Xue Cheng has not had a rest for a month in a row. She leaned down at the desk, frowning. There are also utility rooms on the desk, on the coffee table in the living room, which are all kinds of documents: litigation documents, reconsideration applications, various contracts and evidence materials she collected and sorted out by herself, including hand-painted relationship diagrams, bounded online anti-fraud science materials, etc. She tried to store them neatly using various folders in various categories. But there was too much information, and she was often confused.
Litigation documents piled up in Xue Cheng's home
The most important thing Xue Cheng did after returning from Canada was to protect his mother's rights. She laughed at herself that she had almost become a "half lawyer" and could easily get all kinds of laws. In order to obtain evidence, she often traveled between the public security bureau, the court, and relevant departments. For more than ten years, her relationship with her mother has often deteriorated because of her cheating, but as her only daughter, she had to defend her mother and recover money. While she was tired, it was difficult for her to understand. Why did her always smart mother get old and her IQ lose?
Xue Cheng's mother Wang Hong is 71 years old this year. She had to work hard when she was young. She went from being a communications company to becoming a branch director from an ordinary employee in Tongzhou District, Beijing, and her career was smooth sailing. The couple worked hard all their lives and accumulated a wealthy family fortune. The family of three owns 4 houses in Beijing, and also has small property rights housing in second- and third-tier cities.
However, after retirement, Wang Hong entered the torrent of the times with one foot, and this wealthy family instantly lost the helmsman like a giant ship, and was hit by the wind and waves. She has been involved in at least 5 scams in ten years, and 2 of the four houses under her name have been almost cheated away. And with the intermediary's coaxing and deception, I bought 5 worthless sea view houses in , a fourth-tier city in , not to mention the scattered money. Behind her ten-year adventure is the magnificent picture of China's economic take-off and the history of an old man's failure to stand at the forefront.
was arbitrarily bought 5 sea view houses in Shandong
At the end of 2006, Wang Hong retired from the position of branch director. She was used to being busy and suddenly became idle. Her daughter lived in Canada without having to worry too much. Life had no sense of value and her body began to show symptoms. She often feels uncomfortable in her heart, can't get angry, and sometimes she can't even sleep, seeking medical treatment everywhere without success. In 2008, she was diagnosed with depression at Anding Hospital in Beijing.
In order to pass the time, she helped her relatives look at the store and paid 50,000 yuan in advance. The two parties confronted each other in court due to a dispute over interests. In 2011, the 33-year-old daughter returned to China. Wang Hong seemed to have found the fire of life again and devoted herself to her daughter's life. Her daughter didn't want to work, so Wang Hong wrote her resume and looked for a job; her daughter didn't have a boyfriend, so she arranged blind dates and urged her to get married; her daughter found a boyfriend online, and in order to check, she and her wife went to the countryside of Xianyang, Shaanxi for a few days, asked her neighbors, and went to the Civil Affairs Bureau and the police station to inquire about the man's character and family background.
But soon, she suffered another setback. My daughter, who has been away for many years, has become accustomed to independence, and her values are very different from her. Her tough attitude of interfering in extreme deterioration of the relationship between mother and daughter. During the period when her mother was investigating, her daughter quietly and hastily gotten married. My mother quit her job after working for a few days. Seeing that the child was getting more and more deviating from his hope, Wang Hong simply took the initiative and forced the match between Zhang Yong, a young man who had just met before, and his daughter.
Zhang Yong, from Shandong, one year older than his daughter, 1.86 meters tall, white and clean, with thick eyebrows and big eyes. He had just arrived in Beijing at that time and was working as a bodyguard and assistant to Wang Hong's old sister, an old Japanese lady. What Wang Hong likes most is that he is filial and considerate than his daughter.
Wang Hong's proposal was angrily rejected by her daughter. Zhang Yong took the initiative to propose that since there is no fate, it is better to accept the relatives. Wang Hong also longs for a considerate and filial son who can help take care of the family.
Unexpectedly, this family acquaintance made the family split. Less than a month after he accepted the relationship, Zhang Yong proposed to borrow money from Wang Hong.The reason was that she wanted to spend 120,000 yuan to buy a used car, and claimed that "friends in the car market have to pay the money immediately, and they cannot transfer money and can only be cash." In Wang Hong's view, this behavior has become a verification of whether she recognizes her relatives or not, and she has no way to refuse.
In addition to borrowing money to buy a car, Zhang Yong later "borrowed" money from Wang Hong for various reasons. For example, his father was sick and hospitalized, which required 5,000 yuan; the three credit card limits were not paid out after the deadline, so Wang Hong asked him to use his credit card to brush 50,000 yuan. Wang Hong also lent a three-bedroom and one-living house to Zhang Yong for free, and even Zhang Yong's furniture and appliances were all bought by her. Wang Hong calculated that in less than half a year of knowing each other, she had lent Zhang Yong at least 400,000 yuan.
In Wang Hong's consciousness, young people are under great pressure in life. Since they have accepted their kids, try to help as much as they can. She never doubted Zhang Yong's intentions, and even if there was, it was instantly and soon disappeared. When giving Zhang Yong 120,000 yuan in car purchase money, Wang Hong tried to ask Zhang Yong to write an IOU, but was frightened by Zhang Yong's anger. Zhang Yong deliberately lowered his face and said, "Mom, what do you mean? If you don't believe me, you can take the money back and I won't borrow it." Wang Hong's face heated up, and he quickly called him and stopped mentioning the IOU, and advised Zhang Yong to accept the money.
When Zhang Yong persuaded his godmother Wang Hong to sell a small property in Taiyuan, his daughter realized that her mother had secretly sponsored Zhang Yong hundreds of thousands of yuan, and was better with her godson than her biological daughter. Xue Cheng Leiting was furious and even broke up with his mother and drove her out of the house.
The relationship between mother and daughter is tense, and when they meet, they are violent. Wang Hong was depressed and always casual, she wanted to hide for peace. By chance, in July 2014, Wang Hong received a flyer for free viewing of houses in Longkou, Shandong. Free house viewing groups are common under the banner of travel, pulling a bunch of elderly people to the beach to watch the sunrise and the sea, and then circled to the sales office to bombard various sea viewing house concepts such as "seeing the sea when you go out", "returning home and taking vacation", and "making money to the end with one room".
According to Phoenix.com "Eye of the Storm", many elderly people could not withstand the temptation and paid a deposit on the spot. Wang Hong is no exception. The key point is that Wang Hong is even more crazy. She bought more than one set, but has bought 5 sets one after another, and each set was paid a deposit, totaling more than 370,000 yuan.
Wang Hong originally wanted to buy one, but when the salesperson A Jin saw Wang Hong's eyes lit up, he became interested and said, "Auntie, this is the last house of the property. The price is cheap, so you can make money by buying it. You might as well book two houses, one for yourself, and I will sell the other one for you, and you can still make money. The money you earn from selling the house can be paid for the full amount, which is equivalent to picking up a house for free." When Wang Hong heard this, he paid 150,000 yuan for the deposit of two houses and purchased 60 and 80 buildings in the first phase of West Coast .
A week later, when Wang Hong was applying for the house payment on the West Coast, she took a fancy to 88 large-scale houses and wanted to replace the original one. Ajin promised that she could do it, but urged her to pay a deposit of 70,000 first. Wang Hong had no doubts and paid the deposit for the third house.
But in fact, after Wang Hong paid the deposit for three houses, Ajin did not apply for a refund and exchange. It was not until Ajin resigned in 2016 that Wang Hong came to the West Coast Sales Office of Nanshan Group to negotiate, but found that he had three houses under his name. The developer not only did not refund the deposit, but also asked him to continue to pay the house payment, otherwise it would be a breach of contract.
In June of that year, Wang Hong, who was exhausted by the sea view room, got the opportunity to watch the house for Nanshan Group for free house viewing group. This time the sea view room is not on the west coast, but on the east coast. Wang Hong wants to go to the West Coast to deal with the problem. She found that the environment and house quality of Jinyu Lanwan District B on the east coast are better than those on the west coast, but they are more expensive. She proposed to return the house on the West Coast and transfer all the deposit to the East Coast to buy a house in Area B.
Longkou Seaview Room
The same routine continues to be staged. Salesman Liu Feng said he needed to ask the leader for instructions. After negotiation, Wang Hong paid a deposit of 50,000 yuan and signed the purchase contract for . So far, she has 4 Longkou real estate properties under her name.
But a year later, things changed.Liu Feng suddenly contacted Wang Hong and said that the deposit on the west coast cannot be transferred to Jinyu Lanwan Area B on the east coast, but can be transferred to Jinyu Lanwan Area A. Wang Hong never had any doubts about why she told her that she had not been successful after a year. In early September, she came to Longkou again. In order to transfer all the deposit to a 73-square-meter high-rise sea view house in Jinyu Lanwan District A, she paid another 60,000 yuan deposit.
Not only that, she was eager to change her house, but she also believed Liu Feng's lies - she only had to make up the commission for three houses given to A Jin by the company, which was 70,000 yuan, so that she could change her house. Wang Hong had no extra money in her hand, so she had to raise 70,000 yuan with her relatives.
htmlFor 13 years, in order to return and exchange rooms, she has paid a deposit of more than 300,000 yuan for 5 houses and a commission of 70,000 yuan. She only successfully transferred the deposit from Area B on the East Coast to Area A. The remaining four houses are priced at 1.1 million yuan. If the house payment cannot be paid in the future, she will be considered a breach of contract. At present, Wang Hong has already found a house on the West Coast to breach the contract and was deducted a deposit of 50,000 yuan.
Wang Hong’s experience in Longkou was like an incredible farce. The salesperson of Nanshan Group used the same trick again and deceived her five times. She was like a gambler, losing the ability to identify directions, and repeatedly believed people's words without any warning. When Wang Hong negotiated with the developer afterwards, he even couldn't figure out how much the house he had delivered.
Between two houses and investing in
Two series of scams hurt Wang Hong's vitality and his family was squandered all his savings. Wang Hong was worried when she thought that she and her wife had only retirement wages and were no longer able to make money and make blood, and her daughter had no stable source of income. The house became the only principal she could use to "make money".
In June 2018, she saw a turning point. Beijing Zhongan Minsheng Asset Management Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhongan Minsheng") has launched a "house-based pension" financial product and promised the elderly that they can receive "pension" at an annualized interest rate of 4-6% of the mortgage amount every year. If they do not want to mortgage, they can withdraw at any time.
The new way to make money has allowed Wang Hong to see new hope for enjoying her old age. She mortgaged her 166 square meters of self-occupied house to Zhongan Minsheng, and obtained a mortgage loan of 4 million yuan to purchase Zhongan Minsheng's financial products "monthly salary", with an annualized interest rate of 5%, and received a "pension" of 16,667 yuan per month.
But unexpectedly, after less than 8 months of "pension", the company that claimed to be "very reliable" broke out. This investment almost ended up causing Wang Hong to be unable to return her family and she lost both money and houses. Wang Hong's house is still in a judicial freeze.
According to Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm", this sensational "house-based pension" case eventually deceived at least 800 elderly people, involving 2 billion yuan of funds.
But this did not hinder Wang Hong's "oldering dream". In October 2020, on a bus to Beijing West Railway Station, she met Lang Shixu, who claimed to be a descendant of the Aisin Gioro family. He told Wang Hong that he had a film and television company in Beijing, and that he also implied that he had a wide range of connections and often went to high-end clubs. The club had no contacts, and most of them were high-ranking officials.
Wang Hong likes to make friends with energy, and she also has a selfish intention - she hopes to meet some people with energy in Shandong, which can help solve the problem of sea view room in Longkou.
In order to be able to enter and exit high-end clubs, Wang Hong also paid an entry fee of 1,000 yuan. If she wants to become a member, she will have to pay 10,000 yuan. Wang Hong felt very lucky, and knew Lang Shixu, and fantasized about being able to integrate into high-end people and reverse his falling life in his later years.
So she followed Lang Shixu to a high-end club to attend a salon. The club is hidden in Building B, Zhongya Building, , Haidian District, , and occupies a whole floor, about 600 square meters. The interior is divided into multiple conference rooms and salon halls. The decoration style is luxurious, with thick carpets on the floor, and the tables and chairs are all high-end mahogany furniture. The salon was held at that time, and the scene was very lively and crowded. The "great officials and nobles" introduced their business and talked about some advanced investment secrets.
But soon, Wang Hong found that no one seemed to care about her Longkou house buying problem, and people were enthusiastic about other projects. Lang Shixu told her that there is a project with good returns at the moment. He has a factory that needs to be demolished, but the funds cannot be turned over, so he needs some money. He suggested that Wang Hong can lend him the real estate mortgage loan under his name and the money he borrowed to him to demolish the factory, which is considered as an investment in his Earth Red Village Film (Beijing) Co., Ltd., and the company's future benefits can be dividend .
Unexpectedly, a new scam has reached Wang Hong. Just when signing the contract, Wang Hong realized that the factory to be demolished was not Lang Shixu's, but Ma Zhengjiang's. Lang Shixu is just an intermediary, and he can get a 20% commission when he pays the money from the club.
Wang Hong stopped his horse and broke up with Lang Shixu, but instead negotiated investment with Ma Zhengjiang. She did not realize that this was a chain of condoms. Langma and the other two had jointly raised funds from many elderly people with real estate in Beijing.
Ma Zhengjiang invited Wang Hong to invest for the same reason and promised to bring at least twice the return. In November 2021, he took Wang Hong and his wife to a micro loan company to sign a mortgage loan agreement and successfully borrowed 1.8 million yuan. Then Ma Zhengjiang and Wang Hong and his wife signed a loan agreement. According to the agreement, Ma Zhengjiang will repay her 5.4 million yuan in half a year.
But by May this year, Wang Hong not only did not get twice the profit, but also did not even claim the principal. Ma Zhengjiang explained that the epidemic disrupted the plan and would be postponed for 3 months. However, Wang Hong has not received any repayment so far.
Wang Hong never told her daughter, and was still immersed in the dream of her huge wealth. It was not until May 25 that when his daughter Xue Cheng was dealing with the incident where her mother was cheated by Zhong'an Minsheng for "house-using elderly care" and accidentally found that her mother had another house in a mortgaged state. She didn't know the whole story after calling the police.
Xue Cheng found out that Lang Shixu's film and television company did not have a real registration place and had long been included in the list of abnormal business operations. After she reported the case, she also found out that employees of the micro loan company they cooperated with had been involved in 7 real estate mortgage and "house-use pension" fraud cases in the police station.
In the face of evidence, the strong mother still seems to believe in her investment. The angry Xue Cheng asked her, "Isn't this trick the same as before? It's just more hidden, why do you still believe it?"
Wang Hong widened her eyes and said, "Ma Zhengjiang has the strength, but she is in a temporary difficulty." He has his own factory and the stock is approaching the repurchase period. "Any money I get will be repayed first."
fascinated by " Original stock listing grand plan"
Wang Hong's back is determined and almost desperate to take the lead. In 2019, she also joined the domestic shopping platform of Duoyoubao, through a friend's introduction. The form is similar to pyramid schemes, and they are both recruiting people to develop offline. Then go offline and then develop offline. Those who go offline will have commission commissions when shopping. In addition to shopping to develop membership, the most important thing is that the platform promises to go public on the Nasdaq in the United States in 2023, and all the points accumulated by members will be exchanged for original shares. Once the company goes public, they will become millionaires.
Wang Hong was appointed as a manager because of her clear conversation and profound knowledge, and managed more than 200 old men and women below. Wang Hong devoted himself to it with rare enthusiasm, held online meetings every day, and even worked overtime until one or two o'clock in the morning. She enjoyed it, conveyed the spirit of the meeting, and shouted to mobilize members to gather more relatives and friends around her to join the tide of entrepreneurship.
Wang Hong believed wholeheartedly that she was doing charity events that helped others. The platform claims "0 risks, 0 investment, 0 thresholds, 0 stockpiling", and it seems that members do not need to pay. Just listen to it, sign in, and swipe videos, which is to grab the wool from shopping malls such as Taobao and Pinduoduo.
This seems to be a magical platform. It gathers coupons from multiple online shopping platforms, and members can purchase products at very discounted prices. Renhe lead-length high-degree multi-dimensional mineral calcium tablets sold on Taobao for 149 yuan, and use coupons on Duoyoubao for only 19 yuan.In the platform's publicity, members are working hard to promote domestic products, and they are also trying to get the wool from Taobao, because Taobao investors are all Japanese and American. These confusing languages seem to be extremely useful among the elderly.
Duoyoubao product information
Wang Hong has invested great enthusiasm, not having salary, and has worked hard for three years to maintain the order of more than 200 elderly people in the group. She also signs in on Duoyoubao app on time every day and collects points. Duoyoubao even became her main online shopping platform for a while, and her home was filled with daily necessities she bought on it.
Duoyoubao slowly replaced the Taobao she usually uses. She needs it in daily life. As long as there are on the platform, she tries to shop at Duoyoubao. Generally, she has to spend about 200 yuan a month.
Incredible is that Duoyoubao, who has absorbed the remaining heat of many elderly people, recently stopped the members' shopping plans. Originally in the name of selling domestic goods, it was actually an online pyramid scheme platform, and it became a veritable pyramid scheme platform.
At the Tencent meeting, Li Xuedong, general manager of Baixing Guocai Headquarters, gave a great reason. He said excitedly, "Four ministries and commissions point out that intensify innovation to encourage enterprises to go public, let low-income people enter the middle-income people, and senior management expressed their opinions to cheer people for dreams!" In order to respond to the call, the shopping port is currently suspended. The current task focus is to develop new members for free and expand. "In the next four months, each person will develop at least 2-3 members per month. Let more people join the wealth aircraft carrier , time does not wait for anyone, wake up the family!"
Wang Hong was very excited when he listened to the high-pitched voice of the general manager. She took notes carefully while listening and recommended the platform to everyone she met. Wang Hong's recommendation words are also accustomed to using some grand vocabulary, such as "the platform pushes domestic products to drive domestic demand" and "consistent with the current national situation."
Daughter Xue Cheng looked at her mother's fanaticism and specifically reminded her that this is a typical scam. She also found that the platform used the excuse of helping the elderly to obtain "interest-free loans" as an excuse to obtain their personal ID card information and bank information. But Wang Hong didn't buy it. She firmly believed that she was doing a major event that benefited the people. Moreover, after the company goes public, she and her "comrades" around her will receive millions of dividends because they have accumulated enough points.
The old man in the torrent of the times
Although many lessons told Wang Hong that the dream of wealth will eventually be a bubble, she firmly believes that there will always be the next real opportunity waiting for her.
Daughter Xue Cheng was deeply helpless about his mother's obsession, and his wife at home also gave up on persuasion. Many people cannot understand that Wang Hong, who has been repeatedly beaten up in the torrent of the times, has been driven by persistence.
Is she greedy for money? There may be some, which are the reasons why my daughter Xue Cheng analyzed. However, Wang Hong provided her daughter with her daughter studying abroad in 2000. After returning to China, she gave her daughter and son-in-law a house and supported her daughter to have a child in the United States. All of this was huge expense. Relying on a monthly pension of 7,000 yuan, the couple's savings are consumed throughout their lives.
Wang Hong has been competing for the rest of her life and has never lost to others. In school, she strives to be a model soldier, and in the unit, she never missed any opportunity to further study. She dropped out of middle school in 1969 and became a telecommunications system operator. In order to make up for the regret of not attending college, she participated in on-the-job education and studied economics and management major, from junior high school and high school to secondary school graduation, realizing her "university dream".
She is not a person with a closed and short-sighted opinion either. At the end of 1999, as an outstanding cadre, Wang Hong visited the United States with the work inspection team of the unit. In 20 days, he visited many technology companies in many places. That was her highlight moment. Whenever she talked about this in the chat, her eyes would still shine, her self-awareness would be broad, and she had seen the outside world.
But the scroll scroll of the times was about to expand significantly, in 2006, she retired.At that time, China's Internet was entering a period of rapid development, e-commerce was rising, mobile Internet began to emerge, financial innovation and mass entrepreneurship were rising one after another, and thousands of wealth stories emerged in various fields. Real estate prices have risen repeatedly, and many myths of the middle class changing fate have been born. Everything is booming, and any investment is making a fortune.
When the surging era stretches out its tentacles to these old people who are out of track with the times, they also ignite their passion. Although Wang Hong was still good at writing eyebrows when she was 65 years old, she was burning small curly and liked to wear young trendy items, such as leopard scarves and baseball caps. She learned to use network software such as QQ and MSN to keep herself in line with the trend of the times, but she was still old after all, and her wife suddenly fell ill. She found that she could not find a car at all, so she was anxious to hold her mobile phone, and finally asked her daughter to help her call an online car-hailing car.
The law of survival she believed in in the past seemed to be no longer applicable in the next ten years. In the past, she believed whatever she heard, and there was no bad person in her eyes. Now that she is old, her behavior seems clumsy and absurd, and she is even deceived by some young people and turns to the point of turning around without knowing it. Everyone can make a few false promises to her, provide some fake documents, and apply illusory colors to her "golden dream".
She shouted the slogan "Make 5 million" at home, which became the "topic of conversation" for her family when chatting. Her "aggressive" and "working" are often incredible. But whether in the past or present, Wang Hong's ideas have not changed. The wealth she accumulated by relying on her own struggle when she was young has built her pride. As she is old, she believes that she can also find a sense of value and belonging again.
On the sofa in Wang Hong's living room, a huge "Five Blessings Picture" was hung. The five blessings are of different fonts, from Kangxi , Yongzheng , Qianlong, Jiaqing , and the imperial pen of the Five Emperors of Daoguang. The five characters are covered with square red seals, solemnly inlaid with gold edges, meaning "five blessings are coming" - "One is longevity, two is wealth, three is Kangning, four is Youhao virtue, and five is to test the end of life". This is a proof of her glorious first half of her life and also her expectation of blessings in her later years. It was just the illusion provided by the times, like a hurricane, which cruelly shattered it after supporting her full fantasy of wealth.
(At the request of the interviewee, Wang Hong, Xue Cheng, Ajin, Liu Feng and Ma Zhengjiang are all pseudonyms in the article.)
