It's a scam as old as scamming, and it's not limited to China — the clip joint. It's otherwise known as the "teahouse scam" or the "whisky scam" and, in Shanghai at least, always seems to happen on Nanjing Dong Lu and that area. It's even in the Merriam-Webster dictionary: "Clip joint — a place of public entertainment (such as a nightclub) that makes a practice of defrauding patrons (as by overcharging)." Here's the twist: It's now online (and probably has been for a while). Based on a comment we received on this article, the fraudsters have moved to online dating apps including Tantan, where they lure you out for dinner under the guise of a date, and then bill you for thousands of rmb in sake. Clever! Read the poor mark's whole comment after the jump.

The Quote:

"Few days ago i use Tantan, a chinese online dating app (to be clear its not my first time using it, i met few girls before without any complain). Simple story i got a match with this girl, we chat and she tell me want to meet up. I ask her wechat and try to video call her to make sure its not a fake account, she refuse to answer my video call but then she initiate to voice call me. Good enough i think. Then she give me some address for meetups tonight. Its somewhere around shandong middle road and hankou road (山东中路 汉口路). Its 8pm and we met at that specific location, its bit quiet there but few restaurants were open, we walk a bit and she ask me if i want to grab some food and let me choose which restaurant i’d like. Hearing that makes me build up a little bit trust in her and lower my guard down so i let her choose what she like and she ask me to go to the japanese restaurant inside the building infront of us. It was at the 6th floor, we re the only customer there and they let us take a private room. We order food and she order sake. Her english is almost perfect so its not that hard to getting close with her. Everything was fun, but then sake is keep coming and when the billed is arrived, it show 5850rmb! Fuck, I just realized that i being scammed! Luckily i put my saving at different bank account. So i use to transfer some money to wechat or alipay just for my daily basis. But still, i lost almost 2000rmb that night after i refuse to pay all and keep saying that thats the only money i have. After long debate that girl pay the rest. We split up right after that with that girl act like she is very sad because losing lot of money tonight. So today i tried again tantan and found out it had lot of similar account like the one who scammed me before : It has only one picture, less profile, and location in huangpu. So after had a match, i manage to chat 2 girls in order to found out more about their game. One is too obvious, she said shes alone at her house and ask me to come (too good to be true), the other one were chat normal but they both give me a similar address with girl who scammed me before : around shandong middle road and hankou road (山东中路 汉口路)! One girl said that there is a lot of good restaurant there and the other one even give me picture of a restaurant there which is the one where my last scammed girl said to me that i can choose the one i like!! Fuck! So i might come out with conclusion that all restaurant around that area might be their scamming places. Just avoid if u found similar case like this. Beware!"