Online entrepreneurs in China have found an ingenious way of profiting off of couples paranoia - renting out 'love testers' who do their best to try and seduce one of the partners in order to check how faithful they really are.
China is well-known for its bizarre online services, which range from renting fake girlfriends/boyfriends to trick one's family that they are in a relationship, to hiring mistress dispellers that teach scorned wives how to get rid of problematic mistresses, and even renting professional bridesmaids to endure all sorts of humiliation during traditional Chinese wedding.
And entrepreneurs are constantly on the look out for new ways of profiting off of human relationships - case in point, an increasingly popular service that allows couples to rent 'love testers' to check their partners' fidelity.
According to Chinese newspaper Global Times, a simple search for 'boyfriend loyalty test' on China's largest e-commerce platform, TaoBao, yields dozens of results, with companies charging anywhere from 20 yuan ($3) to 1,314 yuan ($190) for their services. \
Once an order for a 'love tester' is made with one of these companies, the client must provide all sorts of personal details about their partner, like their name, job, mobile phone number, social media accounts, hobbies and interests. Then, the tester will befriend the target on popular social networks like WeChat or QQ and use all kinds of tricks to check if they truly are faithful to the client.
The Chinese newspaper recently interviewed Chen Mengyuan, a 21-year-old college student who works as a 'love tester', to learn how the service works. Interestingly, Chen herself used a similar service to test her boyfriend's fidelity, before becoming a love tester herself.
"Using enticing words and attractive (and fake) selfies to seduce men, these testers aim to help customers find out whether their partners are honest," Global Times reports.
Sometimes, the results are positive for the client, with some targets never even befriending the love testers, or resisting their seductive advances, but sometimes they fall for the trap and end up getting dumped by the client for betraying their trust.
"Some couples break up when the test finishes because Chen has successfully seduced disloyal men who agree to come for an appointment or deny that they have girlfriends. Chen sends the whole chat history to customers, showing whether the man is loyal or not," the Global Times article reads.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, women tend to use online fidelity testing services more than men, but testing women is a bit more expensive, as "trapping women is apparently harder than men".
The Global Times article drew mixed reactions from Chinese readers, but Chen herself told reporters that she believed she was doing a good thing by exposing unfaithful partners.
