A man has been arrested for allegedly defrauding college students, getting them to buy iPhones by installments for him and profiting 20,000 yuan (US$2,900), police said yesterday.

The suspect, surnamed Yu, paid the students 1,000 yuan each as “reward” for buying the phones using their identity cards and bank cards at a shop in Malu Town, Jiading District, assuring them that they would not have to take care of the installments.

Jiading police received a report from one of the victims, a female surnamed Fang, last January.

Fang told them that she and two friends were rung up by a loan company and told “to return the money they were supposed to pay for the phones.” Yu was uncontactable.

The victims had no idea of the identity of Yu who hooked them up in December to a WeChat group advertising a “part-time opportunity to work as a phone-buyer on installments,” according to the police.

Yu was arrested and owned up to profiting 20,000 yuan, police said.