Selling fake hospital documents lucrative in China

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Selling fake hospital documents has become a lucrative business in China, feeding the huge demand from people wanting the documents as reliable reasons for leave.

Fake diagnoses, receipts and leave applications from doctors are all available for purchase on shopping website Taobao as well as social platforms Wechat and QQ, Beijing-based newspaper Beijing Youth Daily reported on Monday.

The practice has been going on for quite a long time, though recently some vendors have expanded this practice to include a package of fake documents from hospitals across the country.

The price of packages range from 50 to 400 yuan (about 7 to 60 US dollars), depending on the number and quality of the documents.

A doctor’s note with a fake seal costs 50 yuan, a vendor told the newspaper.

However a comprehensive package – which includes reservation notes, inspection sheets, illness histories, receipts and leave applications – can go much higher at 340 yuan (just over 50 US dollars).

Documents with authentic seals are retrievable in the database of hospitals, according to the vendor.

“We have acquaintances in the hospitals,” he claimed.

There are dozens of group chats aimed at selling fake proofs from hospitals on QQ. Most of the groups consist of about 100 members.

Another vendor said most of their clients are students and office workers. “Students use it for skipping classes or physical tests,” he said. “Office workers use it to ask for annual leave.”

In China, employees who have worked at a company for one year are only entitled to five days of annual leave.

Whether or not the packages are worth the money remains a question.

“We only have to take a glimpse to figure out its fakeness,” a hospital authority said after looking at a doctor’s note which claimed to be authentic. He added that the Red Cross logo and the font didn’t match with the official ones.

However, most companies and schools don't check whether doctor's notes are real or not.

The head of a private company said their restrictions for leave are ”quite loose," since “employees taking diagnoses will surely be granted for leave."

The headmaster of a middle school said they wouldn’t test the authenticity of doctors’ notes.

Under the Chinese law, people providing and selling fake hospital documents can be detained for 10 to 15 days and fined no more than 1,000 yuan (about 150 US dollars). More serious cases can result in a fine, the deprivation of political rights and three years in jail.