Zhao, a 30-something woman living in Beijing, says she lost over $100,000 in May to a romance scammer who claimed to be a researcher working for Microsoft. After initially chatting Zhao up on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu, he asked to move their conversation to Microsoft Teams, where he was happy to provide her with an account and password she could use.
\n\n“I didn’t think much because I had used this app before. And since it was developed by Microsoft, I kind of trusted it,” says Zhao, who requested to use only her last name for privacy reasons.
\n\nOnce they switched to Teams, the scammer began promising to build a future with Zhao when they eventually got together and introduced her to a cryptocurrency investment project, which he said would turn a profit much faster than trading stocks. Zhao says that at first, she was excited about the opportunity, and even took out loans from several banks so she could invest more.
\n\nThen the scammer disappeared with all of her money. Because she can no longer log into the Teams account he told her to use, she can’t share the chat logs with police.
\n\nAfter Zhao began talking about…
Original source: https://www.wired.com/