Microsoft Teams Has Become a Haven for Scammers in China
Microsoft Teams Has Become a Haven for Scammers in China
微软 Teams 已成为中国诈骗分子的避风港
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.
居住在北京的 30 多岁女性赵女士表示，她在今年 5 月被一名自称是微软研究员的“杀猪盘”诈骗者骗走了超过 10 万美元。对方最初在小红书上与赵女士搭讪，随后要求将聊天转移到微软 Teams 上，并主动为她提供了一个账号和密码供其使用。
“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.
“我当时没多想，因为我以前用过这个软件。而且既然是微软开发的，我多少还是信任它的，”出于隐私考虑，赵女士要求仅使用其姓氏。
Once 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.
转到 Teams 后，诈骗者开始承诺与赵女士共筑未来，并向她介绍了一个加密货币投资项目，声称其盈利速度远超股票交易。赵女士说，起初她对这个机会感到兴奋，甚至从多家银行贷款以投入更多资金。
Then 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.
随后，诈骗者卷款消失。由于她无法再登录对方提供的 Teams 账号，她也无法向警方提供聊天记录作为证据。
After Zhao began talking about her experience on social media, she says she started hearing from dozens of other people in China who have fallen prey to the same scheme. They claim to have lost anywhere from $1,500 to $300,000, and only one reported that they were able to recover some of the funds—by tracking down the recipient’s bank account.
在赵女士将自己的经历发布到社交媒体后，她收到了中国各地数十名受害者的反馈，他们都遭遇了同样的骗局。受害者声称损失金额从 1,500 美元到 30 万美元不等，其中只有一人表示通过追踪收款人的银行账户追回了部分资金。
The victims all describe the same pattern. At some point, they were instructed to download Microsoft Teams and log in using credentials provided by the scammers. The tactic has become so common that some local law enforcement bureaus in China have issued warnings explicitly naming Teams as a tool used by scammers, with one even describing it as a “fraud-related app.” Maimai, a Chinese platform similar to LinkedIn, told Chinese media outlets last year that if it detected high-risk keywords in messages like “Teams” and “Skype,” it would automatically warn users about how to avoid getting scammed.
受害者们描述的作案手法如出一辙：在交流过程中，他们被要求下载微软 Teams 并使用诈骗者提供的凭据登录。这种手段已变得非常普遍，以至于中国一些地方公安机关已发布预警，明确将 Teams 列为诈骗工具，甚至有部门将其描述为“涉诈 App”。中国职场社交平台脉脉去年曾向媒体表示，如果系统检测到“Teams”或“Skype”等高风险关键词，会自动向用户发出防诈骗提醒。
For years, alleged scam victims have been writing angry reviews of Microsoft Teams on Chinese app stores, some warning others not to download it. WIRED analyzed the past 18 months of reviews of Teams on Apple’s Chinese app store, and found that out of 500, 30 percent included explicit complaints about scammers. The oldest review calling out scams dated all the way back to 2022.
多年来，疑似受害者一直在中国的应用商店中对微软 Teams 留下愤怒的评论，警告他人不要下载。《连线》（WIRED）分析了过去 18 个月苹果中国应用商店中关于 Teams 的 500 条评论，发现其中 30% 包含对诈骗行为的明确投诉。最早提到此类诈骗的评论甚至可以追溯到 2022 年。
“The scammers had me register for this app so they could contact me, and they defrauded me of RMB 1.48 million [$220,000]. The police have opened a case,” reads one review from January of this year. “This was unquestionably a ‘pig-butchering’ scam. Beware of fraud—this was a bitter and costly lesson!”
“骗子让我注册这个软件以便联系，骗了我 148 万元人民币。警方已经立案，”今年 1 月的一条评论写道，“这毫无疑问是‘杀猪盘’。大家小心诈骗，这是血的教训！”
Microsoft says scammers routinely exploit trusted brands and communication platforms to carry out social engineering schemes. As these tactics evolve, the company says it “investigates reports of abuse, takes action against accounts that violate our policies, and continues to strengthen protections designed to identify and disrupt fraudulent activity,” Steven Masada, the global head of Microsoft’s digital crimes division, said in a statement to WIRED.
微软表示，诈骗者经常利用知名品牌和通信平台进行社会工程学诈骗。微软数字犯罪部门全球负责人 Steven Masada 在给《连线》的声明中表示，随着这些手段的演变，公司正在“调查滥用报告，对违反政策的账户采取行动，并继续加强旨在识别和阻断欺诈活动的保护措施。”
In June, Microsoft started displaying a general warning banner to Teams users in China cautioning them about common scams and urging them to be careful when sharing sensitive information. The company also discontinued the personal version of Teams in China, and the service is now only available in the country through enterprise accounts.
今年 6 月，微软开始向中国的 Teams 用户显示通用警告横幅，提醒他们注意常见骗局，并敦促他们在分享敏感信息时保持谨慎。此外，微软已在中国停止提供个人版 Teams，目前该服务仅通过企业账户提供。
On Chinese social media, people have also reported experiencing variations of the scam involving other corporate software apps, including Webex, a video conferencing platform owned by Cisco, and Cliq, a workplace communication app owned by the Indian software giant Zoho. Since February 2025, 71 percent of the over 150 reviews of Webex on Apple’s Chinese app store referenced being scammed on the platform, according to WIRED’s analysis. Cisco did not respond to a request for comment.
在中国社交媒体上，也有用户报告称遭遇了涉及其他企业软件的类似骗局，包括思科旗下的视频会议平台 Webex，以及印度软件巨头 Zoho 旗下的办公通讯应用 Cliq。据《连线》分析，自 2025 年 2 月以来，苹果中国应用商店中关于 Webex 的 150 多条评论中，有 71% 提到了在该平台上被骗的经历。思科未回应置评请求。
Sam Wunderl, a spokesperson for Zoho, says the company has identified “a limited number of instances involving scammers using Zoho Cliq to defraud victims.” The company says it uncovered the suspicious usage internally. As of August 27, Zoho says it disabled online payments to Cliq in China, suspended every account created by the suspected scammer it identified, and plans to discontinue the free version of Cliq in China going forward.
Zoho 发言人 Sam Wunderl 表示，公司已发现“少量诈骗者利用 Zoho Cliq 实施诈骗的案例”。公司称已在内部排查中发现了这些可疑使用行为。截至 8 月 27 日，Zoho 表示已关闭中国区的 Cliq 在线支付功能，封禁了所有被识别为诈骗者的账户，并计划未来在中国停止提供 Cliq 免费版。
All Roads Go to Teams
条条大路通 Teams
According to dozens of victim accounts shared on Chinese social media platforms like Xiaohongshu and Douyin, the scammers look for new targets seemingly anywhere they can. They pose as job recruiters looking to fill open positions, prospective renters contacting landlords, potential dates on Tinder, and international buyers looking to source products from Chinese factories.
根据小红书和抖音等中国社交媒体平台上数十名受害者的叙述，诈骗者似乎在任何地方寻找目标。他们伪装成招聘人员、联系房东的租客、Tinder 上的约会对象，以及从中国工厂采购产品的国际买家。
The scammers take advantage of Teams’ enterprise features by creating accounts for their targets and sending them pre-made login credentials. Because the scammers control the organization, they can deactivate the accounts once the scheme is over, wiping out victims’ access to chat histories that could be potentially used as evidence. To explain the unusual setup, scammers may tell victims they’re using work devices that only allow certain apps, or say they created a private Teams account just for the two of them to chat.
诈骗者利用 Teams 的企业功能，为目标创建账户并发送预设的登录凭据。由于诈骗者控制着组织后台，他们可以在骗局结束后停用账户，从而抹除受害者作为证据的聊天记录。为了解释这种不同寻常的沟通方式，诈骗者会告诉受害者，他们使用的是仅允许安装特定软件的工作设备，或者声称这是专门为两人聊天而创建的私人 Teams 账号。
It turned out that some of the other victims who contacted Zhao had encountered the very same scammer she had. One was able to share Teams login credentials with her. This time, Zhao pretended to be a new potential victim in order to hopefully trick the scammer into providing more information about how his ruse worked.
事实证明，联系赵女士的其他受害者中，有人遭遇了与她相同的诈骗者。其中一人向她分享了该诈骗者的 Teams 登录凭据。这一次，赵女士假装成新的潜在受害者，试图诱导诈骗者提供更多关于其骗局运作方式的信息。
She asked why he had to use Teams instead of WeChat, by far the most popular messaging app in China. The scammer claimed his colleagues could see his WeChat messages because he was on a work project, so Teams “is like our secret base together.” The account he gave Zhao, he…
她问对方为什么要用 Teams 而不是中国最常用的微信。诈骗者声称，由于他在参与一个工作项目，同事可以看到他的微信消息，所以 Teams “就像是我们两人的秘密基地”。他给赵女士的那个账号，他……