The Bilibili Dating Lab Scam
1. The Beginning of Everything
The reason for the story is, of course, the pressure to get married, so many young people have to rack their brains to find a partner, and I am one of them. One day I saw an ad on Bilibili, and registered because I had nothing to do. The information I filled in was also very vague, nothing more than height, age, and income, but I didn't expect this to be the beginning of a scam.
2. The Scam Begins
A few days later, someone called me. The platform they introduced was not "Dating Lab". I didn't realize there was any problem at this point because I had forgotten what platform I registered a few days ago. Under his nagging, he said that a girl who works in a state-owned enterprise and has a decent income had taken a fancy to me. At this time, I felt something was wrong. "I don't seem to have uploaded any photos, right? How did she take a fancy to me? I didn't even fill in my profile completely. Shouldn't you contact those users who have filled in their profiles first?"
I threw these questions directly to the person on the other end of the phone. The answer given was vague, but the topic changed, saying that even so, you have the need to find a partner, right? Then he started asking about my requirements for finding a partner. Coincidentally, there was a girl who met my requirements registered with them a few days ago.
Because the phone call was too long, I forgot to get to the bottom of those initial questions. This "teacher" started to talk about making an appointment for an offline detailed discussion. The content was naturally "the girl wants to know more about the boy's information first, and wants the teacher to check it out". There is no time like the present, so let's make it tomorrow night at 7 o'clock. He also "thoughtfully" reminded me to bring my ID card. After the phone call, I still faintly felt something was wrong, so I specifically analyzed what this "teacher" said. This was the analysis at the time:
After adding this teacher on WeChat, I decided to go to the place he mentioned the next day. Since it is offline, they can't play the gangster game, right?
3. Showing the Cloven Hoof
Before the next day arrived, after dinner, this "teacher" called enthusiastically again, saying that he had communicated with the girl on the phone and she thought I was very good. He further started to inquire about my savings and credit cards (actually afraid that I am a pauper and they can't even make me take out a loan offline). Just when I almost completely believed this "teacher", I suddenly remembered the questions from the first phone call and started asking which platform that "teacher" belonged to and what the company name was. While chatting, I looked through the "Dating Lab" I registered before, and I really found something.
Clicking on the comments of that mini-program, people who had been deceived had already left warnings!!!
At this point, it was certain that it was a scam, but I still wanted to find more convincing evidence. Just then, the company name replied by that teacher was also sent over. I searched it and oh my god, the first few results were all from Black Cat Complaint.
Their business license:
A casual search on Google revealed experiences of victims on Black Cat Complaint.
https://tousu.sina.com.cn/index/search/?keywords=福建珍心婚恋&t=1
Seeing this, I felt like a genius. Fortunately, I searched, otherwise it would be me surrounded by several big men in a small dark room tomorrow.
4. All Fake
Do you think it ends here? No! I also wanted to find more clues from that "teacher", and found that not a single word he said was true. For example, he said he received this girl in the afternoon:
Google Image Search and Baidu Image Search didn't find anything, but guess what! Enlarge this picture and flip it, you can vaguely see the content filled in by this girl at that time. See, it says she went to university in Hunan:
Then I asked him:
Damn it, it's all fake.
5. Postscript
After I showed my hand to that teacher and said I wouldn't go, for quite a while there were still calls coming in saying they were introducing partners, even from other different platforms, indicating that the scope of privacy leakage was wider.
Originally, this experience was also posted on Zhihu, but that answer on Zhihu was deleted due to a complaint of infringement, and the appeal was useless later.
One day by chance, I searched for that "Dating Lab" on WeChat again and found that they had cancelled the mini-program rating. I guess they did it specially after seeing my article. I don't know how they did it.
But seeing the results of searching for Dating Lab on Bing, this article is still ranked quite high. It should have prevented many people from being deceived.
2025-10-25 Update
Recently I saw ads for this even on Zhihu. It's really outrageous that a scam platform hasn't been banned yet.
A casual search on Zhihu shows many cases of being deceived: How do you view Bilibili's Dating Lab?
Archived file: How do you view Bilibili's Dating Lab?