Job seeker found dead in Tianjin a victim of 'scam'

A university graduate who was found dead in Tianjin was reportedly lured into a scam that disguised itself as a recruitment firm before he died. The incident has sparked fierce online discussion over the safety of online recruitment.

The body of Li Wenxing, who graduated last year, was found on July 14 in a pool in Tianjin’s Jinghai district, which is noted for rampant fake recruiters.

Local police said it’s highly possible that the man was lured as he had with him a notebook with a note attached related to pyramid scheme. Autopsy showed that he drowned to death.

According to online media site jmdedu.com, which interviewed the victim’s family in Dezhou, Shandong, and friends, Li had received an offer from a company’s branch in Jinghai via recruitment app zhipin.com and was asked to start work in May before he went missing.

According to his family members, Li asked his mother in his last call to her not to give money to anyone and the 23-year-old, who never borrowed money, asked for money three times.

Several media companies were able to register as recruiters with fake information though zhipin.com closed this loophole on Monday morning.

Li’s senior high school classmate Ding Xiangcheng said Li discussed with him the offer before he left for Tianjin. The “company”, which disclosed itself as Beijing-headquartered software company Csii, decided to recruit him only after a phone interview.

Though suspicious that the offer might be a scam, he went to Tianjin. Li had been looking for work for a long time but had failed, said Ding.

Csii, however, said the two people who contacted Li, Xue Tingting and Wang Wenpeng, via the recruitment app don’t work for the company.

Zhao Peng, CEO of Zhipin, said his company takes a zero-tolerance approach against fake recruiters, but one loophole that the scam artists could exploit is that the company does not verify registered recruiters if they post complete information and only post one position.

The company said they have saved the data related to Li for police investigation.