The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2026
A jewellery store built a fake mine set to livestream 'digging' its agate
Zhaochen Jewellery bought cheap agate online, then staged a fake mining site to livestream 'digging' it, faking a direct-from-source story and a buying rush.
Zhaochen Jewellery · 2026-02
What happened
A jewellery store in Ruili, Yunnan, bought ordinary Baoshan-grade 'nanhong' agate cheaply through online wholesale channels — stock with no unusual origin story at all. To sell it at a premium, the store built a dedicated fake livestream set staged to look like an active mining excavation.
During broadcasts, staff dressed as miners performed digging the agate out of the ground on camera, presenting it to viewers as 'straight from the source, first-hand stock' rather than what it actually was: ordinary purchased inventory. The store also paid people to flood the livestream's comments and act as excited buyers, manufacturing the appearance of a genuine rush on the product.
Tengchong's market regulator ruled the staged mining scenes and paid engagement violated e-commerce and anti-unfair-competition law and fined the store 3,000 yuan in February 2026. The State Administration for Market Regulation later named the case nationally in June 2026 among eight typical cases exposing fabrication across the jewellery and jade livestream trade.
Why it happened
- A 'straight from the source' story is worth a price premium precisely because it's hard to fake convincingly — building a set to fake it shows how much that story alone was worth to the seller.
- Paid comments manufacturing a buying rush target the exact signal viewers use to judge whether a deal is real, turning social proof itself into part of the fabrication.
- Ordinary wholesale stock sold as a first-hand find is a lie about origin, not about quality — the agate itself may have been fine, but the story built around it wasn't.
The lesson
A jewellery store built a fake mining set to livestream 'digging' agate it had bought online, and paid people to fake a buying rush. The story sold the stone, until regulators checked its origin.
Aftermath
Tengchong's market regulator fined Zhaochen Jewellery 3,000 yuan for the staged scenes and paid engagement. The State Administration for Market Regulation cited the case nationally in June 2026 among eight cases exposing fabrication in jewellery livestreaming.
Sources
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