Fraudulent pyramid scheme
Southern Weekly found that while Yufit's salespeople use social media platforms as part of their customer outreach, the company also uses traditional advertisements to attract off-line meet-ups.
Every month, the company holds "body shaping training" sessions for its salespeople, taught by Yufit trainers. In March, one class was attended by over 6,000 salespeople coming from all over China.
Many of the company's "body fat managing trainers" claim to be certified from the Capacity Building and Continuing Education Center of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, a title they brag about when trying to sell cookies to customers.
But when a Southern Weekly reporter checked the center's official website, it is stated there that there are some people who are fraudulently claiming to have been certified by the center. Among a list of fraudulent titles, "body fat managing trainer" is one of them.
Consumers are also questioning if Yufit's sales strategy is similar to a pyramid scheme. Southern Weekly spoke with a number of Yufit salespeople who said the company pays them a dividend based on the number of new agents they can recruit.
The more new agents recruited, the higher position - and higher dividends - a salesperson can receive. Yufit salespeople also revealed that they do not need to possess the product when making a sales call; the company itself ships the product directly to consumers.
Hunan-based lawyer Xie Hui told Southern Weekly that Yufit's company operations resembles a classic pyramid scheme. "The profits are not earned by sales, but by dividends from recruiting new members," he said.
Catering to the lazy
Yufit is one of many Chinese companies preying on appearance-obsessed young adults by roping them into unproven weight loss plans. According to media reports, many consumers fall into such trappings every year in China.
Quanzhou Evening News reported in 2016 that some local medical clinics provide massage and acupuncture weight loss programs. These clinics use slogans such as, "300 yuan per 2.5 kilograms."
When a reporter visited one such clinic, he found a small room with a bed and some traditional Chinese medicine equipment. The shop used cupping therapy, charging from 200 to 1,000 yuan per package. When asked about her qualifications, the masseuse only said she was trained in Tianjin. A certificate to legally operate a beauty salon was the only document in sight.
Customers who have visited such clinics complain that they spent thousands of yuan without seeing any results. One woman told media she spent 3,460 yuan on a TCM weight-loss package, but not only did she not see any results, she suffered an injury on her cheek due to improper cupping.
Weight loss teas and medicines have also become hot commodities in recent years, a phenomenon that suggests a growing number of Chinese young adults are over-anxious about their body weight and shape.
According to a 2014 report, the obesity rate of Chinese elementary school children over 7 reached 12.2 percent, compared with just 2.1 percent in 1985. It is expected that, by 2030, over 28 percent of all children in China between the ages of 7 and 18 will be clinically overweight or obese. In the adult world, there's even more pressure on controlling one's body and shape.
But searching on the Internet, one often will not find scientifically proven weight loss methods. Instead, the Internet and social media have become plagued with scams and false advertisements attempting to trick people into paying big money for quackery.
Experts believe that people voluntarily fall into these schemes simply because it seems to offer painless, easy and fast ways to lose weight. "Compared with what you have to pay to sweat and exercise, diets cater to the needs of lazy people," Cao Lin, a commentator, wrote about this issue for China Youth Daily.
Even though hundreds of thousands of Chinese are cheated out of their hard-earned money every year from deceptive weight-loss schemes, just as many people willingly and even knowingly sign up. Although Yufit has been questioned and criticized widely on the Internet, its official website still exhibits an advertisement claiming that its "healthy, fat-reducing technology has helped 200,000 people lose an accumulative 2,000 tons."
