Chinese live-streamer fools 10-year-old boy into donating $19k then blocks him

A father in Inner Mongolia recently learned an expensive lesson not to leave his son to his own devices.

The father, known only as Sun, was shocked to discover that his 10-year-old son had dropped over 100,000 yuan (S$19,400) in gifts on a live-streamer who had solicited donations from him.

The boy, identified as Xiao Ming, had gotten into video games like King of Glory and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds over the summer holidays and would play them on his grandmother's phone daily, reported Pearvideo.com.

He had also become a diehard fan of a gaming live-streamer on Kuaishou, a video sharing platform, and wanted to game together with him.

The live-streamer agreed, but for a price.

He asked Xiao Ming to send him virtual gifts such as crowns and WeChat red packets, even sending over photos and instructions teaching the boy how to do so.

These gifts serve as an online tip jar of sorts for live-streamers and is a source of income for them.

"He would only game with me after I fulfilled all his requests," said Xiao Ming.

"I knew sending virtual gifts costs money but I didn't know how much it was," he added.

The situation only came to light after Xiao Ming's grandmother noticed that the credit card linked to her WeChat Pay account had been charged over 100,000 yuan.

Xiao Ming had blown 57,000 yuan on Kuaishou donations to the live-streamer and spent the rest of the money on sending We Chat red packets to him as well as buying virtual items for video games.

The live-streamer, who remains unnamed, has since blocked Xiao Ming, deleted the videos on his account, and changed his username on Kuaishou.

"I feel that this type of behaviour is counted as cheating people of their money," said Sun.

He has reached out to Kuaishou for a refund but has yet to receive any money back.

kimberlylim@asiaone.com