One day last summer I was playing a computer game at home when a relative on my mother’s side came over to our house. Hardly able to contain his excitement, he said, “My dear nephew, are you bored now? Could you help me do some searches online? I can’t wait to get a prize.”

While saying that, he handed a ticket to me. I recognised that it was a voucher. The words on it said that the holder could exchange it for 300,000 yuan. Though confused, I searched for the address on the ticket on Baidu. I was taken to a website where a lot of messages popped up. They informed me of the activity and instructed me how to take part. And they showed where to cash in the ticket should I win. The relative’s eyes were glued onto the monitor. “Do you know that I found it on the way back home from the fields?” he said. “I will make a fortune this time.”

As he was leaving, Mother came in. Sensing something unusual, she asked what the matter was. The relative showed the paper to mother. Mother laughed, “Oh, I found three such tickets on the road in front of our house last month.”

It turned out that such winning tickets were a bait. Lots of people were cheated out of their money by entering their personal data on the Web.