A Chinese grandmother was forced to care for a toddler for months without any compensation after the child’s parents disappeared without a trace with money they had loaned her.
Ms Yu, the victim in this bizarre case that has been making headlines in China for over a month, claims she was hired by a couple in Harbin, Heilongjiang province, to care for their newborn son for a monthly salary of 7,000 yuan (about Rs 83,000). Shortly after reaching an agreement, the parents told Ms Yu that they needed to travel to Tianjin to collect a sizable inheritance, including real estate and luxury goods, and asked if she could help them out with a loan for lawyers and paperwork.
As assurances that they would pay her back the money, the couple showed her photos of the goods they claimed to have inherited, as well as the title deeds for a hotel. They also decided to leave her child with the nanny while they sorted things out in Tianjin, so Ms Yu assumed there was nothing to worry about.
According to Ms Yu, she has not received any salary since November last year, even though she took care of the child after his parents disappeared. To make matters worse, she also lent them significant sums of money, including her savings and money borrowed from her brother, believing that the parents would pay her back once they received the sizable inheritance. In total, she claims she is owed over 110,000 yuan (Rs 13 lakh).
“I gave them all my savings, but I have not received any salary since November last year,” complained Ms Yu. “They owe me my salary and the money I borrowed from my brother”, she added.
The desperate woman showed journalists pictures of expensive watches, cars and other luxury items included in the inheritance the child’s parents allegedly received. In hindsight, she admits that they may have faked it all to cheat her out of her modest savings, adding that she found traces of digital editing when she looked through the property papers of a hotel in Harbin. Moreover, the story that the inheritance came from a man the child’s mother dated over ten years ago never sounded entirely genuine, but she was fooled.
Ms Yu repeatedly tried to contact the parents by phone and WeChat, but they seemed to have disappeared. She also contacted the hotel they claimed to own, but the owners there had never heard from them, so her fear of being the victim of an elaborate scam is greater than ever. The only thing that doesn’t make sense is the child.
How could someone abandon their child for any financial gain, let alone a relatively modest 110,000 yuan? Ms. Yu doesn’t have an answer to that question either, but she also doesn’t have the heart to abandon the boy. She has been caring for him for months now and hopes that the parents will eventually return. It is unclear whether the police have been informed of this case, but many of the online commenters suspect that the suspects are not the child’s biological parents.
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