A trending topic weighed heavily on the heart: “My mom spent RMB 220,000 in two years just to watch short dramas.”

Don’t dismiss this as unbelievable. According to a report by IT Times, an elderly person in Xinjiang, nearly 70 years old, made a total of 4,887 payments amounting to RMB 225,800 for short dramas between January 2024 and April 2026, involving 365 drama venues. The 39.9 yuan tier alone appeared 1,310 times. Only after her child checked the bills page by page could he believe that this much had really been spent in two years.

The money wasn’t spent all at once; it went out “bit by bit” in tiny pieces. Today, let’s lay it out clearly: how the money disappeared, and what children of elderly parents can do about it.

1. The 220,000 yuan was chopped into 4,887 tiny payments

First, understand how short-drama charging works—it is hardly the logic of “buying one ticket”:

First, you buy “coins” before watching. What you get from recharging is not dramas but virtual coins: usually 1 yuan buys 100 coins. That sounds like a lot, yet a single episode of one drama costs around 150 coins—6,990 coins bought with 69.9 yuan unlock only about 46 episodes, while many dramas on the market have 80 episodes. To finish one drama, you often have to top up again and again; all told, one drama ends up costing around 120 yuan. For a two-minute-per-episode short drama, that equals spending 1.5 yuan per minute.

Second, each payment is tiny—small enough not to hurt. 39.9 yuan, 69.9 yuan—no single “big chunk”—yet accumulated over more than two years they amount to 4,887 payments. In the family in the report, the 39.9 yuan tier alone was paid 1,310 times.

Third, the recharges are timed for when people are most foggy-headed. According to the reporter’s tally, 1,857 of the 4,887 payments occurred between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. the next morning—nearly 40 percent; another 2,431 payments were made within half an hour of the previous one. When you can’t sleep at night and binge-watch, pop-ups get tapped on autopilot; by the time the children notice, the bill is already long.

In Hebei, a “post-1950s” elderly man topped up more than RMB 50,000 in a year and a half, involving over a hundred venues. His family said they deleted the mini-programs for him, but they never fully cleared—before long, people would pull him into new groups one after another.

2. Not surprising: this is a tens-of-billions business, and regulators have already called it out

That such things reach this scale is driven by the meteoric rise of the short-drama industry as a whole. According to the 2024 China Micro-Short Drama Industry Research Report, China’s micro-short drama market reached about RMB 50.5 billion in 2024, for the first time surpassing the year’s box office (RMB 42.502 billion).

Big business attracts many takers. Regulators have actually already called it out: on November 22, 2024, the Network Audiovisual Department of the National Radio and Television Administration issued an Administrative Notice on “Ba Zong (Boss-Tycoon)” Micro-Short Dramas, requiring that titles avoid using words like “Ba Zong” to grab attention and drive traffic; around the same time, it also issued an administrative notice on micro-short dramas themed around middle-aged and older people, stressing the avoidance of vulgar and melodramatic content. The Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Rights Protection Committee has also conducted dedicated investigations, pointing to problems such as induced spending and unclear charging and refund rules—virtual coins are too “intangible,” making it hard for consumers to predict how much they will actually spend.

This is not old news. As recently as September this year, media reported that with a “first period: 5 days for 6 yuan” package, an elderly user who had never checked any auto-renewal agreement was still charged 29 yuan every week, with total losses exceeding RMB 5,000 for some. On Heimao Tousu (Black Cat Complaints), short-drama-related complaints keep coming in waves, all about the same few things: unclear deduction rules, charges without notice, and induced top-ups.

3. Five things adult children can do right now

At the end of the day, this is not simply about elders lacking “self-control”—splitting payments into tiny amounts and popping up at midnight looks very much designed around human habits. What we can do is very concrete:

1) Run through “auto-renewal” and “password-free payments” with your parents. Open WeChat (Me → Services → Wallet → Payment Settings), find “Auto-Renewal” and “Password-Free Payments,” and cancel the ones no longer needed one by one; do the same in Alipay (refer to the actual interface of the current version). Ten minutes can plug most of the leak.

2) Add a “gate” to payments. Turn off password-free payment for small amounts, or set a daily payment limit on the linked bank card—if they truly want to recharge, each payment requires entering a password and staying within the limit, putting a brake on impulse spending.

3) Explain the tricks in advance. Tell your parents these lines upfront: a “few cents for a trial watch” is only the beginning, “one or two yuan for the next episode” keeps coming, and “auto-playing the next episode” is all a ploy. Saying it beforehand works better than auditing bills afterward.

4) Find free, legitimate channels. Major video platforms all have free short-drama sections—bookmark them for your parents; when they like a drama, first help them find free, authorized versions, and move paid entry points out of the elders’ reach.

5) Make a small family agreement. “If you top up more than twice a day, say so in the family group chat first”—a single agreement is much kinder than holding them accountable afterward.

4. Two common misconceptions to set straight

Misconception 1: “This is a disease; there’s nothing to manage.” The elderly person in the report was indeed diagnosed with moderate Alzheimer’s disease, but don’t generalize from one case to everyone—the mechanism of late-night repeat top-ups and tiny accumulating payments applies to anyone; healthy elders fall for it too. Prevention is every family’s business, not something “only needed when someone is ill.”

Misconception 2: “Once you’ve paid, the platform will refund you.” Lawyers put it bluntly: the hard part in such rights disputes is proving that the top-ups were not voluntary; whether cognitive impairment can excuse liability must go through judicial appraisal. So don’t hold out hope for “a guaranteed full refund”—keep the bills and chat records first, start with a platform complaint, then call 12315 if that fails, recover as much as you can, and don’t simply give up because it’s difficult.

5. When these signs appear, it’s time to talk with the elder

  • Dozens of similarly named mini-programs keep appearing on the phone, returning after deletion;
  • Dense small-amount payment records after 10 p.m.;
  • The elder has been pulled into various “drama-watching groups” and “benefit groups”, with someone sending links every day.

When you spot these, don’t get angry first—sit down and go through the bills together. Most elders genuinely don’t realize that two years can add up to this much; getting angry only makes them keep it hidden, and the next bill comes out even later.

In closing

Short dramas themselves are not a flood or a beast—they really are good to watch; otherwise, they couldn’t have become a tens-of-billions business. The problem has never been “watching dramas”; it’s whether the “payment door” opens too easily. As children, finding those switches and turning them down is far better than getting angry afterward.

Does anyone in your family also binge short dramas? How much did they spend, and how did you find out? Share in the comments and give a heads-up to friends who haven’t run into this yet.