In early July, Mrs. Cheng brought her 11-year-old son from their Jiangxi hometown to Shenzhen for what was supposed to be a relaxing month of summer holidays. Little did she suspect, however, that within that month her son would use her debit card information to blow more than RMB100,000 on the Chinese social media platform QQ, much of it spent on games.
Shortly after his arrival in Shenzhen, Cheng's son linked his mom's multiple debit cards to his QQ account, using them to make online payments up until August 16. The majority of the money he spent on QQ credits, or currency to buy equipment for his games. Some cash was also diverted through red envelopes and money transfers he sent via QQ. On one day alone, August 1, the preteen spent RMB38,000 on the platform.
Meanwhile, Cheng didn't have a clue about what was happening right under her nose. She only discovered her son's transgressions after she paid a visit to the bank on August 19, to buy some financial products. When she attempted to pay for them, however, she was notified that there wasn't enough money in her balance.
“...I went to ICBC to check my account and then got scared to death. I was missing about RMB100,000.”
Cheng recounts her scary experience to a reporter
Cheng had only been using the account for finance. When she was told that someone had withdrawn such a large sum, at first she thought that frauds must have stolen her debit card information.
She immediately visited other banks where she held accounts and printed out a separate list of transactions for each. It turned out that all the other banks had also processed unauthorized withdrawals, with amounts ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand yuan.
Some of the suspicious transactions Cheng found on her bank accounts
Cheng's first hint that her own son might be to blame came through one of those lists of transactions. The bank showed that money had been spent via Tenpay, Tencent's payment platform; it's linked to QQ, along with a few other sites.
This brought to mind an odd incident back in July, when Cheng's son told her that someone had paid for him to become a QQ member, allowing him to access games and other services on the platform.
“He said 'Mom, someone paid for me to become a member.' I said, 'How could something like that happen?' He said 'Really.' I said, 'There’s no such thing as buns dropping from heaven.'”
Although she didn't believe her son at first, upon checking Cheng found that the bank withdrawals corresponded with payments made on her son's QQ account. She now suspects that hackers or frauds must have paid for his membership, perhaps in hopes of getting him to send them money.
QQ bills for money transfers, "gold diamonds," and credits
She's not sure when the 11-year-old linked all her debit cards to his mobile account, but she said that she never received any text or online notifications for the purchases her son made on the platform.
Cheng contacted Tencent in attempt to get her money back and was told to file an online complaint about the incident. None of her attempts, however, have gone through, due to "information issues." When a reporter tried to contact Tencent, they got no response.
A lawyer consulted on the incident says that in this case, blame lies with both Cheng and Tencent. Cheng, he says, holds most of the responsibility since she told her young son the password to her bank accounts. Tencent, however, is also to blame for not better regulating their payment system, allowing a preteen to spend alarming amounts of his mother's money in a short period of time.
READ MORE: 8 Shenzhen Students Busted Smuggling Video Games
[Images via CUTV]
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