Types of Scams

Preface

In the structural inequality of the digital society, the fraud suffered by the elderly in China is not merely a technical issue but rather a digital phenomenon deeply embedded in the power structure, digital broadcast mechanism, and daily life culture practices. The success of fraud is because it precisely adopts digital inequality, generational communication gaps, emotional trigger mechanisms, and symbolic logic of cultural authority. These kinds of mechanisms are correlational with digital capitalism, meaning allocation, the dissemination of false information, and inequality of digital participation. So this page discusses elderly fraud in China in two ways: authority-based fraud and emotional manipulation fraud.

Authority-Based Fraud

In the Chinese context, authoritative fraud is the most frequently encountered and most harmful type of fraud among the elderly population, and this kind of fraud succeeds because it disguises language format, visual symbols, and digital pages in a governmental (official) way to rapidly place the elderly in a symbolic position that is managed and monitored. For example, the fraudster stimulates governmental departments such as the public security authorities (police offices), the procuratorate, the security department of banks, or the medical insurance center, and through means like official announcements, case numbers, fake screenshots of the system, and forged electronic police officer certificates, has constructed a kind of institutional authenticity. The judgment resources and technical capabilities of the elderly in the digital environment are inherently relatively limited. As Pierri pointed out, participation in the digital realm has never been equal, and groups lacking digital proficiency and technical resources are structurally more likely to become vulnerable targets (Pierri). In this unequal structure, by re-presenting the official language, institutional fears, and legal threats, the fraudsters can create the reproduction of power in digital culture, causing users to lose their ability to question under the influence of fear and institutional pressure (Fisher). Taking a 67-year-old Shanghainese elderly, for example, the case where someone transferred 280,000 yuan to the scammer believing in the interview link of the National Anti-Fraud Center demonstrates how the fraud based on authority exploits the symbolic structure of power, rather than the lack of common sense of the elderly.

Emotion-Manipulation Fraud

Emotional manipulation-based fraud relies on the emotional transmission mechanism in digital culture and the distribution structure of digital information. Its deceptive power stems from the elder’s emotional investment in family relationships, health, and family ties, rather than from institutional authority. The fraudsters pretend to be the children, using information such as emergency assistance, accident news, and medical expenses to trigger the immediate emotional responses of the elderly, preventing them from making logical judgments. Digital platforms amplify intense emotions, causing users to skip critical judgment and take actions driven solely by emotions (Menders and Ringrose). For instance, the elderly would receive messages like “I am in trouble, Dad,” “The phone is broken; please use this number,” and “I urgently need money to handle the incident.” Under this emotional mechanism, one quickly enters the action mode. Meanwhile, the flow of information on the platform is not neutral; rather, it is shaped by the platform’s mechanisms and user behaviors, making it easier for disadvantaged users to repeatedly encounter certain emotional content (Degeling). Therefore, when elderly people in China frequently browse family and health-related information on the platform, they are also more likely to be targeted with similar fraudulent communication tactics. A 71-year-old man from Guangdong completed the transfer within just ten minutes after receiving a voice message saying, “Dad, I am in trouble because of a car accident.” As shown in the research by Deng and others, when there is no immediate digital support from younger family members, the judgment ability of the elderly will sharply decline under the emotional impact (Deng et al.). All in all, emotional manipulation-based fraud is the result of the combined influence of digital emotions and cultural ethics. Its root cause is not technology but rather the combination of emotional vulnerability and the structural risks of the digital environment.

Works Cited

Deng, Yue, et al. “” Auntie, Please Don’t Fall for Those Smooth Talkers”: How Chinese Younger Family Members Safeguard Seniors from Online Fraud.” Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2025.

Degeling, Jasmin. “Differential Distributions of the Digital: A Gender Media Studies Perspective on the Theory of Fascism and Current Digital Media Cultures.” Digital Culture & Education 15.2 (2024).

Fisher, Jolene. “Reshaping the battlefield: The international committee of the red cross, video games, and public relations.” Games and Culture 18.8 (2023): 1023-1042.

Mendes, Kaitlynn, Jessica Ringrose, and Jessalynn Keller. “# MeToo and the promise and pitfalls of challenging rape culture through digital feminist activism.” European Journal of Women’s Studies 25.2 (2018): 236-246.

Pierri, Paola. “Who Can Still Afford to do Digital Activism? Exploring the material conditions of online mobilisation.” Weizenbaum Journal of the Digital Society 4.1 (2024).