SCOOP: Pig-butchering scammers have used enterprise apps like Teams & Webex to defraud Chinese victims and erase evidence afterwards. Desperate victims then resolve to leave angry app store reviews: in the past 18 months, 30% of Teams' reviews and 71% ‼️of Webex's reviews are explicitly complaining about fraud. Why Teams? In many ways, it is an ideal app for fraudsters in China. 1. It is less known but not blocked by the firewall 2. It has advanced tools like screen sharing, remote control that can expose more of the victims’ info 3. It’s a legitimate workplace messaging app made by a trusted tech giant More importantly, the scammers took advantage of Teams’ enterprise features by creating employee accounts for their targets and giving them login credentials. The enterprise admin can deactivate the accounts once the scheme is over, wiping out chat histories that could be sent to the police. Zhao, a woman in Beijing, lost $100,000 in May to a romance scammer, who asked her to move their chats to Teams due to work needs. On Teams, the scammer introduced Zhao to a fake crypto investment. Zhao borrowed money to send him. Then the scammer disappeared with all her money and chat histories. To explain the unusual setup, scammers may tell victims they’re using work devices that only allow certain apps, or say they created a private Teams account just for the two. When Zhao's scammer was asked why to use Teams instead of WeChat, he claimed Teams “is like our secret base together.” Since Zhao came forward on social media about her experience, she has met dozens of other people in China who have fallen prey to the same scheme. They claim to have lost anywhere from $1,500 to $300,000. They were all instructed to download Teams and log in using credentials given by the scammers. The oldest Chinese review of Teams that described it as a scam-infested platform was in 2022. Many victims shared how much they lost. “The scammers had me register for this app so they could contact me, and they defrauded me of [$220,000]. The police have opened a case,” reads one review on Apple's Chinese app store, Jan 2026. One tidbit that was cut from the story was that Webex's reviews are more astonishing. Besides victims' accounts, you can easily find reviews that appear to be fabricated by scammers. “This app is really great. The loan approval and disbursement process is very fast. Everyone should download it,” says a review this August. Zoho Cliq, another workplace app that was used for this purpose, confirmed with WIRED the presence of these scammers. As a result, Zoho says it has disabled online payments to Cliq in China, suspended every account created by the suspected scammer, and plans to discontinue the free version of Cliq in China.