The lonely Chinese men being conned by fake brides

Just months into the marriage, debt collectors started calling, alleging she owed them money.

Wang grew suspicious and wanted to know what else she had kept hidden. He checked her phone and found details of her former life, her birth certificate and former marriage documents.

When he confronted her, she offered him a divorce, but refused to return a single penny of the bride price.

He says he tried to hunt down the agency responsible for his marriage, but when he returned to their offices, they had packed up and disappeared.

From his rented flat in Guiyang, just across from the main district which houses most of these agencies, Wang now spends his time making social media videos trying to warn other men about what can go wrong.

In Guiyang, it is difficult to find an agency where the staff is willing to talk. One agency boss agreed to talk to us in their offices – although his business partner later asked us to leave.

Inside there was a red carpet littered with fake petals ready for a proposal. He told us a couple had pledged to marry just hours before we arrived.

“There’s a huge market for flash marriages in China. It only really emerged over the last two or three years,” he told us.

The agencies claim families here did not strictly adhere to the one-child policy, which means the area has a larger pool of women. “Even if a family had two or three daughters, they would keep trying for a son,” one of them told the BBC.

They say they are now trying to match these women with men from central provinces – like Wang who lives in Hebei – who are relatively wealthy but have few women around them.

“Our clients are free to choose whoever they like. The purpose of our business is to help people find someone they genuinely want to be with.”

One of the advertisements assures their prospective clients that “Three days with the right introduction can beat three years of dating”.