New Energy Reverse Mortgage Financial Scam: Fraudulent PV Projects Used to Mortgage Elderly Real Estate for Cash

Who Gets Targeted

Victims are predominantly retired seniors over sixty who own their own homes but lack financial literacy, particularly concentrated in tier-two and tier-three cities and rural areas. Psychologically, they yearn to alleviate the burden on their children and achieve asset appreciation for retirement, while harboring deep trust in policy buzzwords like new energy and green projects. Due to information isolation, they struggle to verify the authenticity of underlying assets. Under the intensive brainwashing of sales agents promising high returns, zero risk, and retirement security, they easily surrender their property deeds and apply for mortgage loans, ultimately plunging into total financial ruin.

骗局怎么运作

• Camouflaging as New Energy Enterprises for Investment Attraction: Fraud rings register seemingly legitimate photovoltaic or new energy technology companies, forging government approvals and cooperation agreements. During community promotional campaigns, they claim to respond to the national dual-carbon strategy by constructing rural rooftop photovoltaic power stations. Their rhetoric emphasizes that state-subsidized projects guarantee profits, leading seniors to mistakenly believe the projects possess official backing and generating blind trust.
• Connecting with Underground Bridge Financing and Mortgage Intermediaries: Under the pretext of participating without spending money while receiving monthly dividends, sales agents take seniors to cooperative underground financial institutions or micro-loan companies. Without the seniors' full knowledge or understanding, they induce them to sign property mortgage loan contracts, mortgaging the homes to lenders to cash out large sums of money nominally used to invest in photovoltaic projects.
• Fabricating High Rebate Illusions: In the first month or the first three months, the syndicate punctually deposits hundreds to thousands of yuan of so-called photovoltaic dividends or pensions into the seniors' accounts. Utilizing these short-term genuine rebates completely dispels the seniors' doubts, prompting them to recruit neighborhood friends and relatives to participate. Mechanically, the scheme relies on embezzling subsequent mortgage funds from other seniors to pay earlier interest, forming a classic Ponzi scheme structure.
• Transferring Funds and Fabricating Defaults: After defrauding dozens of seniors of their property mortgage funds, the syndicate transfers the bulk of the funds domestically and overseas or squanders them, while simultaneously ceasing interest payments. Subsequently, lenders invoke the contracts to assert mortgage rights on the grounds that investors have failed to repay principal and interest, accelerating the push of the seniors' properties into judicial auction procedures through forged overdue default records.
• Violent Debt Collection and Fleeing: When seniors discover that dividend payments have stopped and demand refunds, the sales agents and company have long since vanished. The underlying photovoltaic panels are either uninstalled or represented by merely a few substandard waste panels as a cover. Seniors must not only face aggressive debt collection from lenders and court subpoenas but may also lose their only residence due to skyrocketing debts, leaving them with no recourse for legal redress.

红旗信号（看到这些快跑）

• 🚩 Promising zero investment with high returns alongside alleged government subsidies, requiring no out-of-pocket money from seniors other than using property deeds as collateral to enjoy fixed dividends.
• 🚩 Sales personnel being extremely enthusiastic, frequently making home visits bearing gifts and care, rushing seniors to non-formal financial institutions to sign numerous unread documents.
• 🚩 Chaotic contract entities where the so-called new energy investment agreement and the property mortgage loan contract belong to two unrelated companies, and collection accounts frequently shift to personal accounts.
• 🚩 On-site inspection bases for the so-called photovoltaic projects being either in an abandoned state or featuring only a few unpowered photovoltaic panels for show, entirely lacking substantive power generation and grid-connection capabilities.
• 🚩 Sales agents intentionally refusing communication between seniors and their children, or obstructing seniors from seeking external help and consulting professionals under the excuse that slots are limited or children's opposition stems from a lack of policy understanding.

真实案例

• According to disclosures from Shanghai economic crime investigation authorities regarding novel financial fraud cases, a syndicate attracted numerous investors under the name of new energy photovoltaic financial products. Their underlying assets were entirely fictitious, utilizing public trust in policies for illegal fund-raising until the capital chain broke and collapsed, involving massive financial amounts. This case exposes the nature of illegal fund-raising disguised under a new energy facade.
• According to media reports such as NetEase News, free photovoltaic panel installation scams emerged in multiple rural areas, where sales agents induced elderly farmers to sign documents while concealing equipment leasing or loan clauses within the contracts. Seniors believed they were receiving welfare benefits, but actually incurred tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of yuan in bank or micro-loan company debts on behalf of the scam syndicate, putting their homes at risk of execution.
• According to five typical cases of illegal fund-raising in the elderly sector published by the Ministry of Public Security in August 2025, certain criminal rings operated under the banners of elderly care services and ecological projects, promising seniors high returns while absorbing funds. Such cases routinely involved amounts exceeding millions or tens of millions, reducing seniors' life savings to nothing, with some even involving forced execution of mortgaged real estate.

Official Stance

• On August 11, 2025, the Ministry of Public Security released five typical criminal cases of illegal fund-raising in the elderly care sector, reminding the general public to remain vigilant against illegal fund-raising activities disguised as elderly care services and new energy projects, and to safeguard their retirement savings.
• On June 27, 2025, the Financial Committee Office of the CPC Fujian Provincial Committee issued a risk warning regarding the prevention of illegal fund-raising in the elderly care sector, cautioning seniors to watch out for high-yield temptations and property mortgage traps, and to guard against scams disguised as project investments.
• On February 9, 2026, the Financial Committee Office of the CPC Hubei Provincial Committee released a series of year-end and New Year promotional campaigns for preventing illegal financial activities, exposing illegal fund-raising tactics that defraud the elderly through packaged projects via the story of shattered retirement investment dreams.

How to Protect Yourself

• ✅ When encountering so-called investment projects involving property mortgages, seniors must first consult their children or professional lawyers, and must never sign documents or hand over identity documents and original property deeds under the pressure of sales agents.
• ✅ Verify the qualifications of the counterpart company and the authenticity of the project, checking via local development and reform commissions, housing and urban-rural development departments, or official energy bureau websites to confirm whether the new energy photovoltaic project has filing records, rather than being blinded by forged official documents.
• ✅ Carefully read the terms before signing contracts, paying special attention to keywords such as mortgages, loans, and joint and several liability. If you discover someone is taking out a loan in your name to help others, immediately suspend cooperation and report it to the police.
• ✅ Community neighborhood committees and children should strengthen anti-fraud education for seniors, promptly monitor financial fluctuations and emotional abnormalities of the elderly, and block channels where sales personnel exploit small favors for emotional penetration.