Website Operators to Be Held Responsible for Help-Wanted Scams

(Beijing) — Authorities are tightening the screws on job recruitment website operators that let scammers post phony help-wanted ads to dupe young people into joining pyramid schemes.

A website operator can be shut down if it lets an unlicensed company post material as part of a help-wanted scam, according to a directive released by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security over the weekend.

Moreover, a website operator can have its business license revoked or face criminal charges if job seekers have their personal rights violated or suffer losses after responding to posted job offers, the ministry said.

A written disclaimer no longer frees a job website operator from responsibility when deceptive job ads appear on its site. An operator must make sure each advertiser has a business license before it’s allowed to post job ads, according to the ministry.

The ministry launched the crackdown after several job applicants died under mysterious circumstances while responding to phony help-wanted ads. Each victim was allegedly lured into a pyramid sales scheme.

The operator of the Boss Zhipin website, one of the biggest help-wanted sites in China, recently acknowledged its role in the death of Li Wenxing, a recent college graduate from Shandong province whose body was found in a pond in the northern port city of Tianjin.

Police are still investigating the death. But law enforcement officials said Li, 23, was lured into a pyramid scheme known as Diebeilei after replying to a help-wanted ad for a Beijing software company. The ad was posted on Boss Zhipin by scammers.

Government cyber security officials in Beijing and Tianjin summoned Boss Zhipin executives to meetings on Aug. 8 and ordered them to clean up their act.

In a separate development, police in Tianjin’s Jinghai district recently reported that a 24-year-old man died in March after he was duped into a Diebeilei scheme.

Police said the body of Qu Pengxu, a native of Liaoning province, was retrieved from a lake March 31, two weeks after he drowned. He fell into the lake while fleeing from scammers that he had met after responding to a help-wanted ad, police said.

Police have arrested four suspects in connection with Qu’s death.

Pyramid sales schemes are illegal in China, and anyone involved in a scheme with more than 30 members and three layers of participants can be criminally charged.

Contact reporter Li Rongde (rongdeli@caixin.com)