Free tokens for sale: How fake signups drive AI fraud

This report explains the drivers, operational models, and risks of gray-market AI model access services—especially those serving users in China—covering incentives (cheap access, payment privacy, evading regional restrictions), vendor infrastructure (API gateways, proxies, relay stations), threats to user privacy and model integrity (data leakage, prompt harvesting, bait-and-switch), and countermeasures by providers such as account verification and abuse detection.