It seems that you can speculate on just about everything - even graves. Recently, China has been afflicted by get-rich-quick graveyard scams. Firms offered investors the opportunity to buy up lots of graves in the hope that prices would increase.

However, the grave yard bubble may be about to burst. The authorities have decided to clamp down on the cemetery speculators. Nevertheless, the grim reaper remains unperturbed. He marches on as he always did....

(BBC News) Inch for inch in China, it often costs more to be buried in a piece of land, than it does to actually live on it. So, inevitably, China has its own get-rich-quick-with-a-grave scheme.

Wang Peng is among those who have lost their life savings The idea is this - you buy up loads of empty plots, their value increases, and then you sell them off at a profit. Companies have released promotional videos promising investors a quick return on their money.

One video shows a beautiful cemetery, lined with temples. All you have to do - the company promises - is buy some empty graves, wait a while, sell them off. And make a safe and easy profit. A solid-looking deputy mayor sitting behind an equally solid looking desk is shown in one video - reassuring ordinary people that buying up stacks of graves is a good idea. But for many investors it has all gone wrong.

At his apartment in Beijing, Wang Peng searches for the certificates he has locked in a cupboard - he does not want his four-year-old granddaughter to find them and scribble on them. The certificates show that he bought 24 empty plots in a cemetery called Spiritual Spring.

These pieces of paper are all that Mr Wang has to show for his family's entire life savings - more than £10,000. But the company has never delivered. And the certificates are worthless.

"I will never forgive them," he says, "because they cheated me badly". "They made me lose all my life-savings. I am having such a difficult time right now. Why should I forgive them? "They should return our money. You can't treat us ordinary people this way."