2 Tricks to Fight WeChat Transfer Frauds & Get Your Money Back

WeChat has undoubtedly made transferring money a lot more convenient and easier, but it can also get a little dodgy if you’re not careful enough.

This is particularly true when dealing with transactions for goods or services purchased online.

First scenario:

Here’s an example: you’re sending money to someone - say, an online merchant - but you’re not entirely sure how legitimate this merchant is. In other words, you’re sensing this might be a fraud and you’re falling into a trap.

The problem is, you’re having those second thoughts after having already sent the money, and the merchant already clicked to collect it. 

Is your money forever gone? Not quite.

There’s a hidden feature in WeChat that allows you to delay the time it takes for someone to transfer your money into their WeChat Wallet, which ensures that no one gets defrauded. 

To choose from the different options of this feature, click on "Me" and "WeChat Pay”, then click “..." at the top right corner, and “Payment Management”.

You’ll be presented with three options: to have your money transferred immediately, or to delay their transfer for 2 hours or 24 hours.

But what if you find out that the person you transferred the money to isn’t legitimate and you want your money back? What happens then?

Luckily, that’s possible too.

Step 1: Click "Me" → then hit the “WeChat Pay" menu.

Step 2: Click on your wallet and then the “Transaction” feature in the upper right corner.

Step 3: This is gonna prompt all your recent WeChat transactions. From there, just look for the “pending” payment you’d like to retrieve, tap it and you’ll find a “Complaint” option at the bottom.

Step 4: There you’ll be able to select the specific type of complaint you’d like to report. Do note that the last pages will most likely be in Chinese, so you may need the assistance of a Chinese friend or your translation app to navigate them.

Step 5: Attach a screenshot of the transfer you made for evidence, and click “Submit”. Once your complaint is reviewed and approved, you will be credited your money back into your Wallet.

Second scenario:

This time, you’re the person on the receiving end of the transfer and the transaction is legitimate. However, you find out that the money you’ve accepted has not yet been credited to your Wallet.

What can you do?

In this case, you should report the missing money to the Tencent 110 Mini Program immediately. Here’s how:

Step 1: Use the search button on the upper right corner to look for “Tencent 110” or 腾讯110 (long press to copy).

You can also go to the Mini Program directory directly from your “Discovery” menu.

Step 2: Look for the Tencent 110 Mini Program and hit the setting that reads (in Chinese) "I want to file a complaint."

Step 3: Fill in the information about the fraud you believe you’ve been a victim of, and submit your report to retrieve your money.

For instance, let’s say you choose to report an “Internet fraud”.

To "Report objects", you can add more than one account. 

For "Irregularities", you can choose the specific type of fraud that you’ve been a victim of.

To "report descriptions", read the below instructions: 

After reporting the incident to Tencent, you should also report it to the police and get a receipt of your report in case Tencent requires additional information and documents.

The worldwide web is a marvelous place, but it’s also filled with fraudulent activities. So be extremely careful when dealing with people you’ve never met and are unsure of!

Editor: Crystal Huang

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