long as someone had a private message, the company would send someone to conduct one-on-one sales counseling, "After the next family completes the franchise payment, you can get the commission." ”
The Beijing News reporter's investigation found that the "Traffic King" project has three levels, namely: members, partners, and senior partners. Pay 2980 yuan, 4980 yuan, 6980 yuan, 10,000 yuan to join the club and become a member of different levels. According to the rebate system of "Traffic King", after the downline franchise payment, the upper home can withdraw 10%-30% of the total fee. In addition, the senior partner project with a price of 19,800 yuan claims that it can create a personal exclusive IP, and a single transaction can get up to 50% of the pull commission.
Liu Xue is worried that this franchise model is similar to pyramid schemes, but Lu Bu on the other end of the mobile phone seems to have already felt her hesitation, "I will not harm you, if you pull a person, this person can help you sell people again, one becomes two, two becomes four, office workers can't make so much money." If it is a pyramid scheme, the police have already arrested us, if we don't even believe in ourselves, how can we make others believe it? ”
At the other end, Lin Yang also joined another "Traffic King" project group.
Successively, Lin Yang opened personal accounts in three short video platforms, and the person he set for himself was: "20-year-old specialist student, three years of entrepreneurship, successfully operated a media company with a market value of tens of millions." When Lin Yang recalled to the Beijing News reporter the days when he stared at the short video personal profile like a demon, he said, "This is an easy opportunity to make money, and I especially believed everything he said at that time." ”
There are 258 people in his project group, all of whom are 18-22-year-old college students, and there are more than a dozen such groups, and Lü Bu's task is to frequently encourage and spur them in the group. "Twenty years of independent living has made me realize a truth, when people have no money, everyone looks down on them, think of their parents, and work hard to raise you, so that you will have a career in the future." 」 Lu sent voices non-stop, and the members who paid the money responded one after another, "The big guy asks for a belt, let's cheer together!"
Recalling the "Traffic King" partner group, Lin Yang directly sighed "crazy". In fact, the members of the group had never actually met Lü Bu and did not know each other's real names.
In March 2022, the campus entrepreneurship mentor repeatedly told college students that pulling people into the "Traffic King" project would get a 10% commission, and claimed that the distribution profit of the project was more than 36%. Courtesy of respondents
Pull the head into action
Online "pulling people's heads" has become Liu Xue's "main business".
"First use a large area of light-colored eyeshadow to cover the entire eye socket, there will be the effect of enlarging the eyes..." At 9 o'clock in the morning, the first professional class in the university has begun, Liu Xue reluctantly got up from the bed, sat cross-legged in the narrow bunk space, and followed the video blogger to learn makeup, which was the first step for her to become an Internet celebrity entrepreneur.
She applied a thick layer of foundation to her face, and then picked up a small brush and circled the blush, and after more than a dozen processes, Liu Xue felt that herself in the mirror was finally radiant and could be photographed.
At the beginning of the live broadcast, Liu Xue first rushed to the camera to compare his heart, glanced at the draft prepared in advance on the paper with the afterglow, and tried to recall some key words, "Hello everyone, today is my first day of live broadcasting, I will use this number to share my entrepreneurial story in the future, I hope to support me more, I am your Xiaoxue, love you!" She sat down at her desk and pulled the curtains against the wall so that no one would see her outside the window.
After more than 3 hours of live broadcasting, Liu Xue began to sort out and edit the material of the short video, reply to private messages sent by fans, and worked until more than one o'clock in the night. In the early hours of the morning, Liu Xue was still too excited to sleep, and those vague dreams of wealth, mixed in the dark night, refused to disperse. Since then, absenteeism has become commonplace.
In order to pull more "heads", Liu Xue aimed at the people around him.
In her bedroom, she said that she knew a person who was both rich and capable, who did a lot of business, was very successful, and could bring everyone to make money. In her bedroom, there was a wave of discussion about "short video entrepreneurship". Like Liu Xue, the girls have a crazy yearning and pursuit of "traffic to make rich", they are eager to try, planning in advance the money they earn, which one of the goods that have been planted for a long time should be purchased first.
Roommate Li Xiaoying, under the leadership of Liu Xue, paid 2980 yuan to join the "Traffic King" entrepreneurial project. In order to enhance trust and attract the next entrepreneur more effectively, packaging yourself is an important part. Li Xiaoying dragged a few girls from the same dormitory to the mall in the city, bought 3 brightly colored skirts with insufficient money in her hand, and carefully modeled them. The network person she created for herself is a college student who has been in business for three years and has become the female CEO of a media company.
For a long time, the girls believed in the path of the "traffic king" to make a fortune. Li Xiaoying recalled that one morning, she was woken up by the phone quarrel of her roommate, and she listened to a rough idea, it was her roommate's parents who asked her to go back to her hometown to find a job immediately after graduating from college, but her classmates did not want to leave the big city. "If you want to be out of the control of your parents, you must first be financially independent, otherwise they will definitely arrange it haphazardly." In Li Xiaoying's view, children who can earn money on their own can have more right to speak, and it also verifies that they are wise to start a business.
In March 2022, Liu Xue's personal short video account had nearly 10,000 followers. "Entrepreneurship" for three months, she pulled a total of two roommates to join, and then through the online to pull 1 person, a total franchise fee of 8940 yuan. Liu Xue happily counted the commission of less than 900 yuan in her hand, bought a bottle of net red foundation liquid that had been planting grass for a long time, and she felt that the goods she liked with the money she earned could also be regarded as "kung fu pays off".
The dream of getting rich is shattered
Liu Xue's high entrepreneurial passion lasted less than a month.
Unable to pull new people, her enthusiasm faded by half, "just by using my account to continuously publish campus entrepreneurship videos, attracting other students to send private messages, a set of operations all rely on lip service." Liu Xue feels that there is no specific product, and the rebate income from the development of new members is not stable. On March 6, she openly questioned it in the membership group.
The next day, a person who claimed to be an entrepreneurial assistant added Liu Xue's WeChat and announced to her a "punishment decision", "You didn't pull anyone this month, as punishment, next month's commission will be gone." It was then that she suddenly realized that "in fact, these companies don't have actual projects and products, just empty shells." ”
Liu Xue wanted to refund the money. She felt that she was not only tired, but also did not make any money, but also lost 6,000 yuan, how to see how to see it is not worth it. "As soon as I offered a refund, I was kicked out of the group, and they said, let me go to the police if I have the ability." Liu Xue said that the other party had warned her many times that the payment was purely voluntary, that she gave up on herself, and that she could not refund it. Before payment, the two parties had not signed any agreement or contract.
"I trust him ,, so I trust this venture." Although they have never met, but in the whole process, Liu Xue has never suspected this entrepreneurial big man who encouraged her in her mobile phone and taught her to become a traffic blogger, Liu Xue said, she thought of this suddenly breeding a feeling of "lost love", and couldn't help but cry.
After the deceived college student proposed a refund, he was rejected by the entrepreneurial "mentor". Courtesy of respondents
At the same time, in the short video platform, Lu Bu is still releasing videos of campus entrepreneurship success and pulling people to join the association. In addition to the "Traffic King" project, more similar projects came into being, "Some people first paid the Flow King once, and then renewed the fee again in the laundromat project." Liu Xue gradually found that no matter what kind of project, the words used by the entrepreneurial leaders are the same as the "teaching method".
That day, several housemates who followed Liu Xue's entrepreneurship fell into a collective silence. "Actually, I've suspected those people." "How could we not have imagined that the story of being able to turn over a salted fish in a few days is a myth." "It is really the brain that lacks a string to make such a dream of getting rich, and those people are estimated to have started by cheating on the pit." In the past, everyone talked about "entrepreneurship" until late at night, but this time, the exchange before the lights went out at 9:30 only lasted for three or two sentences and ended.
In fact, most "entrepreneurs" don't make money.
Half a year later, Lin Yang also found a clue. He said the other side did not provide the promised "one-on-one guidance" service and did not conduct professional training. "The so-called project is like a pretext, they first use some product projects to hang you and let you into the pit, in fact, they let you continue to pull people's heads." Since then, Lin Yang's refund request has also been rejected and kicked out of the project group.
Lin Yang suspects that those who take the lead in echoing and who are invited to share their experiences should also be "childcare". He recalled that when he first entered the membership group, several people had been taking the lead in the group to echo Lü Bu's speech, and from time to time shared their entrepreneurial achievements. And it turned out that no one made money from the project at all, and Lin Yang at that time, like many people, believed that these were true.
Yang Mou, who was once a core member of the "traffic king", confirmed to the Beijing News reporter that most entrepreneurial bloggers use the same routine: after successfully adding student WeChat, they will release some "successful cases" through their circle of friends, and use screenshots of payments earned in some projects to convince students that the project can really make money. "In fact, it is all fake, fake screenshots, only a very small number of people can really get rewards and rebates."
According to the payment vouchers provided by a number of college students, the beneficiary of the "Traffic King" project is named Zhejiang Guomeng Media Group Co., Ltd. The Beijing News reporter's investigation found that the registered place of the enterprise is Qiantang District, Hangzhou City, which was established on August 13, 2021, and is in existence. In January this year, due to the inability to contact through the registered residence or business premises, it was listed as an abnormal operation by the Hangzhou Qiantang District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau.
On April 7, the staff of the Market Supervision Bureau of Xiaoshan District of Hangzhou Told the Beijing News that at present, the relevant enterprise legal persons have not been able to contact, and the specific case is still under investigation. The Beijing News reporter called Zhejiang Guomeng Media Group Co., Ltd. to inquire about the models involved in entrepreneurial projects such as "Traffic King" such as pulling heads and sharing commissions. Its staff said that the projects operated by the company were reasonable and legal secondary distribution, not pyramid schemes.
In April 2022, a reporter from the Beijing News learned from the Hangzhou Market Supervision and Administration Bureau that Zhejiang Guomeng Media Group Co., Ltd. has been listed as an abnormal operation. Courtesy of respondents
After being scammed
After being deceived, Liu Xue often hid alone in the top bunk of the dormitory. She closed the curtain, lay on the bed and brushed her phone, saw the funny passage, and "giggled" a few times. But this short-lived happiness will disappear as soon as the roommate returns, because of the "traffic king", several other girls in the dormitory have been cheated of money, and Liu Xue has become the object of isolation. Many times, she lay alone in bed, quietly listening to the conversations of the other girls, and the atmosphere did not dare to breathe.
At night, Liu Xue began to wonder over and over again in her heart, "Why am I being deceived?" She said that if they want to achieve economic freedom through their own efforts, for their group of deceived people, talking about their experiences may just be heard as a joke.
In April, these college students, who had been caught up in entrepreneurial scams, spontaneously formed a rights defense group. After joining the group, Liu Xue found that people who had the same experience as her were all over the country. "There are thirteen such rights defense groups in total, and each group has two or three hundred people." According to her incomplete statistics, more than 1,000 college students have been defrauded, and the total amount involved in the case has reached about 4 million yuan.
The students decided to report to the Shibei Police Station of the Xiaoshan District Branch of the Hangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau. However, due to the difficulty of collecting evidence from online pyramid schemes, the wide scope of the case, and the difficulty of determining jurisdiction, it was impossible to accurately retrieve electronic records, the police could not determine the illegal acts of the organizations involved in the case, and the students' alarms ended without a problem.
On April 11, the staff of the Shibei police station told the Beijing News that the case has been handled, initially identified as an economic dispute, and has been educated for the college students involved, and the specific details of the case are inconvenient to disclose.
Because of the deception, the students always pay attention to the information of solving the case, and they launched a "college student anti-fraud" super talk on various social platforms, searching for evidence about the case. Recently, in order to warn other college students, Lin Yang led a series of short videos to expose the routine of the "master" of campus entrepreneurship success, which was posted on social platforms.
Subsequently, more scams surfaced.
"Traffic King" is just the tip of the iceberg of the scam. In the major short video platforms, search for "campus entrepreneurship", you can still find a large number of such accounts that share college students' entrepreneurial projects, and their topics have been clicked as many as 71.733 million times. Such accounts are usually accompanied by a glossy personal resume, such as becoming a partner of a group in the three years of university entrepreneurship, helping tens of thousands of college students achieve economic freedom, etc., and the video content and copywriting are basically similar, mostly for the cleaning of dormitories, used clothes recycling projects, print shop projects.
In a short video platform, a large number of similar campus entrepreneurship bloggers are active, and the total number of hits on campus entrepreneurship exceeds 10 million. Image source: Screenshot of short video platform
The reporter sent a number of accounts through the short video platform, and was asked to add personal WeChat. A short video blogger named "Primary School Leader" recommended a business project called "Meta-Universe Pet Store" to reporters in the chat, saying that making tens of thousands of yuan per month is not a problem, there is no risk.
The head of the primary school said that it is now in the stage of limited-time promotion, "if you want to join, you need a threshold fee, the original price is 2980, and now it is only 1980." "After the reporter said that he had no ability to pay, the other party said that he could pay a deposit of 1,000 yuan first, and then make up the balance after making money." The quota is tight, I can give you a chance, otherwise in a few days you will be charged at the original price, you should consider it."
Chen Dong (pseudonym), an anti-fraud policeman, confirmed to the Beijing News reporter that using gimmicks such as network joining to continuously develop offline, pull people's heads, and collect entry fees is a criminal act that seriously undermines the order of the market economy and endangers social stability. In fact, relying on the network platform of pyramid schemes, fraud crimes, there are certain practical difficulties in data retrieval, in addition, some of the people involved in the case will also rent foreign servers, data retrieval takes a long time, long cycle.
In the process of participating in the case for many years, Chen Dong found that there were many members of the network pyramid scheme, and the relationship between the organizers was loose, and even did not know each other. In terms of the identification of funds involved in the case, the personnel involved in the case usually use third-party payment platforms for transactions, easily bypassing bank supervision, "after many funds pass through the third-party payment platform, it is difficult to directly determine which one belongs to the pyramid scheme fund." ”
Chen Dong used "endless rats" to describe the MLM fraud gang on the Internet, "Many cases involving MLM cannot be closed because the evidence chain cannot be closed, the level and number of people cannot meet the standard of criminal responsibility, and the participants can only report the case to criticize and educate them." Chen Dong said that driven by huge interests, some criminals will take risks even if they know that they will be punished. In his view, network pyramid schemes have a strong fission and regeneration, which has increased the pressure on grass-roots cadres and police to investigate and deal with them.
Recently, the "Campus Talent Lü Bu" account has been cancelled, and the new account "Campus Guide Lv Bu" is once again active in the short video platform, using similar copywriting and video circle fans.
The reporter left a message on the Lu Bu short video account to express his demand for verification, but as of press time, he had not received a reply.
Lin Yang still continued to report to the regulatory authorities, "There are more than a dozen rights protection groups alone, and some people feel that the money cannot be recovered, even if it is, but I am still insisting." ”
(At the request of the interviewees, Liu Xue, Lin Yang, Li Xiaoying, and Chen Dong are pseudonyms)
Beijing News reporter Xian Yunzhen Editor Chen Xiaoshu Proofreader Li Lijun