AI training and paid-knowledge scams: Using low-priced courses as a funnel to exaggerate profits, inducing victims into high-priced course purchases and online loans, ultimately leaving them with no way to get a refund.

Who Gets Targeted

Victims are mostly young people looking for side hustles to make money and middle-aged/elderly groups eager to keep up with the times. Young people facing employment pressure are eager to quickly monetize by mastering AI e-commerce skills; middle-aged and elderly people face the fear of falling behind amidst technological iterations and are easily tempted by promises of easily making 10,000 yuan a month. Both are blinded by exaggerated profit promises and forged monetization screenshots, lowering their guard under the bombardment of urgent messaging, and ultimately falling into a chain of fee traps or even bearing heavy online debts.

骗局怎么运作

• Low-priced funnel as bait: Institutions post highly provocative ads on short-video platforms, claiming that for just a 9.9 yuan trial course or a 39.9 yuan tool kit, learners can easily make 10,000 yuan a month after completion. They use low barriers to entry and exaggerated profits to attract a large number of people wanting side-hustle monetization into groups to listen to trial classes.
• Script brainwashing to manufacture anxiety: During trial classes, mentors display forged high-profit screenshots and fake student monetization cases, claiming that people will be eliminated by the times if they do not learn AI. Exploiting victims' anxiety, they package courses that should cost dozens of yuan into core secret manuals worth tens of thousands of yuan to induce upgrades.
• Customized scam websites to forge results: To induce students into buying high-priced courses, scam syndicates customize dedicated scam websites, generating fake e-commerce data or profit dashboards. This makes students mistakenly believe that they can actually auto-generate orders after using the institution's AI tools, leading them to blindly trust and empty their savings to buy high-priced courses.
• Inducing loans to harvest high tuition fees: When victims state they are unable to pay the high tuition fees ranging from thousands to tens of thousands of yuan, salespeople guide them to use installment payments or online lending platforms to pay, claiming they can repay once they earn the tuition back. This induces young people to shoulder debt or prompts middle-aged and elderly people to tap into their pensions.
• Tools become ineffective with no refund channels: After paying, students discover that the so-called AI tools are just crude skin-wrapped software or even unusable, and the course content consists entirely of free materials found online. When requesting refunds, institutions brush them off with various contract terms or even directly cut off contact, leaving victims with no way to protect their rights while still needing to repay online loans.

红旗信号（看到这些快跑）

• 🚩 Absolute and highly provocative exaggerated profit promises such as zero-basis effortless earnings or making 10,000 yuan a month.
• 🚩 Frequent display of high-profit screenshots during course trials, while failing to provide authentic, long-term official platform authorization or data verification channels.
• 🚩 Sales personnel rushing payment and strongly recommending the use of installment loans to pay high tuition fees to lock in debt.
• 🚩 Training providers unable to provide clear proof of teaching qualifications, with course content mostly consisting of pieced-together free public materials.
• 🚩 Harsh clauses hidden in contracts, setting extremely high thresholds for refunds or directly promising no refunds, followed by perfunctory customer service attitudes or direct loss of contact.

真实案例

• In March 2026, according to reports by CNR and Beijing Daily, multiple victims fell for an institution's AI auto-e-commerce training after paying nearly 10,000 yuan in tuition only to earn back a hundred yuan in commissions. The institution claimed effortless earnings of 10,000 yuan, but the tools actually provided could not monetize automatically at all, trapping victims in a harvesting trap.
• In March 2026, Xinhua News Agency reported that young groups fell prey to AI-plus-training encirclement. A training organization customized fake scam websites for students to forge monetization data, inducing multiple young people to take out loans and pay nearly 10,000 yuan in tuition. When demanding refunds, the organization delayed with various excuses and directly lost contact. (Source: [https://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/20260317/d73125de228744b781f67f28797b6bd2/c.html](https://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/20260317/d73125de228744b781f67f28797b6bd2/c.html))
• In March 2026, according to an investigation by 36Kr, AI training courses became a new scam targeting middle-aged and elderly groups. After seeing ads for easily making 10,000 yuan a month on short-video platforms, multiple middle-aged and elderly individuals were induced to buy tens of thousands of yuan in AI courses, only to find they completely lacked operational know-how, had their savings defrauded, and faced difficulty in rights protection. (Source: [https://news.qq.com/rain/a/20260320A0873U00](https://news.qq.com/rain/a/20260320A0873U00))
• In March 2026, citing data from the Sichuan Consumer Council reported by 21st Century Business Herald, consumer organizations at all levels in Sichuan received 3,739 complaints related to AI+ training throughout 2025, and Caijing Wuji found nearly 200 AI training complaints on the Heimao Complaints platform, with consumers centrally reflecting issues such as a massive gap between promotion and actual results. (Source: [https://m.21jingji.com/article/20260317/herald/7046ccfdc5fbf99f2c2efaa497fd9a4d.html](https://m.21jingji.com/article/20260317/herald/7046ccfdc5fbf99f2c2efaa497fd9a4d.html))
• In March 2026, according to Shunwang reports, multiple consumers signed up for AI training courses by Shenzhen Nayun Culture Technology Co., Ltd. and encountered goods not matching descriptions and induced consumption, with formal course quotes at 5,980 yuan; consumers successively filed complaints on the Heimao Complaints platform, and law enforcement officers faced obstacles in rights protection after visiting the registered address for verification. (Source: [https://news.e23.cn/wanxiang/2026-03-17/2026031700094.html](https://news.e23.cn/wanxiang/2026-03-17/2026031700094.html))

Official Stance

• CCTV News (March 2026): Exposed the AI training 10,000-yuan-a-month scam, pointing out that such projects specifically target the elderly, and reminding the public not to blindly trust high-yield monetization promises under the guise of high tech and non-regular training channels.
• Xinhuanet (March 2026): Published an investigative report warning that some institutions are hunting down young people, exposing fraud through customized fake webpages and inducing loans, and warning against the risk of having no refund channels.
• CNR (March 2026): Released a Woodpecker Consumer Complaints special feature warning about the chaos in AI auto-e-commerce training, reminding consumers to be alert to the chain harvesting traps behind effortless earnings and not to blindly transfer money.

How to Protect Yourself

• ✅ Resolutely resist exaggerated profit promotions such as zero-basis effortless earnings or making 10,000 yuan a month, and recognize that AI technology is still in its developmental stage with no short-term training guaranteeing absolute profits.
• ✅ Verify corporate business licenses and educational training qualifications before paying, and refuse to use unknown installment loan products or online loans to pay high tuition fees to avoid falling into debt traps.
• ✅ Sign formal contracts and carefully read refund terms, staying alert to harsh disclaimer clauses. Conduct multi-source comparisons of course content to distinguish whether it is crude piecing-together of free online materials.
• ✅ Properly retain key evidence such as chat history, transfer vouchers, contract screenshots, and audio/video recordings of the other party's promised profits, and immediately report to the police upon discovering scams or being induced into loans.