Qianbao.com: The Collapse of a 100-Billion Yuan Ponzi Scheme Based on 'Task-for-Cash' Deposits — Zhang Xiaolei Surrenders, Revealing a 30 Billion Yuan Principal Gap

Who Gets Targeted

Victims spanned across all provinces in China, primarily consisting of middle-aged individuals in second and third-tier cities, housewives, retirees, and some small business owners. They generally lacked professional financial literacy and the ability to discern new concepts like 'Internet + Advertising Revenue Sharing,' making them susceptible to promises of 'earning money with just a few taps.' The underlying psychology was driven by greed for high returns and anxiety over improving household income. Combined with the 'demonstration effect' created by early participants who successfully withdrew funds, newcomers lowered their guard, often investing their retirement savings, home-buying funds, or borrowed money, falling into a classic trap of 'self-persuasion' and 'sunk costs.'

骗局怎么运作

• Step 1: Packaging the 'earn money by watching ads' concept to attract traffic with low barriers. In 2012, Zhang Xiaolei founded Qianbao.com in Nanjing, claiming that users could earn high 'wages' from the platform simply by registering, watching ads, filling out surveys, and completing simple tasks. The marketing emphasized 'no professional skills required, no background needed, monetizing fragmented time,' masking the Ponzi nature under the guise of a 'sharing economy' to attract a large number of internet users lacking financial awareness, laying the user base for subsequent capital absorption.
• Step 2: Designing a 'deposit' mechanism to lock in user principal. Users were required to pay a deposit (ranging from hundreds to tens of thousands of yuan) to unlock high-yield tasks. The platform marketed this as a 'credit mortgage,' promising that the principal could be withdrawn at any time after task completion, along with generous returns. In reality, this forced user funds into the platform's capital pool and created a psychological constraint that 'investments cannot be easily withdrawn,' compelling users to keep adding funds to recover their principal.
• Step 3: Offering abnormally high yields to create the illusion of 'passive income.' The platform claimed annualized returns of over 40%, with some short-term tasks offering daily returns of up to 2%, far exceeding any legitimate financial product. These yields, detached from commercial logic, were packaged as 'advertising revenue rebates,' inducing users to believe the income came from third-party ad revenue rather than the principal of later investors. Fueled by the repeated promotion of 'early winners' who successfully withdrew cash, new users poured in while existing users continued to increase their investments.
• Step 4: Designing a 'referral bonus' system to accelerate viral spread. Qianbao.com implemented a referral reward mechanism where existing users received commissions for inviting new users to register and pay deposits. The platform spread fake wealth stories in QQ and WeChat groups, such as 'so-and-so earned this much by referring friends' or 'so-and-so bought a house/car with rewards,' using social networks for viral growth and turning participants into active promoters of the scam through emotional manipulation and financial incentives.
• Step 5: Capital chain rupture, the controller surrenders, and the platform collapses. The scam could not last forever; when new user growth slowed and withdrawal demands surged, the capital pool dried up. On December 26, 2017, Zhang Xiaolei surrendered to the Nanjing Public Security Bureau, admitting an inability to pay out, and the platform was shut down immediately. Police investigations revealed that as of the case date, the unredeemed principal owed to participants reached approximately 30 billion yuan, wiping out the savings of countless families overnight and triggering a massive wave of rights-protection efforts.
• Step 6: Post-incident judicial disposal and asset recovery. After his surrender, Zhang Xiaolei was arrested. On June 21, 2019, the Nanjing Intermediate People's Court delivered a first-instance verdict, sentencing him to 15 years in prison for the crime of fundraising fraud and ordering the confiscation of 100 million yuan in personal assets. The case involved a vast number of participants nationwide. During the judicial process, registration for reports was conducted across various regions, but the recovery rate for stolen funds was extremely low, with victims ultimately receiving far less than their invested principal.

红旗信号（看到这些快跑）

• 🚩 Claimed returns are disproportionate to labor: Earning 40% or higher annualized returns just by watching ads or filling out surveys far exceeds the logic of legitimate commercial advertising.
• 🚩 Mandatory deposits to perform tasks: Legitimate advertising platforms do not require users to deposit money to earn browsing revenue; this is a classic method for capital pooling.
• 🚩 Incentivizing 'referral bonuses': Using the recruitment of new users as the core promotion method is a typical double-helix structure of Ponzi schemes and pyramid selling.
• 🚩 Early users successfully withdrawing funds: Scammers intentionally allow small, early withdrawals to create a sense of authenticity, inducing users to invest more—this is the most dangerous signal.
• 🚩 Unclear destination of platform funds and lack of real profit-generating business: The company had no stable operating income or audit reports, yet continued to pay out high returns; funds must have come from the principal of later users.
• 🚩 Ignoring public warnings from media or lawyers: As early as 2014, financial media questioned the Qianbao model; in 2015, multiple lawyers publicly pointed out suspected illegal fundraising; and in 2016, police in various regions issued risk warnings, all of which were deliberately concealed or downplayed by the platform.

真实案例

• On December 26, 2017, Zhang Xiaolei, the actual controller of Qianbao.com, surrendered to the Nanjing Public Security Bureau due to a capital chain rupture and inability to pay out. Preliminary investigations showed that Qianbao.com used high returns as bait to continuously 'use new money to pay off old debts,' illegally absorbing large amounts of funds from the public. By the time of the incident, the unredeemed principal reached 30 billion yuan.
• According to public reports, Qianbao.com once claimed to have over 200 million registered users, with the actual number of active participants involving millions across the country and cumulative transaction amounts exceeding 50 billion yuan. After the incident, police in multiple regions issued notices for assistance and organized victims to register reports. Some victims had invested hundreds of thousands or even millions of yuan in retirement savings and home-buying funds, suffering devastating losses.
• On June 21, 2019, the Nanjing Intermediate People's Court delivered a first-instance verdict in the Zhang Xiaolei fundraising fraud case, sentencing him to 15 years in prison for fundraising fraud, confiscating 100 million yuan in personal assets, and ordering the recovery of all illegal proceeds. The case was classified as China's first 100-billion-level internet illegal fundraising case, and its 'task-for-cash + deposit' scheme became a key risk model for subsequent regulatory warnings.

Official Stance

• In 2016, public security organs in various regions issued risk warnings regarding the Qianbao.com model, pointing out its characteristics of illegal fundraising and advising the public to participate with caution (based on public reports).
• On December 27, 2017, the official Weibo account of the Nanjing Public Security Bureau announced: Zhang Xiaolei, the actual controller of Qianbao.com, surrendered to the Nanjing Public Security Bureau on the 26th due to suspected criminal activities. His operating model is suspected of illegal fundraising, and the case is under investigation.
• On June 21, 2019, the Nanjing Intermediate People's Court of Jiangsu Province announced: Zhang Xiaolei, the actual controller of Qianbao.com, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for fundraising fraud, with 100 million yuan of personal assets confiscated, demonstrating a zero-tolerance attitude toward illegal fundraising crimes.

How to Protect Yourself

• ✅ Refuse to participate in any platform that claims 'high returns for completing tasks' or 'earning money by watching ads' while requiring an upfront deposit or security payment. Never believe in 'passive income' myths.
• ✅ Verify platform qualifications before investing: Proactively check business licenses, financial business permits, and filing information. Log in to the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System to check for abnormal business records, with a focus on historical shareholder changes. Most task-rebate schemes are newly established shell companies; avoid those with short registration times.
• ✅ Be wary of 'referral bonus' or 'old-brings-new' promotion models, as they often indicate pyramid or Ponzi attributes. Do not recommend financial projects to friends or family if the underlying assets cannot be verified.
• ✅ If you have already entered such a platform, stop adding funds immediately. Save all transfer records, app screenshots, marketing pitches, and chat logs, and report the case to the local public security bureau's economic crime investigation department immediately.