15 suspects were detained by Shanghai police in connection with an alleged Coffee bar charging exorbitant prices for their coffee (and other items) to customers after luring them in with young women. more ›

A Nigerian scammer was slapped with a 6-year prison sentence by the Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People's Court for fraud amounting to over US$265,000 yesterday. more ›

A 60-year-old Shanghai man has been duped out of his savings after responding to a street advertisement for a healthy man to impregnate a rich woman in return for 1 million RMB. As if this wasn't humiliating enough, his friend has also taken him to court in order to retrieve the 6,000RMB he contributed towards the 'investment'. more ›

Lots of foreign scammers milling about in Shanghai doing their thing these days, it seems. First there was Ryan Fedoruk, the Canadian fake landlord who sublet 30 apartments to 80 tenants before fleeing with RMB300,000. And then yesterday, a Nigerian man was charged at the Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People's Court.for concealing criminal income totaling more than US$265,000, according to the Shanghai Daily: more ›

It's been a couple of days since we told you about Ryan Fedoruk, the Canadian scammer and fake landlord who sublet 30 apartments to 80 tenants before fleeing with RMB300,000, and still, the man is nowhere to be found. Victims tell Shanghaiist they were told by police on their last check a couple of days ago that Fedoruk still hasn't left China. But who knows? Our friend could have walked over a bridge to Vietnam without his passport, or trekked over from Tibet to India, or walked over the frozen Yalu River to the DPRK. more ›

"I know Fedoruk. He is a scammer and he ran away, owing me tens of thousands yuan," said a landlord victim who refused to be named. "He rented the apartments, then he sublet them and disappeared with the money he owed to me and to the poor tenants, but I will find him." more ›

Users of Shanghai Telecom's fiber optic internet were surprised last week when they found their internet speeds had been upgraded overnight from 2Mb and 4Mb, to 10Mb, 20Mb and even 30Mb! Though the upgrade is free, some entrepreneurial conmen (and women) cashed in on the opportunity by showing up on people's doorsteps asking for "upgrade fees" from unsuspecting residents! more ›

Shanghai taxi drivers are now increasingly pulling some magician stunts by swapping out your fully charged jiaotong ka (public transportation card) with an empty one using sleight-of-hand. more ›

• A 13-year-old girl was abducted by a couple who planned on raising her and marrying her to their 22-year-old son. In stereotypically creepy fashion, they claim they "did not know the girl was only 13." Someone call Chris Hanson.
• A salon owner skipped town with almost one million RMB after enticing some of his regular customers (and some staff) to deposit up to 50,000RMB onto their membership cards in anticipation of "promotional offers." For those who are wondering, given 100RMB for a haircut, 50,000RMB will buy you four haircuts a year for 125 years. We can't even imagine what kind of happy endings promotional offers that place was selling.
• The Shanghai government has its hands full trying to deal with 55,000 tons of rotting duckweed plants that were dredged from the Huangpu River. The plants originated from Zhejiang Province; perhaps we should send them back?

Local authorities announced a crack down today on what they term "underground ambulances," or black ambulances, who profit from the illegal long-distance transport of patients in and out of Shanghai. Often shoddily outfitted and misleading to customers, black ambulances pose a serious risk to patients who are ignorant of options and desperate to get home. more ›

Marriage is forever, unless you get divorced, or so the saying goes. Well, the Shanghai version also includes "or want to make some money really quick:" couples who divorce receive double the state's compensation for relocation, so the new trick is to get divorced, get paid, and then get remarried. more ›

When one thinks of scandalous lifestyles, university professors probably don't come to mind. But little did you know that once those books and thick-lensed glasses are put away, the real fun begins. In the past few weeks, Beijing University has been hit with two scandals involving both real and not-so-real professors. more ›

The deviant little grass mud horse has struck again - only this time, it's a real alpaca rather than an internet one that's the center of this controversy. According to Forbes Asia, two Chinese men used an elaborate scam to trick an oblivious 74-year-old Tennessean Alpaca farmer into giving them business visas. more ›

• Obama accepts invitations to visit China, Russia [AP] "President Barack Obama has accepted an invitation to visit China later this year. The White House said Wednesday that Obama has accepted an invitation from President Hu Jintao. Obama and Hu met in London ahead of the G20 economic summit."
• Chinese Inmates at Guantánamo Pose a Dilemma [NYTimes] "Mr. Hassan, an intense former college professor, is among some 300 exiles from western China’s Uighur Muslim minority who live peacefully in the Washington area, where the American government has supported their pro-democracy efforts. But while the United States is hosting Mr. Hassan and the others, it has been imprisoning 17 of their countrymen in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba."
• SARFT Tightens Grip on Online Videos [JLM Pacific Epoch] "The State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT) issued new regulations for audio-visual content broadcast online and via mobile Internet on March 30. Under the new rules, all films, TV series, cartoons and documentaries transmitted through Internet media must first obtain offline broadcasting licenses."

Funny. more ›

You know about getting tea-housed, you've heard about the 'art student' exhibitions, and now it's time to talk about fake red cabs. more ›

... and going with strange girls who want to practise their English to coffee shops is STILL a bad idea, folks. Yet another chump — this time a Swedish guy on a business trip — has fallen for the time-honoured scam by following a pair of temptresses who were "dressed like university students" (so wearing mortar boards, presumably) to the Manabe coffee shop on the 3rd floor of the Brilliance Shimao Plaza, Shanghai Daily reported... more ›