China’s Top Court Targets ‘Physical Cheats’ in Order-Grabbing Crackdown
China’s Supreme People’s Court has released nine typical cases of anti-unfair competition for 2026, including a landmark ruling against companies producing and selling “physical cheat” devices that enable delivery riders to unfairly grab orders on crowdsourcing platforms. The case, which resulted in a 3 million yuan (approximately $420,000) compensation award, carries demonstrative significance for safeguarding the healthy development of the platform economy, according to Xinhua News Agency.
The ‘Point Slider’ Device
The case centers on a product called the “Point Slider” (点滑器), an external hardware device that simulates finger taps and swipes on smartphone screens to automatically refresh and grab orders at speeds far beyond human capability. Three technology companies operating a food delivery platform and a crowdsourcing platform began receiving numerous complaints in 2024 about riders using external cheating devices to grab orders unfairly.
An electronics company had opened two shops on an e-commerce platform selling the device along with tutorial videos. The tutorials instructed riders to connect the device to the crowdsourcing platform’s app, enabling rapid order refreshing and automatic order grabbing without manually touching the phone screen. According to IT之家, the product accumulated cumulative sales of several million yuan.
Court Ruling and Legal Reasoning
The Guangzhou Huangpu District People’s Court ruled in the first instance that the electronics company’s production and sale of the Point Slider constituted unfair competition. The court found that the device circumvented platform operating rules through technical means, directly impacted the platform’s original order dispatch logic, interfered with the normal operation of scheduling algorithms, and caused the platform’s order allocation mechanism to malfunction—constituting substantial obstruction of the platform’s normal business operations.
The court also recognized the broader harm to gig workers. Riders using the device could prioritize grabbing high-quality, high-income orders, breaking the fair competition and pay-for-work ecosystem among riders. This behavior directly reduced compliant riders’ opportunities to obtain orders and unreasonably squeezed their labor income, harming the legitimate rights and professional enthusiasm of compliant riders.
Beyond riders, the court noted that unfair order grabbing led to order cancellations, delivery delays, unreasonable delivery routes, and increased fulfillment risks—reducing merchant efficiency and triggering negative consumer reviews. The first-instance judgment has taken effect.
Broader Context: The Order-Grabbing Cheat Industry
The “physical cheat” phenomenon is part of a wider order-grabbing cheat industry that has plagued China’s gig economy across food delivery, ride-hailing, freight, and courier services. As Workers’ Daily reported, these products range from software-based cheats costing 200-240 yuan per month to physical external devices, with a complete supply chain spanning developers, agents, and end users.
An investigation by Lanjing News found that in major cities like Shanghai and Shenzhen, an estimated 8 out of 10 crowdsourced delivery riders reportedly use some form of cheat. A single agent can sell approximately 200 orders per month, generating about 40,000 yuan in monthly revenue. In September 2024, police in Zhejiang’s Xinchang county dismantled a criminal network that developed and sold order-grabbing cheat software with total transaction volume of 30 million yuan.
Platform Response and Enforcement
Major platforms have taken aggressive action against cheats. Meituan, one of China’s largest food delivery platforms, disclosed the Point Slider issue in August 2025 through its official account and filed a lawsuit against the manufacturer, as IT之家 reported. The platform maintains a policy of “one use of cheat = permanent ban from order receiving.” Between January and July 2025, the number of riders banned for using cheats decreased by 87.7% year-on-year, indicating significant progress in combating the issue.
Judge Li Dejun of the Huangpu District Court emphasized the importance of fair competition in the delivery industry, noting that “riders’ income should be linked to their own labor, but order-grabbing cheats break this balance, harming the overall interests of the rider community.” His comments were reported by Jinyang.com.
Significance and Forward Look
The Supreme Court’s selection of this case as a “typical case” carries significant weight in China’s judicial system. These published cases provide guidance to lower courts on handling similar disputes and signal policy priorities to market participants. The ruling specifically addresses “physical cheats”—external hardware devices that simulate human interaction—expanding the scope of judicial regulation beyond software-based cheats.
The case reflects China’s broader regulatory push to regulate the rapidly growing platform economy, protect gig workers’ rights and fair competition, and establish clear legal boundaries for new business models and technologies. The Supreme Court stated it will continue to strengthen anti-unfair competition trial work and improve competition adjudication rules to provide judicial guarantees for building a unified national market.
As the platform economy continues to evolve, the question remains whether the 3 million yuan compensation will serve as a sufficient deterrent given the potentially high profits from selling such devices, and how platforms will continue to detect increasingly sophisticated cheating methods across delivery, ride-hailing, freight, and ticketing industries.