Online fraudulent traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) clinics impersonating renowned experts: A scam involving hired extras collaborating to prescribe 'one prescription for a thousand people' overpriced medicine

Who Gets Targeted

The primary victims are middle-aged and elderly patients suffering from chronic illnesses or refractory diseases. This demographic has a natural trust in regular hospitals and time-honored TCM brand names, but often faces pain points such as difficulty in securing appointments and poor long-term treatment outcomes. Scammers exploit patients' psychological vulnerabilities of 'seeking any medical help in a desperate situation' and superstition regarding 'folk remedies curing major illnesses.' By hiring large numbers of extras to pose as fellow patients and experts, they create the illusion of 'miraculous recovery' in video consultations, inducing victims to spend thousands to tens of thousands of yuan on extremely low-cost TCM powders or pills, ultimately leaving them financially devastated and empty-handed.

骗局怎么运作

• Online traffic acquisition mimicking regular institutions for lead generation: Scam syndicates place a massive number of medical advertisements on short-video platforms or search engines, deliberately imitating the visual elements of well-known time-honored TCM hospitals or regular hospitals. They use promotional language such as 'centuries of heritage' and 'officially certified experts' to attract middle-aged and elderly patients unfamiliar with the internet, guiding them to private domains or mini-program consultation platforms.
• Extras collaborating to fabricate therapeutic outcomes and patient roles: Within consultation groups or video live streams, the syndicate arranges numerous shills to disguise themselves as fellow patients who have suffered from illnesses for years. Following a fixed script, they share experiences of being 'cured by a certain expert,' creating through carefully choreographed dialogue and interaction the false prosperity that the doctor's skills are superb and appointments are hard to come by, ultimately breaking down the psychological defenses of real patients.
• Video consultations using a 'one prescription for a thousand people' model to prescribe overpriced medicine: The so-called 'renowned experts' do not perform standard diagnostic methods (inspection, listening, inquiry, and palpation) during video consultations; after asking a few simple questions, they directly issue prescriptions. In reality, all patients receive identical TCM powders or pills. Low-cost medicinal herbs costing only dozens of yuan are packaged as 'exclusive secret formulas' and bundled for forced sales across multiple courses of treatment for exorbitant prices of three to four thousand or even tens of thousands of yuan.
• Aggressive customer service intimidation tactics for urge-to-buy and interception: When patients hesitate due to high medication costs, telemarketing customer service agents use intimidating language, exaggerating the severity of the condition by claiming 'failure to take this medicine will cause deterioration' and manufacturing scarcity anxiety with claims such as 'if you don't buy now, you will never get this exclusive formula again.' The platform also uses collected patient privacy information to conduct long-term, high-frequency phone and SMS bombing until the patient's wallet is completely drained.
• Forging logistics delivery and after-sales evidence destruction: After patients make payments, the syndicate ships 'three-no' TCM products via courier lacking regular batch numbers and instruction manuals. Once patients discover the treatment is ineffective and demand refunds, customer service uses excuses such as 'individual constitution differences' or 'incomplete course of treatment' to refuse, or even directly blocks the patient and deactivates platform accounts to destroy consultation records and transaction evidence, leaving victims with no recourse to seek redress.

红旗信号（看到这些快跑）

• 🚩 The consultation platform or mini-program interface is crude, failing to publicly display the 'Medical Institution Practice License' and physician qualification certificates, or displaying blurry certificates that cannot be verified on the official website of the National Health Commission.
• 🚩 During the video consultation, the doctor does not ask about detailed medical history, does not check the tongue coating, and does not take the pulse, rushing to prescribe medicine within just a few minutes while issuing identical prescription ingredients to all patients—namely, 'one prescription for a thousand people.'
• 🚩 Claiming to possess 'ancestral secret formulas' or 'imperial court medicines,' promising to cure chronic illnesses such as hypertension and diabetes or refractory diseases, and using absolute terminology such as 'cures all ailments' and 'immediate recovery upon taking.'
• 🚩 Demanding that exorbitant consultation and medication fees be remitted to personal accounts or non-corporate accounts, or transferred via unidentified payment links, while refusing to issue formal invoices or charge vouchers.
• 🚩 The packaged TCM products received are crudely made, lacking basic information such as approval numbers, production dates, and manufacturers, constituting typical 'three-no' products. Furthermore, the courier shipping origin does not match the claimed hospital address.

真实案例

• According to a CCTV report in April 2026, a fraudulent TCM clinic in a certain region conducted online consultations through internet traffic acquisition, where the so-called experts and fellow patients were entirely played by extras such as person A. The institution prescribed medicine using a 'one prescription for a thousand people' model, selling ordinary cheap medicine costing only a few yuan for three to four thousand yuan, without conducting any diagnostic methods, involving huge financial sums.
• According to a CCTV website report in August 2025, the market contained a large number of fake doctors packaged using fake props and fake certificates. Investigations revealed that hospital employee badges and other credentials could be bought and sold freely online, and criminal suspect B utilized these fake identities to practice medicine on online consultation platforms, defrauding patients of exorbitant medical fees.
• According to a TCM clinic case exposed by Sina Finance in April 2026, a female patient who spent 4,000 yuan to purchase so-called exclusive TCM was found upon investigation to have simply received powders casually formulated from cheap medicinal herbs. The syndicate impersonated a regular institution via online platforms, flagrantly engaging in false advertising and high-priced medication fraud against patients.
• In May 2025, Shanghai police dismantled an online fraud syndicate impersonating veteran TCM practitioners for online diagnosis and treatment, capturing 13 criminal suspects with involved funds exceeding 1 million yuan. The syndicate claimed to be descendants of a TCM lineage, using online consultations to identify disease causes and guaranteeing a customized 'one prescription per person' facade to lure patients into spending over 2,000 yuan to buy a so-called exclusive secret formula, which was actually just ordinary, cheap antibacterial ointment. (Source: [https://m.mp.oeeee.com/a/BAAFRD0000202505211088151.html](https://m.mp.oeeee.com/a/BAAFRD0000202505211088151.html))
• In November 2019, Yantai internet police cracked down on a criminal syndicate that impersonated veteran TCM practitioners based on scripts to commit fraud, capturing 24 criminal suspects and freezing over 1.3 million yuan in illicit funds. The syndicate published false medical advertisements on internet platforms, using deeply caring consultation dialogue to win trust, and then aggressively promoted so-called ancestral secret formulas at high prices, which were actually just ordinary, cheap health supplements. (Source: [https://www.yantai.gov.cn/art/2019/11/8/art_12307_2547630.html](https://www.yantai.gov.cn/art/2019/11/8/art_12307_2547630.html))

Official Stance

• In August 2026, the China Consumers Association and other entities reminded consumers that private-domain pharmaceutical advertising traps are numerous, urging vigilance against high-priced consultation scams on the internet impersonating renowned doctors or regular institutions.
• In April 2024, multiple regions issued bans and emphasized that medical personnel without reporting are strictly prohibited from conducting commercial online science popularization and diagnostic activities without authorization, heavily cracking down on illegal institutions wearing private hospital disguises to engage in 'tailored treatment' fraud.
• In April 2026, CCTV's 'Economy Half Hour' and multiple authoritative media outlets exposed fraudulent TCM clinic scams, explicitly pointing out that the online traffic model where 'miracle doctors and fellow patients are all actors' is suspected of violating the law, calling on elderly patients to beware of high-priced, substandard TCM traps.

How to Protect Yourself

• ✅ Verify qualifications before consultation: When consulting on internet healthcare platforms, be sure to check the doctor's practice registration information through the official website of the National Health Commission, while verifying the platform's 'Medical Institution Practice License,' and refuse medical consultations in unqualified mini-programs or private-domain groups.
• ✅ Reject absolute efficacy commitments: Maintain high vigilance against online doctors who claim to 'cure all illnesses,' 'radically cure chronic diseases,' or possess 'exclusive secret formulas.' Legitimate medical practices will never use absolute terminology, let alone guarantee cure rates.
• ✅ Retain all transaction and consultation evidence: Screenshot and save consultation chat records, prescriptions, transfer vouchers, and courier tracking numbers. Upon encountering 'three-no' medicines or refusals to issue invoices, immediately stop payment and file complaints or reports with the 12315 or 12345 hotlines.
• ✅ Participate in offline follow-up consultations for verification: For high-priced TCM prescribed online, it is recommended to bring the physical items and prescriptions to a regular local public TCM hospital for re-examination and appraisal to confirm whether the medicinal ingredients and prices are reasonable, avoiding blindly taking drugs of unknown origin that harm health.