I have an older account so avoided most of the validation hell, but I cannot link even Hong Kong payment cards to the account.

Every time I come over, I hand a fistfull of cash to a local, who will send me the equivalent in WeChat.

From what I understand on new foreign accounts, even this loophole is closed.

I have 72 CNY in my wallet, but since it is not verified with a bank account (I closed them before I left the country) I am now unable to make any payments or accept any payments. This was a security move put into place in the last couple years because the have-friend-send-money-you-gave-cash-for method definitely used to work.

Damn I was using the whole venmo red envelope swappero method to fund myself the last time I was there, only a couple months back. If I can't do that anymore when I go, it's honestly not worth going.

It still works. At least last fall.

What is this Venmo method?

I'd be surprised if it's nothing more than sending a local money with Venmo and having them send you a red packet in exchange.

Essentially this. But I _highly_ recommend finding a dual national wherever you are and transferring money before you get over there. This will ensure that you can pay for things right when you land, and is also less likely to result in some kind of fee that a local will want to charge you.

I mostly only ever go to China For work (Way better parties to be had in Hong Kong imo), and luckily I have some cool Chinese coworkers who will transfer me straight dollars to yuan. I usually send them 2K USD, they send me an equivalent amount of yuan in a red envelope, I use whatever i use while there, and then I'll send them whatever i don't use back and they'll venmo me back USD.

Then it's just a matter of getting finance to reimburse me for purchases whos receipts are screen shots of QR codes.

I've debated spinning up a startup around this, charging some really low fee, but I seems like I'll get into trouble with KYC laws pretty quick.

I signed up for Alipay to help pay for AliExpress transactions.

The passwords are 6 numerical digits only...

That's the best part I like if you have chance to read its super complicated restrictions & risk monitoring system specs.