Uber has success in China despite reports of driver scams

A couple of weeks ago we highlighted some of the scams that seemed to be cropping up in China and how they had claimed some big victims, including Ryanair and C&F Tooling.

However, some scams work at a much more day-to-day level. Uber has recorded great success in penetrating the Chinese market, creating 60,000 jobs in China and logging more than 100,000 rides a day.

Impressive figures . . . until you read reports and talk to drivers who say they have been logging in bogus rides and signing up for multiple Uber accounts in order to take advantage of Uber’s generous bonuses.

Often this involves other drivers or friends with different mobile phones pretending to be passengers and going nowhere.

The subsidies Uber is paying have helped it rise to the top of the app store rankings in China.

A similar scam is also being used for a food delivery service.

But while these grifts are at one end of the spectrum, you still get some great old-fashioned scams.

Our favourite this week is a woman who managed to swindle victims out of 2.3 million yuan (€320 million) by pretending to be a princess from the Qing dynasty, which stretched from 1644 to 1911.

Wang Fengying (49), a farmer from Henan province, claimed to be Princess Changping, a descendant of the Aisin Gioro family, a house that ruled the Qing dynasty.

She was eventually caught and has been sentenced to 13½ years in prison.