And finally…’20 mobiles for a house’

The scam came to light after a blog was published on the popular Chinese blogging platform the Tian Ya Yi Du forum, by someone writing under the pseudonym ‘Proud Qiaoba’.

Proud Qiaoba describes how Xiaoli, a woman from the city of Shenzhen in southern China, asked each of her 20 current boyfriends to buy her the recently launched latest iPhone 7.

She then sold all of the phones to mobile phone recycling site Hui Shou Bao for 120,000 Chinese yuan (about £14,500), and used the money to put down a deposit on a house in the countryside.

The company has since confirmed that they had in fact purchased 20 iPhones from a female client at the beginning of October and paid 6,000 Chinese yuan (about £725) for each one.

Proud Qiaoba wrote in the blog post that when Xiaoli showed her new house to their group of friends, they were all shocked when she revealed how she had managed to obtain the money for the deposit.

“Everyone in the office is talking about this now,” wrote Proud Qiaoba, “Who knows what her boyfriends think now this news has become public.”

Proud Qiaoba added that Xiaoli “is not from a wealthy family. Her mum is a housewife and her dad is a migrant worker, and she is the oldest daughter. Her parents are getting old and she might be under a lot pressure hoping to buy them a house… But it’s still unbelievable that she could use this method!”

Many people on China’s version of Twitter, Sina Weibo, have been expressing their surprise at Xiaoli’s enterprise and cunning in convincing her 20 lovers to each buy her the latest Apple product, which was only launched on 16 September.

A hashtag which translates as ‘20 mobiles for a house’ quickly began to circulate on Weibo, and became the country’s top trend. It has now been used in excess of 13 million times.

Many social media users, like ‘small sand is growing’, praised Xiaoli: “I can’t even find one boyfriend. She can actually find 20 boyfriends at the same time and even get them to buy her an iPhone 7. Just want to ask her to teach me such skills.”

Another, ‘TST’ praised her enterprising nature, saying that she has “a bright future.”

But ‘Little Bee’ wrote that Xiaoli was “the most shameless person”.