The AI Relay Station Scam: The Exit Scams, Model Degradation, and Data Resale Behind Ultra-Low-Price Tokens

Who Gets Targeted

Developers, heavy users of AI tools, and individuals/small teams looking to save money on APIs—especially users unfamiliar with official channels who top up as soon as they see ultra-low prices. The harm is concentrated among small and medium-sized teams and individual developers who turn to unofficial channels to cut interface costs. These sellers use packages far below official prices and unlimited-use promises to attract traffic; after users top up, they encounter account bans and exit scams, dynamic downgrading, or call records being retained and resold, making it difficult to recover funds or provide evidence (scale unverified).

骗局怎么运作

• Low-price lead generation: E-commerce platforms offer “1 yuan can redeem 2.85 million tokens” or “44.9 yuan per month for unlimited use,” far below official prices (at DeepSeek-V4-Flash official pricing, 2.85 million input tokens cost at least 2.85 yuan; for Claude Opus 4.7, it is as high as 96.9–484.6 yuan).
• Bulk account splitting and resale: mass-register free accounts to resell free quotas, or split and share a single subscription account—one Claude account at USD 200/month can be broken into different packages and sold to dozens of people.
• Account bans and exit scams, or sudden price hikes: after waves of official account bans, merchants disappear and after-sales groups are disbanded; those that do not abscond raise billing by 3–4 times, citing “severe crackdowns and rising costs,” or cancel monthly cards and switch to quota-based redemption.
• Model degradation: during peak periods, requests are dynamically routed to cheaper models, multi-tenant rate limits are imposed (GPU time/VRAM windows are cut), and the post-processing chain (moderation/rewriting/filtering/caching) becomes heavier—users see the same product name, but the underlying configuration has already changed.
• Data resale and attacks: In tests of 28 paid relay stations, 9 engaged in active malicious code injection, 17 attempted to steal cloud credentials, and 1 directly stole Ethereum assets; when data is in someone else’s hands, it is a 100% black box, and its flow cannot be verified.

红旗信号（看到这些快跑）

• 🚩 Prices far below official rates (1 yuan for 2.85 million tokens is about 1/30 of the official price), and merchants are vague about the source of the low prices.
• 🚩 “Three-no” platforms: no clear source, no operating qualifications, no security guarantees (no corporate entity/filing/after-sales support).
• 🚩 No registration or card binding required; top-ups purely via USDT/points/tokens, with top-ups granting points and locking funds (Justin Sun’s model makes money through DeFi yield; WLFI’s model binds tokens to push up the token price).
• 🚩 Does not promise data deletion; chat/call records cannot be exported; customer service is the only after-sales channel and can be disbanded at any time.
• 🚩 Advertising copy uses labels such as “public welfare,” “freebie hunting,” “official direct connection,” and “unlimited quota.”

真实案例

• Programmer Xiao Wang: bought an unlimited monthly plan for 44.9 yuan on an e-commerce platform; in less than a month, service was interrupted, the merchant disappeared, and the after-sales group was disbanded.
• Developer Xiao Deng: a 25-yuan monthly rental (USD 120 daily quota); after about 20 days, OpenAI carried out large-scale account bans, and the merchant simply absconded; switched to a second provider at 70 yuan/month, and after more than ten days, the price was raised 3–4 times, citing “severe crackdowns.”
• Yunwu API (Chongqing Yunzhiwu Network Technology): on 2026-07-31, announced that its contract with overseas model suppliers had expired and that it would completely shut down overseas model calls; around the same time, the administrator of another relay station was summoned after receiving a call from Hangzhou police and announced immediate closure and refunds for package users.
• Cybersecurity researchers A and B’s team conducted undercover investigations: testing 28 paid sites + 400 free sites, 9 injected malicious code, 17 stole AWS honeypot credentials, and 1 stole Ethereum assets; behind this, account credentials/vulnerable routers are continuously scraped, and some site operators profit by selling account credentials.
• In May 2026, 21st Century Business Herald reported that site operator Lan Wei followed a tutorial to build a relay station website; a single site averaged thousands, or even tens of thousands, of yuan in daily top-up volume, purchasing tokens from upstream and selling them at a 50% markup, forming a multi-tier distribution chain. (Source: https://news.qq.com/rain/a/20260527A05A6300)
• In May 2026, National Business Daily reported that developer Xiao Deng, after OpenAI’s large-scale account bans, switched to a relay station with a 70-yuan monthly rental, which had only a USD 90 daily quota; after more than ten days, the merchant raised the price, citing severe crackdowns and rising costs. (Source: https://m.163.com/dy/article/KSNTTV890512B07B.html)

Official Stance

• Ministry of State Security security advisory, 2026-06-08: four categories of risk—data exposure (privacy leaks/resale), model shrinkage (low-spec models passed off as high-end), malicious implantation (backdoors/data theft/remote control), and data outbound transfer (unauthorized transfer overseas without compliance assessment).
• Cyberspace Administration of China’s “Qinglang · Rectify AI Application Chaos” special action: regulate AI services and applications and protect citizens’ lawful rights and interests.
• CCTV special report, “Don’t Let AI Relay Stations Expose Privacy and Steal Data” (2026-06-12).
• Xinhua: China’s average daily token call volume rose from 100 billion in early 2024 to 140 trillion in March 2026 (more than a thousandfold), and the scale of the sector has amplified regulatory attention.

How to Protect Yourself

• ✅ Choose official direct connections, properly authorized, compliant platforms; do not use “three-no” platforms with no clear source/no operating qualifications/no security guarantees.
• ✅ Before use, desensitize sensitive data such as personal privacy information and project materials; manage keys properly, rotate credentials regularly, and disable non-essential functions such as collaborative operations/data sharing.
• ✅ If you encounter abnormal charges, unexplained account bans, or data anomalies: immediately stop using the service → change keys → scan for and remove viruses → preserve evidence.
• ✅ Report suspicious leads: 12339 national security agency reporting hotline / www.12339.gov.cn / Ministry of State Security WeChat official account.
• ✅ Assess compliance: providing cross-border API calls to overseas large models may involve illegal business operations, export controls, cybersecurity, and even criminal risks; on-chain token settlement models carry even more severe risks in anti-money laundering and foreign exchange.