--- title: A Guy Stole $2 Million and Spent a Third of It on Tips description: A man who scammed nearly $2 million from a video website blew nearly a third on tipping live-streaming hosts, Chinese media reports. canonical: https://time.com/4797490/theft-tipping-youku-tudou-tips/ author: Kevin Lui article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-05-30T09:12:17.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:43:59.418Z og:title: A Guy Stole $2 Million and Spent a Third of It on Tips og:description: The man lavished gratuities on the hostesses of live-streaming programs og:url: https://time.com/4797490/theft-tipping-youku-tudou-tips/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: A Guy Stole $2 Million and Spent a Third of It on Tips twitter:description: The man lavished gratuities on the hostesses of live-streaming programs twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # A Guy Stole $2 Million and Spent a Third of It on Tips by [Kevin Lui](https://time.com/author/kevin-lui/) ## Kevin Lui May 30, 2017 9:12 AM UTC by [Kevin Lui](https://time.com/author/kevin-lui/) ## Kevin Lui May 30, 2017 9:12 AM UTC A man in China [convicted](http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2096178/chinese-man-stole-nearly-us2m-after-finding-bug-video-website) for scamming millions of dollars from video websites blew nearly a third of what he stole on tipping the hostesses of live-streaming web sites, Chinese media reports. The 21-year-old online software vendor, identified only by his last name Hu, pleaded guilty to theft charges and was sentenced to 15 years in prison, reports the _South China Morning Post._ He took a total of $1.9 million in fraudulent refunds between November 2015 and April 2016 from video service platform Youku Tudou, China’s YouTube clone, reportedly by exploiting a bug in its payment system. **Read More:** [_The 10 Strangest Things on Taobao, China’s Biggest Online Trading Platform_](http://time.com/4502415/taobao-china-ebay-weirdest-strangest-items/) He was only left with about $437,000 of what he stole, the _Post_ reports — having lavished over $583,000 on [live-streaming sites](http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/01/chinas-live-streaming-explosion-a-game-changer-for-all.html), where he tipped female program hosts generously. The rest went into paying down his father’s debts and personal “entertainment,” according to the report. “Although I’m sorry to Youku, I don’t regret having done this,” he told the court, according to Chinese news site _The Paper_. “I’ve learned a lot, which I feel is worthwhile. I now also look at society differently.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4797490/theft-tipping-youku-tudou-tips/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4797490/theft-tipping-youku-tudou-tips/"},"headline":"A Guy Stole $2 Million and Spent a Third of It on Tips","datePublished":"2017-05-30T09:12:17.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:43:59.418Z","description":"He exploited a bug in a video website's payment system for six months to amass the illicit funds","url":"https://time.com/4797490/theft-tipping-youku-tudou-tips/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Internet","viral","China","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Kevin Lui","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/kevin-lui/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4797490/theft-tipping-youku-tudou-tips/","name":"A Guy Stole $2 Million and Spent a Third of It on Tips"}}]}] ```