A group of matchmaking companies in southwest China has been investigated by police for defrauding single men of large sums of money. They worked with women posing as potential brides and scammed money through quick marriages, according to SCMP.
According to a statement from a court in Guiyang, Guizhou province in September, a police station in the Huaguoyuan area has received 180 reports of matchmaking scams since March last year.
During this time, the court resolved 50 disputes related to matchmaking fees, Red Star News reported.
Before the government launched its investigation, many matchmaking companies rented high-end local offices to increase customer confidence.
Some company employees actively sought out single men from small and remote towns across the country. Others focused on recruiting single women, many of whom were divorced and in debt, and convinced them to participate in the male client scam.
In many cases, male clients agree to marry the women arranged by the agency just days after meeting them. They are instructed to sign a contract with the agency and pay hundreds of thousands of yuan as a dowry.
These marriages are called “quick marriages” because the bride often runs away, disappears, or pressures the man into divorce in various ways. In addition, they may pretend to have conflicts and quarrels with their husbands after a short time together to have an excuse to divorce.
A notorious woman in the industry is said to have earned 300,000 NDT (about more than 1 billion VND) in 3 months by participating in many flash marriages.
According to reports, the woman registered her marriage with a client in December last year and filed for divorce the next day due to domestic violence. She did not return the 170,000 yuan (nearly 600 million VND) dowry and even took away some of the joint assets, including the car her new husband bought for her.
After the divorce, the woman continued to date other men, while the matchmaking company helped conceal her divorce status.
A man surnamed Liao, who was a victim of the scam, shared his story with Red Star News. In May, he traveled from his hometown in Hubei Province to Guiyang to meet a woman introduced to him by a matchmaking agency. He married her just two days later.
The man had to pay a cash sum of 118,000 NDT (more than 400 million VND) to the bride's family.
In the two months after their marriage, Liao's wife frequently left her hometown to return to Guiyang. She asked him to buy her a house and a car, and the two often quarreled.
Liao later discovered that she had given birth to five children before. When he asked the matchmaking company for a refund, he found that the company had closed down and was under investigation by the police.
A former employee who worked at one of the matchmaking agencies before being investigated by police said they had no shortage of male clients.
“We are not worried about the source of male customers. There are many people who need matchmaking across the country. Every day, there are 40-50 male customers waiting to be arranged a blind date,” this person said.
Former employees warned that after a heavy-handed investigation by Guiyang authorities, some fraudulent companies moved their operations to neighboring Yunnan province.
