The first time I came into contact with financial investment was P2P, and at that time, E租宝, I believe many people know about it.

At that time, I had only 30,000 yuan in savings, and in 2015 my salary was just over 5,000. I thought I had some spare money and wanted to invest in something to increase my income.

In 2015, I learned about it online, and the main channels I used were Baidu and WeChat public accounts because I really liked reading motivational articles on public accounts. So I searched there every day and occasionally saw a financial product called “E租宝.” At that time, I joined a group called something like Investment Uncle XX, but I forgot the exact name. There were people from Shanghai in the group who had rich investment experience. Coincidentally, someone in the group was promoting E租宝, so I asked, 'How is this investment?' He added me; he was a young man from Jilin and spoke to me over voice chat. I felt that things online shouldn’t be trusted easily, so I asked the group owner, that Uncle XX.

I said: 'How is E租宝 as an investment? This investment has several levels, with annual returns ranging from 8% to 20%, depending on the amount of investment. The larger the investment level, the higher the annual return.

Uncle XX: E租宝 is okay. I asked how the risk was, and he said it was fine.

With just a few sentences, I trusted it and invested in E租宝. Personally, I also did some research because at that time E租宝 had physical stores nationwide, and they advertised on CCTV. It was a legitimate platform; I could invest directly after linking my bank card. So, under all the risk assessments, I invested 10,000 yuan of my savings in this platform for three months, but during those three months, I didn’t get my principal back [sad emoji].

The platform operated similarly to banks. They pay interest first, then principal. They first gave you 10% interest, a few hundred yuan, and only at maturity did they give you back your principal plus interest. However, the platform allowed early redemption, but the interest received earlier would be deducted.

For two months, the platform was running smoothly, and many investors were still depositing funds. Of course, the interest rates on this platform were higher than those of banks. Many elderly people were investing their pensions into it. I saw elderly people from Beijing and Jiangsu depositing millions into it, and they were not afraid at all!