Despite intense warnings by the police, college students continue to fall victim to online shop scams.

Online store ratings are generally driven by sales volume. The more a store sells, the higher up the page it rises. Artificially boosting sales figures is a common trick. But, a new scam has emerged, under cover of the ratings scam.

A scammer contacts a student via spam, generally through WeChat, SMS or e-mail, offering a small commission to make a purchase — the standard ratings scam. The process is repeated as often as necessary — sometimes only one payment is needed — to establish trust.

The student is then asked to purchase a massive amount of the product.

The “product,” if it exists at all, goes directly to the scammer. The anticipated payback, of course, never materializes. Shanghai police said yesterday that students are the main prey of these scams.

In Qingpu District, Huang, a university freshman reported to police in December that she had lost 87,000 yuan (US$12,900) before she realized she was being scammed.

Huang said she received an e-mail advertising a profitable opportunity and agreed to make purchases of 100,000 yuan on JD.com to get a reward of 8,000 yuan.

Huang shared her account name and password with the scammer who then loaded 100 yuan of goods into her shopping cart. Huang paid for the products with her own money and was rewarded with 105 yuan. The things she bought went directly to the scammer.

Trust established, Huang went on to purchase 87,000 yuan worth of goods before her roommates suggested that it could be a scam.

When she asked for her money back, she was of course turned down, which is when she went to the police.

Fan Hua, a fraud squad officer, said police detect up to 1,000 scam SMS of this kind every day.

“When we find that such a message has been sent to a potential victim’s phone, we send a message from 962110 to the person warning them of the trick,” Fan said.

The 962110 number was introduced by the police last April to call potential victims and send them SMS.