Illegal Agent Rights-Protection Scam: Instigating Clients to Report Financial Institutions and Extorting Commissions

Who Gets Targeted

The primary victims are ordinary investors who have purchased fund, insurance, or securities investment advisory services but are experiencing losses or dissatisfaction, as well as low- and middle-income groups who lack a thorough understanding of financial product terms. Psychological weaknesses exploited include: frustration and compensation psychology following losses, rushing for medical treatment out of desperation due to a lack of understanding of formal complaint channels, and believing short-video success stories of fee refunds to be true without realizing the risks of signing authorization letters and handing over ID card and bank card information. Ultimately, victims not only get scammed out of high agency fees, but may also suffer secondary victimization due to their personal information being resold.

骗局怎么运作

• Step 1: Publish videos of successful rights-protection and refund cases on short-video platforms and live streaming rooms, claiming to have helped hundreds of people recover losses from financial institutions. Display forged refund arrival screenshots and customer thank-you chat records to create the illusion of professional credibility, attracting loss-making investors to proactively private-message for consultation and leave contact information.
• Step 2: Customer service contacts prospective clients one-on-one via WeChat or QQ to gather key details such as the type of financial product purchased, loss amount, and contract signing date. They then promise to help recover all or most of the losses, charging 20% to 50% of the recovered amount as an agency commission. Some gangs also pre-charge hundreds to thousands of yuan in material fees.
• Step 3: Require clients to sign a so-called rights-protection authorization letter, while demanding core personal information such as photos of the front and back of the ID card, bank card number, bank card password, and mobile verification code. Some gangs even ask clients to mail physical bank cards and U-keys, actually controlling the client's fund channels under the guise of operating the account on their behalf.
• Step 4: The agency uses the client's identity information to batch-submit complaint and report materials to financial regulatory departments, petition offices, consumer associations, and other institutions. The content is mostly templated and fabricated false statements. At the same time, multiple agency personnel are organized to pose as clients and repeatedly call the financial institution's customer service hotline to harass and cause disturbances, thereby pressuring the financial institution to grant refunds.
• Step 5: After the financial institution agrees to a partial refund under complaint pressure, the agency uses the client's bank card in its possession to directly withhold the agency commission. Some gangs even transfer all of the client's refund funds into accounts under their own control, and then delay transferring payments to the client using various excuses. Meanwhile, the client's personal information is packaged and resold to other black-gray industry gangs to achieve secondary monetization.
• Step 6: When clients question why refunds have not arrived or amounts do not match, the agency uses tactics such as claiming processes are incomplete, supplementary materials are needed, or regulatory approval cycles are long to continue stalling. Some gangs directly block and lose contact. If clients threaten to call the police, the agency turns to intimidation using the client's ID card and bank card information already in their possession, demanding that the client remain silent.
• Step 7: Some gangs escalate to directly extorting financial institutions by threatening to organize batch false complaints, expose them to the media, and gather crowds to surround business outlets, forcing financial institutions to pay hush money or high settlement fees. In the case reported by Shanghai police, the criminal gang used this method to extort multiple securities investment advisory firms, forming a scaled criminal chain.

红旗信号（看到这些快跑）

• 🚩 Claiming 100% success in recovering losses in short videos or live streams, displaying numerous refund screenshots while refusing to show formal communication documents with financial institutions
• 🚩 Requiring clients to provide sensitive information beyond the normal scope of agency, such as photos of original ID cards, bank card numbers and passwords, and mobile SMS verification codes
• 🚩 Charging an agency commission higher than 20% of the recovered amount, or pre-charging fees under the guise of material fees, channel fees, etc., before services begin
• 🚩 Requiring clients to mail physical bank cards and U-keys, or asking clients to open online banking and hand over operating privileges to the agency
• 🚩 Instigating clients to simultaneously submit complaint and report materials with identical content to multiple regulatory departments, or fabricating untrue complaint content on behalf of clients
• 🚩 Refusing to sign a formal service contract, confirming cooperation intent only through WeChat chats, or failing to provide a company name and fixed office address

真实案例

• In August 2026, Shanghai Putuo police reported cracking down on an illegal financial agency rights-protection extortion case. The criminal gang used short-video platform traffic to instigate clients to batch-report multiple securities investment advisory firms to regulatory departments, demanding high fees from the institutions in exchange for withdrawing complaints. Several suspects were subjected to criminal coercive measures in accordance with the law on suspicion of extortion.
• In August 2026, according to Tencent News, an investor suffering fund losses fell for an agency rights-protection advertisement on a short-video platform, paying 5,000 yuan in material fees and handing over ID and bank card information to an organization claiming to be a professional rights-protection team. Ultimately, not only were no losses recovered, but the bank card was also used by the other party for money laundering operations, resulting in the account being frozen.
• In July 2026, according to Economic Observer, Wuhan police dispatched over 100 police officers to conduct a centralized crackdown on an illegal agency rights-protection den, criminally detaining 37 people on the spot. Registered in the name of an information consulting company, the gang actually used short-video traffic to instigate clients to report financial institutions, accumulating over 2 million yuan in agency fees, with personal information for thousands of clients seized.
• In January 2025, Lucheng police in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, cracked down on a major agency policy-surrender extortion case. Led by a suspect surnamed Jin, the criminal gang purchased policyholder information, posed as insurance company sales representatives to induce policy surrenders, fabricated facts to maliciously complain, and extorted multiple insurance companies. 33 gang members were arrested, involving over a hundred offenses, illegal gains of over 2 million yuan, and a total involved amount exceeding 10 million yuan. (Source: [https://m.voc.com.cn/xhn/news/202501/21586167.html](https://m.voc.com.cn/xhn/news/202501/21586167.html))
• In August 2026, the Litong District Procurate of Wuzhong City, Ningxia, approved the arrest of a person surnamed He for malicious complaints against financial institutions on suspicion of extortion. Over half a year, He repeatedly complained to multiple banks using fabricated plots of violent debt collection, forcing a third-party collection company to transfer 53,000 yuan. Concurrently, Hohhot police in Inner Mongolia cracked down on an anti-collection extortion case involving Song and others, maliciously complaining to extort 188,000 yuan from collection companies, and approved the arrest. (Source: [https://news.ifeng.com/c/8vrHnYzk2Ek](https://news.ifeng.com/c/8vrHnYzk2Ek))

Official Stance

• In February 2026, five departments including the National Financial Regulatory Administration, the Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, the Ministry of Public Security, the People's Bank of China, and the China Securities Regulatory Commission jointly issued the 'Risk Warning on Guarding Against Illegal Agency Rights-Protection Short-Video and Live Streaming Traps', explicitly pointing out that criminals use short videos and live streams to claim they can act as rights-protection agents, while actually defrauding high-percentage commissions, withholding refund funds, and illegally collecting personal information.
• In May 2026, the Guangxi Financial Regulatory Bureau, the People's Bank of China Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Branch, the Guangxi Securities Regulatory Bureau, and the Guangxi Communications Administration jointly issued a risk warning, reminding consumers to be wary of online marketing traps involving illegal agency rights-protection and loan intermediaries, and emphasizing that signing authorization letters may lead to personal information leakage and financial losses.
• In February 2026, Xinhuanet reprinted a multi-department joint risk warning, emphasizing that illegal agency rights-protection is often accompanied by illegal acts such as fabricating facts and forging evidence, for which consumers may bear corresponding legal responsibility. Financial institutions will not proactively contact consumers through non-formal channels to handle refunds.

How to Protect Yourself

• ✅ If you have a dispute over financial products or services, directly call the official customer service hotline of the financial institution or file a complaint with the 12378 hotline established by financial regulatory departments. Do not trust third-party advertisements in short videos or live streams claiming to provide agency rights-protection.
• ✅ Never provide sensitive information such as original ID card photos, bank card numbers, bank card passwords, and mobile SMS verification codes to any individual or organization claiming to be a rights-protection agent, and certainly do not mail physical bank cards and U-keys.
• ✅ Before signing any authorization documents, carefully read the terms, confirm whether the scope of authorization is limited to specific matters, refuse to sign documents containing blank clauses or unclear authorization scopes, and consult a lawyer if necessary.
• ✅ If you have already encountered an illegal agency rights-protection scam, immediately freeze the relevant bank cards and change passwords, save all chat records, transfer vouchers, and signed documents with the agency, report the case to public security organs, and report illegal clues to financial regulatory departments.