Market for bogus WeChat accounts still alive and well despite crackdown on illegal practice
- Malicious registration of WeChat accounts remains a problem, with people using false accounts to drive traffic, conduct frauds and spread pornography
Would you sell your social media account to earn some cash? Some users of WeChat, China’s dominant messaging and social media platform, are still doing this in the black market despite a recent crackdown.
The topic of “how much is your WeChat account” has gone viral on Weibo following a report that a resident from the central Chinese city of Wuhan was scammed out of 84,000 yuan (US$12,400) after he was added as a WeChat friend by a stranger and pulled into a bogus investment group.
A month-old WeChat account sells for around 55 yuan but older accounts can sell for more. A two year-old WeChat account with real-name registration sells for around 230 yuan, according to a now-defunct website called Haowai.com, which describes itself as a platform for selling and buying WeChat accounts.
The website has been shut down due to its illegal operations but it is not hard to find similar websites by doing a simple search on Baidu or social networking platform Weibo.
But why would anyone want to buy another person’s social media account?
“Some people buy these accounts to click stories published on official WeChat accounts, [which is currently a major channel for Chinese people to obtain their information and news]. Higher page views will bring more adverts [to the sites viewed],” according to a report from China’s state-run Procuratorial Daily. “Other people buy these WeChat accounts for gambling purposes, to spread pornography or to conduct financial frauds.”