Do not touch any "invest in elder care" pitch that makes the elder pay first: a card, a bed, an elder apartment, travel elder care, and selling elder products are the same illegal fund-raising

Elder-care labels that make the elder pay first and promise a return are all the same scam. Common ones are buying a card, buying a bed, buying an elder apartment, travel elder care, and selling elder products at a meeting. Under the rules, if this money is lost, you can only bear it yourself. A reported case took 136000000 yuan by pre-booking beds in an elder apartment and harmed more than 2100 people.

Cost

No cost. Read the labels below to the elder once. It takes a few minutes. After that, refuse on the spot: do not go to the lecture, do not go on the tour of the site, and do not leave a phone number. The hard part is that if the elder has already gone several times and gotten to know the people, they are harder to talk back out of it.

Benefit

The Ministry of Civil Affairs (民政部) lists five forms. Recognizing the label is more reliable than recognizing the person. The first is borrowing the name of an elder-care service agency: there is no real operation, they rent a site for a short time, and they claim a cooperation agreement with an elder-care home so they can trade on its name. The second is in the name of providing "elder-care services": they sell a "VIP card," a "membership card," or a "prepaid card," and have people prepay "elder-care service fees." The service they promise clearly exceeds the beds they can supply. The third is in the name of investing in an "elder-care project." Common labels are buying a stake in a wellness and elder-care base, and selling a fictional elder apartment. There is also long-term rental of elder-care beds, and "time bank" mutual-aid elder care. The cover is sales that promise to return the principal, leaseback after the sale, and an agreed repurchase. The fourth is in the name of selling "elder products": repurchase of goods, consignment sale, consumption rebates, free checkups, gifts, conference marketing, wellness lectures, and expert free clinics. The fifth is in the name of enjoying "travel elder care": cheap or free travel, stored-value rebates, and points-based elder care. The money cannot be got back. The regulation says so. Article 25 of the Regulations on Prevention and Disposal of Illegal Fund-raising (防范和处置非法集资条例) says, "Losses suffered from taking part in illegal fund-raising shall be borne by the participants themselves." Lost money can only be borne by the person who put it in. In officially reported cases, Dai and others illegally raised 136000000 yuan in the name of pre-booking beds in an elder apartment, with more than 2100 victims. Dai was sentenced to 15 years for fund-raising fraud and fined 400000 yuan. Cao, in the name of investing in the elder-care industry, committed fund-raising fraud of 13207000000 yuan, involving more than 110000 people. Cao was sentenced to life imprisonment, deprivation of political rights for life, and confiscation of all personal property. Conference sales of health products were prosecuted as fraud. Ni used free banquets, gifts, and a car to pick people up and drop them off, and pulled elders in to hear lectures. The lecturers used "a fake persona, fake cases, and an inflated price cut" to invent cancer-prevention and cancer-fighting effects. Elders were induced to buy "dihydroquercetin" (二氢槲皮素) at tens of times the cost price. Sales were more than 620000 yuan. Ni was sentenced to 10 years and 3 months and fined 120000 yuan (nationwide; the regulations took effect on 2021-05-01).

Notes

The judgment does not rest on "this place looks legitimate." It rests on "did they make you pay first, and did they promise a return." An elder-care home sells services. Once the talk adds investment, a rebate, or getting the principal back, do not trust it. An elder being taken to a lecture, a trip, or a free clinic is not itself illegal, and it is hard to stop. The step you can stop is the payment, used together with the two-person confirmation rule in item 3. If money has already been paid, immediately follow section 8, item 2 and call 110 or 96110 to ask for a payment stop. At the same time, report it to the local lead department for handling illegal fund-raising. Housing-for-pension is a different path: see item 6 (housing reverse mortgage insurance). The cap on deposits and membership fees at a legitimate nursing home, and the account that receives them, are in item 11 (a deposit of at most 12 months of bed fees). If a cheap tour took people into a shop and they bought something, see section 5, item 50 (a tour group taken into a shop).

Sources · 4

1. 民政部 (2023). 关于养老服务领域非法集资的风险提示. gov.cn/lianbo/bumen/202306/content_6886556.htm（中国政府网发布）；民政部、中国银保监会 (2021). 关于养老领域非法集资的风险提示. mca.gov.cn/n152/n164/c36171/content.html
2. 国务院 (2021). 防范和处置非法集资条例（国务院令第 737 号，第二、二十五、三十条）. gov.cn/zhengce/zhengceku/2021-02/10/content_5…
3. 最高人民检察院 (2022). 检察机关打击整治养老诈骗犯罪典型案例. spp.gov.cn/xwfbh/wsfbt/202206/t20220617_56001…
4. 最高人民法院 (2025). 依法惩治涉民生领域诈骗犯罪典型案例（案例五 倪某荣诈骗案）. court.gov.cn/zixun/xiangqing/482861.html