Cross-Border Store Cluster Operations Scam: The False Promise of Passive Income and Zero Experience, Followed by Capital Drain via Fake Orders

Who Gets Targeted

The main victims are middle-aged and elderly groups in urgent need of side hustles, as well as unemployed individuals in sinking markets. Lacking cross-border e-commerce experience and unfamiliar with the rules of emerging platforms, yet eager for quick success, they are seduced by the false gimmicks of zero-experience turnkey services and passive foreign currency earnings. Their psychological weakness lies in chasing shortcuts and blindly trusting identity packaging; once they see initial small-scale breakout data in the backend, they lose judgment and fall into a strong sunk cost fallacy. To retrieve their principal and profits, they often listen to scripts and continuously make advance payments for goods, ultimately losing their life savings.

骗局怎么运作

• Black-industry syndicates deploy bait videos promoting blue-ocean secrets of cross-border e-commerce on major short-video platforms, attracting victims to add contact information. Subsequently, salespeople disguised as senior operations directors step in, boasting about making over 10,000 USD a month with no experience, and conduct one-on-one script-based brainwashing to induce investment.
• Salespeople induce victims to sign electronic contracts and pay tens of thousands of yuan in store-opening registration fees and basic service fees. Afterward, the operations agency uses black-industry channels to purchase large amounts of personal information, batch-registering local stores and handing them over to victims for hosting, making them believe they already own a regular cross-border matrix industry.
• Through self-bred accounts or tampered backend pages, the agency docks the system so that when victims log in, falsely generated foreign currency sales and order data are displayed. Watching the daily skyrocketing breakout sales numbers, victims mistakenly believe the store is running automatically and generating huge profits, thus lowering their guard.
• When victims attempt to withdraw cash, the system prompts that the customs account is frozen or that cross-border logistics taxes and fees need to be made up. The agency seizes the opportunity to demand that victims make large advance payments for goods based on fake order amounts to thaw the funds. The advance amounts are often much larger than the initial returns, forming a financial black hole.
• When victims exhaust their assets or refuse to continue topping up and advancing funds, the agency directly cuts off contact on the grounds of violating platform rules. These stores registered through the black industry also quickly encounter platform crackdowns and bans, all fake orders vanish into thin air, and victims are left completely penniless with no recourse for defending their rights.

红旗信号（看到这些快跑）

• 🚩 Claiming that no experience or supply chain is needed to achieve fully managed passive income in foreign currency, which violates basic commercial common sense and logic in cross-border e-commerce.
• 🚩 Requiring victims to use private accounts or non-standard third-party payment channels to transfer advance payments for so-called goods and customs retention funds to stranger accounts.
• 🚩 The store management backend provided is not an official regular channel or independent mobile app listed on official app stores, and the data is inconsistent with the official web version.
• 🚩 The operations company was established very recently with extremely low paid-in capital, and salespeople cannot provide links to genuine successful past stores, displaying only exquisite earnings screenshots and props.
• 🚩 Frequently restricting cash withdrawals on grounds such as blocked logistics customs clearance or makeup of heavy tax fees, demanding that clients continuously add extra amounts to unlock account funds.

真实案例

• In March 2025, according to a mainstream media report, numerous victims under short-video guidance blindly trusted cross-border e-commerce agency operations projects featuring zero-yuan store openings and no need for supply chains, ultimately encountering fake-order inducements and unconstrained advance payments. Relevant regulatory departments statistics showed that franchise scams of this type received over 800 complaints in the first quarter.
• From late 2024 to early 2025, a victim blindly trusted a zero-based agency operations project named Taji Cross-Border E-commerce. The store backend showed continuous breakout orders daily, but cash withdrawals required supplementary advance payments for goods. Multiple middle-aged and elderly individuals lost hundreds of thousands in retirement savings, plunging into an endless capital black hole.
• In early 2025, a leading Latin American cross-border e-commerce account vendor suffered a major burst. According to industry media reports, over 1,000 related platform local stores were collectively banned within hours. This incident exposed the gray industry chain where black-industry syndicates utilize purchased personal information to batch-register local stores for false agency operations and review-brushing harvests.

Official Stance

• In April 2026, an authoritative media outlet coordinated with anti-fraud centers of public security in multiple regions to simultaneously issue warning reports, pointing directly to the core of scams claiming all-inclusive, effortless passive income in cross-border e-commerce, explicitly stating that the displayed breakout data is entirely forged, and inducing advance capital is the core fraudulent step.
• Around mid-March 2025, television stations in multiple regions jointly released anti-fraud special reports with new media platforms, exposing the essence of cross-border e-commerce agency operation scams starting with zero-yuan store openings and no supply chain needed, reminding novice sellers not to blindly trust brainless high-return promises exempting thresholds.
• Since 2025, public security organs in various regions have successively reported contract fraud cases related to cross-border e-commerce agency operations, reminding the public to be vigilant against various goods-bringing incubation traps in private domain communities, strictly avoiding remittances to private accounts, and emphasizing platforms' crackdowns on the abuse of local store rules.

How to Protect Yourself

• ✅ Refuse to use independent mobile apps or unfamiliar webpage backends provided by the agency operations party; always log into the store system through official regular channels to personally verify the authenticity of sales data and actual settlement progress.
• ✅ Before signing a contract, log into the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System to check the operations company's qualifications and establishment date, refusing to sign any legally binding business contracts with shell companies that frequently change names or have zero paid-in capital. Additionally, verify the establishment date, frequent name change records, and paid-in capital of the operating entity.
• ✅ Regular operations service fees and product settlements are processed through corporate accounts and officially recognized third-party payment platforms. Firmly refuse to transfer any funds demanded under the guise of advances to any salesperson's private account or non-standard collection QR code.
• ✅ Cross-border e-commerce platforms usually have transparent settlement cycles. Regular agency operations will never force sellers to advance large sums of cash for withdrawals on the grounds that customs accounts are frozen and require thaw funds. Encounters with such demands should be reported immediately to the police.