Chinese Students Pocketed £140,000 Train Refunds In Delay Repay Scam

Two international students at the University of Leeds have been jailed after scamming train companies by claiming compensation for delayed trains they weren’t even on.

Li Liu, 26, and Wanqing Yu, 25, ran the scam from for several years – from 2021 until their arrests in 2025 – and managed to claim around £140,000 which covered their living expenses, tuition fees, and then some.

Basically, their ‘Delay Repay’ scam worked by claiming two separate refunds for the same delayed train ticket. The UK railway’s system failed to automatically cross-check if a ticket had already been reimbursed, which is a pretty massive flaw which these two took fully advantage of in order to rake in £140,000 over the years.

Liu and Yu would simply research train lines known for frequent delays and buy tickets for those specific journeys in advance. Then, they would contact the train company to cancel their travel plans and claim a full refund, pretending they no longer wanted to use the ticket.

After receiving the first refund, they would wait until the same train journey ran late and boom – submit a second claim, this time for “Delay Repay” compensation. It’s actually quite ingenious if you ignore the illegality of it all and the fact they eventually got caught.

The pair were smart enough to at least attempt to cover their tracks (pun not intended but intended). They created at least 16 fake identities to file claims under different names, used multiple bank accounts to conceal the movement of stolen funds, and used a 20-SIM card adapter to manage and monitor their claims, making the applications appear to come from different phones and individuals.

Aside from that, the cancellation refund process and the “Delay Repay” compensation process were managed separately (with no automated system to detect that the same ticket was being used for both), which is another ridiculous flaw in the system that helped them get away with it for so long (although they probably weren’t even aware of this aspect).

All in all,  Liu and Yu amassed a massive 447 fraudulent transactions before being busted.

Eventually, British Transport Police launched an investigation and detectives noted a common theme with the transactions, which used fake names and non-residential addresses tied to the pair.

Email addresses making the claims were also found to be single-use and Chinese in origin. Surely there’s no way these two hadn’t heard of a VPN?

In the end, police finally caught up to the pair when a mail redirection service sent the delay repayment forms to Lui and Yu’s actual address in Yorkshire instead of the fake addresses they put on their forms. Which is just terribly unlucky, really. I wonder if BTP would have managed to close in on them otherwise?

At Leeds Crown Court, Liu pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation and conspiracy to acquire criminal property and was handed a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence.

Yu also pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation and conspiracy to acquire criminal property and was handed a 17-week prison sentence.

DS Alexandra Carter said: ‘I’m extremely pleased with the result in this case. Liu and Yu found a weakness in the system and relentlessly abused it for their own benefit at great cost to the train operating companies.

‘It’s important to remember this isn’t a victimless crime.

‘In defrauding the Train Operating Companies to fund their lifestyle, they’ve also made a mockery of the average commuters who have spent hard-earned money on train tickets – lost to these malicious criminals who worked at great lengths to conceal their wrongdoing.

‘Thankfully, in the end we were able to track down Liu and Yu and bring them to justice, and I hope that this sends a message to anyone who would think of attempting anything similar.’

Trying to make us feel sorry for a giant corporation by acting like the ‘average commuter’ was the one being mugged off? Lol.

Anyway, can’t imagine the thrills these two were feeling by getting away with it for so long. They were scamming train companies from 2021 – 2025 and were only caught because of redirected mail that wound up at their legit address in Leeds. By that point they must have thought that they’d be cashing in forever!

Still, £140,000 over 4 years between two people only works out at £17,500 per year per person. Maybe they’d have been better off just getting a job? Although I guess it would be hard to balance full-time work with their university courses at the time.

It remains to be seen whether the pair will have to pay the money back. Jeez, imagine paying off the same university tuition fee twice? What a kick in the gut.

For the cancer faker who tricked her boyfriend into giving her £25,000 to pay for a boob job, click HERE.