With no need to see a doctor or have an injection, healthcare has become an essential tool of hygiene for the elderly in China. But knowing that it is a trap, why are so many old people fooled?
According to survey data from the China Health Care Association, current annual sales of healthcare products in China total approximately ¥200 billion, of which more than 50 percent is consumed by the elderly. In addition, more than 65 percent of the elderly are in the habit of using healthcare products. Among the channels for obtaining such, the proportion of elderly people buying it themselves is tipping 40 percent.
The elderly have a great demand for hygiene, and with many a fraudster aware of this, they are sitting ducks.
Their descendants may use the internet, but the majority of old people still receive their information from television, and many retain the habit of reading newspapers. The liars are keenly aware that this is a typical media isolation.
The Terrifying Consequences of Isolation
Swindlers are more than aware that the elderly lived through a specific era in which people liked to believe in authority. It is simple to hire an actor to play different roles. He can be a professor at Peking University this year, Li Shizhen’s great-great-great-grandson next year. On the other channel, he’s a guru in Traditional Chinese Medicine.
- 8 Decades of Volunteer Warriors Fight Covid-19 in Rural Nanjing
- China’s Aging Population; The Town with 440 Centenarians
- Elderly Care Dispute Highlights Growing Social Change in Nanjing
Then there are the shills who first describe painful symptoms before eating certain health supplements, and then praise their effect as really good. Coincidentally, they are now on special offer.
Filial piety is a traditional virtue in China; children are filial to their elders. In addition to relatives and friends, there is also a kind of people who fake filial piety, who may be healthcare scammers.
One day, a friend who has been familiar with this correspondent since childhood told the Nanjinger that his grandmother had recently become obsessed with healthcare products. She had spent tens of thousands of yuan, while her children were angry but helpless. The grandmother has no obvious major diseases apart from the high blood sugar, high blood pressure and high cholesterol that are common among older people. Why did she buy health supplements?
Old people get excited when they hear scammers bragging about their products and are quick to pull out their retirement savings.
The Malicious Filial Hygiene Cheaters
With her offspring very busy at work, coming home late every day, the grandmother is inevitably lonely. But she is also (relatively) rich.
It doesn’t take much brains to be a crook in this scenario.
What they are good at is sweet talk. These cheaters greet the elderly with warmth every holiday and festival, often coming to “accompany” them, using the names “dad” and “mom” to confuse them, giving them a massage and washing their feet.
With their weakened judgment ability accumulating over time, so the lonely elderly shift their emotional needs to the frauds. They might not just buy some health products, they may also happily hand over one or two hundred thousand without hesitation.
Free Eggs are Key to Conning the Elderly
In today’s modern Chinese society, young people mostly linger in their own little world, ignorant of their parents’ and elders’ past.
Health care frauds have thoroughly studied the growth experience of the elderly in China. They know that most of China’s old people have experienced hardships and struggled to survive. They were short of food and clothes for a long time, while their material views and understanding are very different from those of young people.
- 4,000 Years of Fitness; Workouts Invented by the Chinese
- China’s Active Aunties; Square Dancing a Hit in Melbourne
- Communist Housing Adopts “Rent-a-Lift” to Aid Elderly
The specific routine usually starts with a free gift, often cabbage or eggs. At the gates of residential communities, it is common to seen banners proclaiming, “Buy Healthcare products; Receive Food & Daily Necessities”. The “necessities” they receive are more than likely fake, low-quality and unhygienic products.
False guarantees are commonplace. As soon as they get the money, the scammers are off.
Despite the complexity of the issue, there are two basic reasons why older people are deceived.
A Fear of Death & Emotional Loneliness
Old people just want to be healthy and spend more fun time with their loved ones. But the majority just don’t get either.
It can be seen from the fraudsters’ tricks that, whether from fear or a lack of emotion, the elderly simply lack companionship. Their cravings are over and over again slowly exhausted in the helplessness of their children’s busy career. Exhausted lives lived too far apart.
The role of loved ones has been replaced by frauds selling fake medicine in the name of hygiene.
