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A woman in China defrauded men seeking marriage, earning over Rs 35 lakh through “flash weddings” facilitated by matchmaking agencies that concealed her divorce status.
Matchmaking companies in China defrauding people (File photo/AP)
Marriage and dating frauds have become common nowadays as more people are turning to online means to find a suitable partner for themselves. However, a woman in China made over Rs 35 lakh in three months by defrauding people in the name of finding them a match.
She was exposed after the firm she was associated with, along with some other matchmaking companies, came under scrutiny.
According to a report with South China Morning Post, a court in China’s Guiyang was told in September that a local police station had received as many as 180 similar complaints since March last year.
The staff members at one of the companies used to actively look out for men seeking partners, the report stated.
They then introduced them to women from their own companies, acting as clients.
As the male clients agreed to marry, they were made to sign a contract and were asked to pay hundreds of thousands of yuan as a bride price.
These marriages are referred to as “flash weddings” because the brides would often flee, vanish, or pressure the men into divorce through various means, including frequent conflicts after a brief period together, the report stated.
The woman who earned 300,000 yuan (approximately Rs 35,48,933) in three months reportedly engaged in multiple such flash marriages and would draw her partners to file for a divorce shortly after, on various grounds.
In one instance, according to the report, the woman registered for marriage with a client in December last year and filed for a divorce. Thereafter, she did not return the 170,000 yuan bride price to the man and even took some shared property, including a car he had bought for her.
She continued meeting men for such flash weddings as the company concealed her divorce status.
Sharing his experience on Red Star News, one of the victims of the scams, who identified himself as Liao, said he travelled to Guiyang from his hometown in central Hubei province to meet a woman introduced by an agency.
The report stated Liao registered for marriage just two days later and paid a cash gift of 118,000 yuan to the bride’s family.
In the two months following their wedding, Liao said his wife frequently left their hometown to return to Guiyang. She requested that he buy her a home and a car and often quarrelled with him.
Liao later discovered that she had concealed the fact that she had given birth to five children previously.
When Liao sought a refund from the agency in Guiyang, he found that the company had been shut down due to a police investigation.
Meanwhile, as the crackdown on such companies in China intensified, many organisations shifted their base to nearby Yunnan province, according to the report.