Truck driver fails to meet quota, prosecutor reveals "routine luck" fraud scheme

"Recruiting freight driver, basic salary is 7,000 yuan, monthly income is over 10,000 yuan, the company provides free vehicles, no loading or unloading, orders are dispatched nearby..." Faced with such an attractive recruitment advertisement, many job seekers may be tempted. However, it was only after Lao Chen joined the job that he discovered that there was a well-designed scam hidden behind the job. He and the other drivers who applied for the job were exhausted and unable to meet their daily average turnover targets. Instead, they would suffer financial losses due to "breach of contract."

After being prosecuted by the People's Procuratorate of Chongchuan District, Nantong City, Jiangsu Province, on November 10, the recruiters were separately sentenced for fraud.

Kong Yang Yuying, assistant prosecutor of the People's Procuratorate of Chongchuan District, Nantong City, Jiangsu Province: The victim, Lao Chen, said that in May 2025, he saw an advertisement online for the defendant company to recruit freight drivers. The basic salary was 7,000 yuan, and there was no loading or unloading. The company provided new energy vans for free and dispatched orders nearby. The more you work, the more you get. It is not a dream to earn more than 10,000 yuan a month. He submitted his resume online and soon received a call from the company calling himself "Manager Qiao."

According to this "Manager Qiao", the company is strong. Not only does it have sufficient supply in its own warehouse, but it also has in-depth cooperation with well-known domestic freight platforms. The company dispatches orders every day and provides trucks for free. Drivers can just drive and deliver goods with peace of mind. The monthly turnover is divided into 73%, and the driver gets the "big share", but the company also has conditions.

Kong Yang Yuying: The company’s only requirement is that in order to prevent drivers from violating traffic regulations while driving, they need to pay a vehicle violation deposit of 4,000 yuan and a platform usage fee of 500 yuan. After paying the platform usage fee, you can enjoy priority dispatch. Because Manager Qiao said that "the deposit will be fully refunded after one month and if there are no violations," Lao Chen let down his guard and paid a deposit of 1,000 yuan.

A few days later, Lao Chen received a notice to pick up the car. A vehicle attendant named Zhang received him and asked him to sign a "Personal Freight Vehicle Use Agreement." Lao Chen didn't have time to read it carefully, so he hurriedly signed it at the other party's urging, made up the remaining 3,000 yuan deposit, paid another 500 yuan platform usage fee, and got the car key. However, after actually setting out on the road, Lao Chen found that everything had changed.

Chen Shi, deputy director of the First Procuratorial Department of the People's Procuratorate of Chongchuan District, Nantong City, Jiangsu Province: The "unified order dispatch" promised by this company does not exist at all. All orders must be grabbed on the freight platform by themselves. Moreover, there are very few high-priced orders on the platform, and most of them are short-distance, low-priced small orders. Running from morning to night only costs more than 100 yuan a day. However, the agreement states that "six days constitute a cycle, and the average daily turnover must reach 317 yuan. Failure to meet the standard will constitute a breach of contract." In order to meet the target, Lao Chen worked from dawn to dusk for six days, and the total turnover of the sports car was less than 1,000 yuan.

On the evening of the sixth day, the company's "Car Manager Zhang" called Lao Chen and told him that his turnover was not up to standard and he had breached the contract, and asked him to drive the car back to the company. The other party took out the agreement and "interpreted it" one by one - if you break the contract, you will have to pay a fine of 6,000 yuan, the deposit will not be refunded, and all the turnover in the past few days must be turned over to the company. He also threatened, "Sue whatever you fall in love with, the company is not afraid!"

Chen Shi: In June 2025, a victim who had the same experience as Lao Chen reported the case. Our procuratorate intervened in the case in advance and guided the investigation, clarifying the direction of the investigation. On September 17, 2025, 11 defendants were arrested and brought to justice; on November 12 of the same year, Xia, the "upstream boss" of the gang, was also hunted down by the prosecutor's office. On February 10 this year, this case was transferred to our Procuratorate for review and prosecution. After legal review, it was found that the defendant established a number of logistics and transportation companies in Suzhou, Nantong and other places from September 2024 to July 2025, defrauding a total of 121 victim drivers, and the amount of fraud was as high as more than 470,000 yuan.

Revealing the "Routine Luck" Fraud Serial Scheme

The prosecutor in charge uncovered step by step the defendant’s four-step fraud and six-day “routine luck” scheme:

The first step is high-paying bait. The salesmen posted a large number of false advertisements on the recruitment platform, fictitiously cooperating with a well-known freight platform, having their own warehouse supply, and uniformly dispatching orders every day; they also rented office buildings, placed work signs, and contracts to pretend to be "regular operations."

The second step is to deceive the payment. Repeatedly guaranteeing "refundable deposits and generous remuneration", the "deposit" is collected first, and then the "vehicle management" signs the agreement. The agreement contains a hidden daily average turnover target that is much higher than the market level and a clause of "one assessment every six days, and fines for breach of contract if the standards are not met." The driver is urged to sign, and another payment is collected in the form of "priority dispatch" and "platform usage fee".

The third step is to create a breach of contract. The indicators are ridiculously set: the average daily turnover of local part-time drivers is only more than 100 yuan, and full-time drivers rarely exceed 300 to 400 yuan. They are also restricted to only accepting orders on a certain platform, prohibiting long-distance calls, and driving out of the province. As soon as the sixth day came, the car was forcibly collected because "the running water did not meet the standard."

The fourth step is illegal possession. Under the guise of "civil breach of contract", they swallowed up all the deposits, platform fees, and sports car sales. When questioned, they used "the contract is in black and white" and "it was you who breached the contract first." Most drivers consider themselves unlucky.

During the review and prosecution stage, the defendant's defender suggested that the case was an ordinary civil dispute and did not constitute a crime. The prosecutor refuted this.

Chen Shi: Civil breach of contract means that the contract has been performed sincerely but objectively failed to be performed; fraud means that there is no intention to perform from the beginning, and the contract is just a tool to defraud money. The turnover indicators in this case far exceeded the normal market level. Each defendant confessed that "the driver could not run normally", indicating that they never expected the indicators to be completed, and the "cooperation" was a scam from the beginning.

The principal criminal used the stolen money of more than 260,000 yuan to purchase cars and high-end consumer goods, and the rest was also squandered or used for company operations. The procuratorial organ guided the police to seize the vehicle and recover the illegal income of 125,000 yuan from his relatives; another defendant took the initiative to return 10,000 yuan of stolen goods after explaining the law and reasoning.

After the procuratorate launched a public prosecution, on October 30 and November 10 this year, the court sentenced the defendant to a prison term ranging from five years and six months to a year and three months for fraud, and fined him a fine ranging from 90,000 yuan to 60,000 yuan.

Director of the First Procuratorial Department of the People's Procuratorate of Chongchuan District, Nantong City, Jiangsu Province Jiang Jun: When applying for a job, you can ask the company to present the cooperation agreement or authorization document with the platform, or ask the platform customer service for further verification; read the terms word for word before signing, focusing on high deposits, abnormally high turnover indicators, harsh breach of contract clauses, order-taking platform restrictions, etc. "High-risk" clauses, pay more attention to extraordinary treatment; keep recruitment screenshots, chat records, original contracts, and transfer vouchers. If you are cheated, call the police immediately, or complain to the labor inspection or market supervision department. A joint report by multiple people will be more conducive to filing a case and recovering stolen goods.