TikTok videos produced in China are trying to rip people off with scam products, a report says

• TikTok has attracted a "cottage industry" of scammers, the FT says, citing dodgy items being hawked. 
• These accounts are benefiting from TikTok's lax content moderation policies and algorithms, FT says.
• They're pedaling products like fake weight loss coffee and acne medicine, the FT found.

TikTok may have a global user base of more than 1 billion people, but within its home country of China, the app has given rise to a "cottage industry" of scammers pedaling dubious products to viewers abroad, the Financial Times reported. 

The FT's investigation found multiple accounts selling products that appeared to violate the guidelines of TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, including those promoting weight loss teas and coffees, acne medications, and skin whitening products. The FT said in its report that it had flagged 25 products in TikTok's UK marketplace; TikTok said those products have since been removed.

The FT contended that types of scam accounts have survived on TikTok due to the platform's "hands off" approach to regulating content and its algorithms that are designed to allow "any video to gain traction."

"TikTok prioritizes profit over the regulation of goods on its platform," one TikTok senior executive with knowledge of decision-making in ecommerce said in the FT's report. 

TikTok, meanwhile, told the FT that it "has strict policies to protect users from fake, fraudulent, or misleading content," including advertisements. It didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

'I do TikTok to rip people off'

The FT's report mentioned a seller named Mo Huabin whose company posts videos of products that appear to violate ByteDance's guidelines. One of the videos promoting regular coffee as "enzyme" weight loss coffee — at $124 for a "3-treatment plan"— went viral and drew in a slew of orders, the FT said. 

In January, Mo posted a video to Douyin, ByteDance's short-form video app in China, where he said, "I do TikTok to rip people off," the FT reported, adding that Mo's main account was removed after the publication flagged it and requested a comment from ByteDance. Mo told the FT that he was joking; he couldn't be reached by Insider.

In a statement to the FT, TikTok said it "has strict policies to protect users from fake, fraudulent, or misleading content," including advertisements. Meanwhile, it told the FT that it takes down content that violates its guidelines.

Some of Mo's company's videos rely on clips of Dr. Dana Brems, a podiatrist and social media influencer based in Los Angeles, to lend credibility to their claims, the FT reported. Brems told the FT that the clips are used without her consent. She added that she regularly flags videos on weight loss coffee and male enhancement on TikTok, though the platform ultimately often tells her the videos aren't in violation of its policies, she said.

And even if they are taken down, Brems said it's a difficult process. "It's like whack a mole ... there's hundreds of accounts," selling scam items, Brems told the FT. "Most people will not fall for it, but if an account is seen by enough people, eventually some people will buy."

Brems also told Insider via Instagram message that "there's numerous fake accounts of me promoting nonsense 'weight loss' coffee."

In a post on Douyin in October, Mo gloated, "we were the first ones to use doctors, people are calling us the Doctor Group now, it's hilarious," and showed how his team pieced video clips together in their offices and posted them under TikTok handles such as @dr.kara0, dr_merlin and doctor_mccree, among dozens others, the FT said. 

Now that TikTok users are beginning to catch on, Mo's team has moved to selling legitimate goods on TikTok's marketplace being rolled out in the US. 

"We see a higher mountain peak ahead, a bigger opportunity, so we're not only going to be making money selling goods, we're turning into a company with sustainable operations, logistics and a team of influencers," Mo said.