Millions of Students Scammed and Stranded — All Their Money Gone in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai

We're seeing college students with suitcases everywhere. Crowds and crowds of them. And this is just a fraction. Even under the overpass, students are packed in, hiding from the brutal heat. Right now, under this scorching sun, agents are still pulling in more people. But Kunshan is completely overwhelmed. For those who haven't come yet, watch these real videos, see the truth. And ask yourself, do you still want to come? Don't. Don't come. Everyone here is stranded. There are no jobs. The whole area is flooded with desperate students, lured here by black-hearted agents. Did the agents stop picking up your calls? Of course. Did they take your money? Yep, 100 yuan per person. We were running around yesterday, and today we're still running around. Why not go home? Because I just wanted a summer job. Legit jobs don't charge fees. If they ask for money, they're scammers. Tell them straight, if you don't refund me, I'm calling the police. You promised a job and took my money for nothing. It's already past 3 p.m., and just look at the scene. Still packed with stranded students. So many left behind. Who doesn't have a child at home hoping to lighten their parents' load this summer? These kids just want to earn a little, to help their families. They'd rather be playing games in air-conditioned rooms. But no, they came here to fight for something better. I, Liu Banjiang, am standing here telling you the truth from the bottom of my heart. Parents, students, please don't come. Don't come. Anyone asking for money up front is scamming you. Yes, summer jobs are supposed to help college students grow and earn a little for living expenses. But lately, it's scam after scam, and the damage is heartbreaking. So how did you two end up here? We found an agent online. They promised 25 yuan an hour. But when we arrived, it was only 6 yuan. Why did you believe them? This is our first summer working. We didn't know better. We just wanted to earn something to help our parents. But we lost everything. He told us wages were good and asked for 50 yuan to reserve a spot. So we paid. We thought it meant we'd be guaranteed something. But when we got there, he said the factory was full and sent us to a different one, only 6 yuan an hour. And it didn't stop there. The agent even demanded 50 yuan more for the car fare to take them to the factory. The kids paid. Why? Because he drove us so far. Gas costs money, right? These kids, so young, so trusting, don't even realize they're being used. Why didn't you stay at that factory? We couldn't handle the jobs, heavy labor with men. We just couldn't do it. Didn't you ask to be moved? He said that was the only factory taking students, no other options. So what now? I'm going home tomorrow. It's just too hard. Did you buy tickets? No. We spent almost all our money. Right now, the Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai region has collapsed. No more student jobs. Students, please don't come anymore. The reality is there are no jobs left. Photovoltaic factories are running dry with zero orders. New energy plants are rejecting applicants. Even entry-level semiconductor jobs now demand a college degree. Even CIMC Shanghai is laying off workers in droves. This is no longer about low wages for student workers. This is about factories having no room at all. Labor agents here have hundreds of students waiting, but there's simply nothing to assign. Zero opportunities. If you're under 22, listen up. Many factories now check bank salary flow, no transaction history, you're out. Even if you're a student worker, the rare job you do land pays terribly. And often, you physically can't even handle it. Underage students, do not come out. More and more people are telling me they were lured by high wages of 20-plus yuan an hour. But when they arrived, they were milked dry. Bedding fees, ID photo fees, physical exam fees, resettlement fees, dorm fees, factory deposits, information fees. Every step is a trap. Blogger Hou Gege revealed that this July, millions of students flocked to Guangdong for jobs. He warned, Dongguan and Huizhou, the most black-hearted agents Shenzhen, the most tricks Guangzhou, the most scams. In his video, he broke down the entire scam process. You see a job post, decent pay, 22-24 yuan an hour, with food and housing. It looks real. You're hooked. You message the agent or factory recruiter. They direct you to a subway station. When you arrive, you see other students, so you assume it's safe. Then the brainwashing starts. You need to apply for a SIM card to open a bank account for payroll. You need to buy a 200 yuan bedding set. Don't worry, it's reimbursed. Tempted by promises and pressure, you pay. Next, they shove you into a bus, then charge you 200 yuan for the ride. Again, they say it's reimbursed. You hesitate, but you cave. But once you arrive at the factory, bam, the salary is just a dozen yuan. You panic. It hits you. You've been scammed. You message the agent. Blocked. Gone. Your money? Almost empty. You're left with no choice. Stay and work for 9 yuan hour. Think 9 yuan is the bottom? Think again. This year, most jobs are offering 6 yuan an hour. Take it or leave it. The economy is in freefall. Suitable summer jobs? Almost none. If you go out now, you'll either be underpaid or scammed. If you can't find a job, just go home. Don't drag this out for two painful months. Take it as a harsh lesson in real life. One that'll make you understand your parents' struggles. You're still young. Study hard. Real jobs will come. Look around Suzhou. It's packed daily. Factories that do open for student workers fill up immediately. Even if you reach the door, you may not even get interviewed, let alone hired. It's a bloodbath. Now it's total exploitation. Some factories set wages at 110 yuan per day. 12-hour shifts. That's 9 yuan hour. Brothers and sisters, are you really okay with this? Stop being greedy. You'll end up with nothing. Right now, student workers are stuck. Heartbreaking scenes. Students squatting in the sun. Lost, scammed, and stranded. They were dragged out by buses in the morning. Left on the streets. Their bedding torn. Suitcase wheels broken. And the last of their school savings? Gone. My colleagues in Henan say, the kids there grow up fast, independent, and want to work early. That's admirable. But I'm begging parents and students, stop. There's only one outcome. You feed the scammers. Once the students are robbed, there are three paths. Parents pay for the child's return trip. Students cave in, accept garbage jobs with garbage pay. Students who know the law report the agent. But it all ends in pain. 6 yuan hour. All 6 yuan. I warned you not to come to the Guangdong lines. But no one listened. Are students not human anymore? Now in Guangdong, countless students have been robbed by these predators. Paying for exams, registration, transportation, bedding. And still jobless, stranded, hopeless. Do you really think people will still pay to get into factories? Again, never trust anyone who asks for car fares, sim cards, medical checks. Before you get a job, stay calm. If you find real work, do it. If not, treat this as a rough trip and walk away. Don't become a pawn. To those who haven't gone out for summer jobs yet, don't. It's a nightmare now. Stranded students are everywhere, tricked by shady labor services into giving up everything for nothing. What were these agents thinking? No jobs, but you still recruit? You fake high wages, pretend you're factory HR. But you're just middlemen running scams. Students are sleeping in the streets. Their money is gone. No hotel, no food. It's heartbreaking. You labor agents, have you no shame? Fellow citizens, please forward this. Protect the next student from falling into the same trap. Severe recession hits Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. Homeless flood Silicon Valley of China. China's economy is spiraling downward, and even Beijing can no longer keep up the facade. The political bureau of the CPC Central Committee convened an emergency meeting, and for once, dropped the empty slogans. Instead of boasting about a bright future, they quietly acknowledged that deep cracks have formed in the economy. The wealthy are quietly escaping, while a new wave of emigration is spreading across Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. Meanwhile, life for ordinary people has descended into hardship and hopelessness. Amid the US-China trade war and the CCP's tightening grip, businesses are collapsing by the thousands, and foreign investors are fleeing. Shenzhen, once hailed as the Silicon Valley of China, has entered its darkest winter. The city is now haunted by mass unemployment. Some are sleeping rough under bridges. One mainland blogger filmed the scene. This is the overpass by East Station in Shenzhen. Do you see them? These are the homeless. Recently, more and more Chinese bloggers are exposing the economic decay of Shenzhen. Videos show people sprawled under bridges, in public squares, and behind office buildings— not beggars, but software engineers, construction workers, and food delivery riders. By day, they desperately search for work. By night, they sleep in the open air. Many survive on instant noodles and tap water just to stay alive. Li Yuanhua, an Australian-based scholar, commented, Shenzhen was once a beacon of development. Now, its companies are vanishing, and people are sleeping in parks and under bridges. This is the true face of China's economic collapse. The ordinary people? They have no jobs left. Post-COVID, China's economy has crumbled. With foreign capital in full retreat, Shenzhen's manufacturing and service sectors have taken a brutal hit. Today, the city is in freefall. Waves of jobless workers roam the streets, and even highly skilled professionals are among them. One female blogger described a haunting scene. I stood on the overpass near Sanhei Talent Market in Longgang District. Below me, the ground was covered with migrant workers. They can't even afford a 15-yuan bed for the night, so they sleep on the steps. This is Shenzhen. Video after video paints the same bleak picture. Over the past two or three years, Shenzhen's streets have become a refuge for the unemployed. Ai Shicheng, former founder and editor-in-chief of Shenzhen NPO, explains, Since the pandemic, foreign investors and private businesses have pulled out, many heading to India and Vietnam. With the giants gone, the entire industrial chain has collapsed. Countless people lost their livelihoods. With no safety net, they've ended up on the streets. Driven mad by poverty, the CCP is targeting the little people, and local governments are pulling out all the dirty tricks. As China's economy keeps sinking, and local governments face severe cash shortages, a disturbing trend is taking hold across the country. Fines as revenue. From traffic police to urban inspectors, from market regulators to sanitation squads, they're all stepping up enforcement, raising fines, and harassing citizens. The public is outraged. Interviewees reveal that highway tolls have quietly doubled, and random fines are everywhere. The common saying now is, whenever the government runs out of money, it prints tickets. Not cash, but fines. Kui Guanwu, a resident of Shenzhen, said on June 24th that local finances are crumbling, and now law enforcement is openly tasked with squeezing money out of the people. There's no money coming from land sales anymore, so they're sending traffic police and city inspectors to hunt for fines. It's relentless. I just saw a young man fined 2,000 yuan for not wearing a helmet while riding an e-bike. And if you carry goods or passengers? Boom. Another 2,000 yuan. For many families, that's half a month's income. The poorer you are, the harder they hit. Urban law enforcement is becoming just as ruthless. Su Qiang from Suzhou said that despite national guidelines to go easy on street vendors, the crackdown continues. Now they fine 20 yuan a time. Not much. But vendors treat it like paying protection fees. In some cities, the fines are 800 or 2,200 yuan. How much can you even earn selling street food? He added bitterly, This isn't management. It's exploitation. When they can't collect taxes, they come after the weakest. And it's not rare. According to Legal Daily, a farmer in Jiangsu was fined 100,000 yuan for making just 180 yuan profit selling sheep. Only after public outrage did authorities reduce the fine to 10,000 yuan. But the damage was done. It's not just vendors. Small and medium enterprises are also drowning under a tidal wave of inspections and fines. A company in Shandong was hit with hundreds of inspections between 2021 and 2023, crippling its ability to operate. The numbers expose the trend. In 2024, China's non-tax revenue hit a staggering 4.47 trillion yuan, up 25.4% from the year before. These revenues include countless administrative fees and fines, a lifeline for broke local governments. Under pressure from backlash, the State Council issued a guideline in January 2024 limiting inspections to once every three months and demanding standardization. The Ministry of Justice even launched a national campaign to root out abusive practices. Random fines, random checks, random seizures. But on the ground, it's business as usual. Central policies, local tricks. People say it everywhere. Ordinary citizens are just as trapped as the businesses. Toll hikes, cross-province fines, forced purchases. Anything to raise money. Mr. Zheng, a Shanghai resident traveling in Guizhou, said the toll has doubled from 0.5 yuan to 1 yuan per kilometer. Even discounts for senior citizens at tourist sites are quietly raised from age 60 to 65. Everything is going up. Highways, tickets. They're bleeding us dry. Zhang Xiaonong from Changsha shared that his friend's garment factory was forced by the fire department to buy expensive escape ladders, or face fines. Then, in a bizarre twist, police from another province fined the company 500,000 yuan over alleged infringement. They called it cross-province law enforcement. Hubei police fined a company in Changsha? It's madness. Ms. Wang, a retired teacher from Langfang, Hebei, added, A gas bottle used to be 70 yuan. Now the government forces us to switch to designated bottles that cost 140. If you don't change it, you don't get gas. Isn't that just forced consumption? An investigation by the paper reveals even more shocking data. In some provinces, non-tax revenues have more than doubled this year. Hebei, Hubei, Shanxi, all have refused to disclose how much they've collected in fines and seizures. The lack of transparency is fueling even more suspicion. And now even blockbuster films are starting to reflect public fury. The situation is turning critical. China's economy is under siege. China is now grappling with some of its toughest economic challenges in decades. One of the most devastating blows has come from the U.S.-China trade war. Since 2018, sweeping U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods have shattered China's export machine. Overseas market shares are shrinking fast, and countless factories are bleeding orders. Worse still, many manufacturers have packed up and moved to lower-cost hubs like Vietnam and India, leaving China's once-dominant role in the global supply chain in freefall. On another front, the tech war with the United States is suffocating China's high-tech ambitions. With Washington cutting off access to cutting-edge semiconductors and communications tech, China's dream of becoming a tech superpower is hitting a wall. Sectors like 5G, AI, and chip manufacturing are now facing brutal bottlenecks, and homegrown tech companies are struggling to survive under the crushing weight of sanctions. But the pressure isn't just from America. Europe is also sounding the alarm. Although the EU and China remain deeply intertwined economically, Europe is increasingly skeptical of Beijing's closed-door policies on market access and IP protection. Chinese firms' aggressive low-price strategies have rattled small and mid-sized European businesses, sparking a wave of protectionist responses. The EU is tightening scrutiny on Chinese imports, and the message is clear. Resistance is rising. Meanwhile, the exodus of foreign capital has become a ticking time bomb. Global companies are fleeing, moving operations out of China in search of more stable ground. This wave of relocation is hollowing out China's world factory status, draining foreign exchange reserves, and erasing millions of job opportunities. What's fueling this retreat? China's tightening grip on national security. Harsh laws like the counterespionage law and the data security law have sent chills through foreign boardrooms. Though touted as national defense, these regulations are stoking fears that China is closing its doors. The result? A full-blown confidence crisis. Global investors are now asking the uncomfortable question, is China still open for business?