Persuasive Schemes for Financial Exploitation in Online Romance Scam: An Anatomy on Sha Zhu Pan (杀猪盘) in China

ABSTRACT

Sha Zhu Pan (杀猪盘, Pig-Butchering scam) is a new online romance scam targeting mainly Chinese-speaking individuals. While a few studies in Chinese have paid attention to Sha Zhu Pan, no study in English considers the role of scammers’ persuasive techniques in shaping the progress of fraudulent discourse. This study attempts to address this gap by analyzing the rhetorical moves of the Sha Zhu Pan scammers through using data from both victims and offenders. Victims’ testimonial data were collected from Zhihu, a prominent Chinese online platform for posting questions and answers and users’ personal experiences. This study also uses four complete police reports from law enforcement in China to provide objective evidences from offenders’ perspective in a natural setting. This study advances the model of criminal persuasion for Sha Zhu Pan developed from Gardner’s original persuasive framework. Such a model points out the type of persuasive techniques that the Sha Zhu Pan scammers frequently use during different stages of the scam. The results reflect a preliminary understanding of scammers’ behaviors, showing that the language of this financially and emotionally devastated crime indeed follows a premeditated arrangement. Moreover, such evidences can also support the proposal of related theoretical and policy implications for researchers, the government in China and other countries.

KEYWORDS:

• Online romance scam
• Sha Zhu Pan (杀猪盘)
• persuasion
• financial exploitation
• offender behavior

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Good news refers to offering victims some amazing investment opportunities, for example, having a chance to upgrade to VIP membership to win bigger rewards or get free extra money by depositing a designated amount of money to their accounts. Bad news hints at victims’ illegitimate operations on their account, which result in the suspension of accounts unless paying a huge amount of fine.