During exam season, selling illegal documents

These days, students of all levels across the country are starting to enter the final exam season of the first semester. This is also an opportunity for dishonest people to openly offer products and services from "underground" exam preparation courses to remote exam support, all of which are advertised as being affordable, starting from just a few tens of thousands of dong.

" COPY CHEMISTRY"

Just type "cheap exam preparation course" on Facebook, and you can find a series of groups called "share courses". Here, many people have posted ambiguous information with the content of selling online exam preparation courses that are constantly updated, have the same price and have unlimited views from famous teachers on social networks with costs ranging from tens to hundreds of thousands of VND, instead of millions of VND as the public price on the official website. There are accounts that even call themselves "underground courses" but claim that the materials sold are completely... quality.

“Underground” courses are openly sold on social networks with prices ranging from a few dozen to a few hundred thousand VND per course.

Posing as a high school senior, we contacted a PH account that specializes in selling cheap courses and were advised to buy a 2024 high school graduation exam preparation package that includes all subjects, the entire roadmap until the exam, and many free documents for 280,000 VND. After many inquiries, PH confessed that this was just an "underground" course and all the costs that students paid were used to buy original courses, pay collaborators to update the course, and maintain drive storage.

According to PH, the "underground" course has full videos on the website, livestream lectures, documents, books... similar to the original course, but the lesson update time will be 3-5 days slower. Up to 1 month before the exam, the lesson will be updated as soon as the original course is finished teaching. "The teacher will live stream and I will record the screen and post it for you to see," H. explained. However, because it only records the screen, the quality of the lecture video is much lower than the original video and students cannot ask questions or get help from teachers and teaching assistants like the original course.

"Taking a tour" of the "underground" course's overview, we came across many familiar names such as: English by Ms. Vu Mai Phuong, Literature by Mr. Pham Minh Nhat, competency assessment test preparation courses by HOCMAI or Mr. Bui Van Cong...

In a particular subject, the lessons are exactly the documents and lectures completely copied from the original courses above. The evidence is that the documents have images, logos, symbols of the original course and also insert the name or logo of the "underground" course. The lectures are saved videos or screen recordings.

Inquiring about another "underground" course provided by TQK account that is cheaper than PH's course and also comes with TOEIC and IELTS documents, this person confirmed that all the lessons in the course are 99% similar to the original course. However, with this course, students are not allowed to share their accounts with each other. "Whoever buys will study, if you buy together you will get a discount," TQK said.

When asked about the source of the lessons in the course, TQK explained that these documents were taken from original courses that K. bought, then saved and resold at a cheap price, and admitted that "taking a pirated course will not allow you to ask questions" when we asked who to ask if you don't understand the lesson.

T HI AT HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL

Another negative phenomenon is proxy testing. In early 2022, we reported on closed "study support" groups that attracted tens of thousands of members, but were not places for students to discuss lectures or answer questions, but were disguised places specializing in providing proxy learning and testing services. After a period of lull, these groups are now operating more strongly, even "extending their tentacles" to... high school and middle school levels.

Dozens of articles about proxy exam services from both “buyers” and “sellers” were posted in private groups on December 19.

In the "study support" groups, we encountered a variety of student needs, most of which were posted anonymously. "Is there anyone who can help me with my 12th grade math test tomorrow (December 20th), "Looking for someone who can help me with my 12th grade math test tomorrow", "Need someone to support me with my 11th grade physics test"... are the "cries for help" that appear every day, ranging from natural to social subjects, even English.

If the article is posted during the "prime time" from evening to around midnight, just a few minutes later, the test-preparing professionals will immediately comment and request a private message for further discussion. Many accounts also post articles advertising their own services and "advantages" such as not requiring a deposit in advance, having an IELTS score of 8.0 or allowing knowledge testing, meaning they will directly answer the questions of the learner to ensure they are competent.

However, unlike the "traditional style" of impersonating a candidate to take the exam for them, for high school, the subjects only receive "remote support", meaning that the student sends the exam questions and the person taking the exam for them will solve the questions and send back the answers right during the exam. "The price for my final exam is 400k/subject, guaranteed to get a score of 7.5 or higher!", LM, an account specializing in taking the exam for someone else, firmly affirmed when asked if he could "support" natural subjects such as math, physics and chemistry.

According to LM, 7.5 is the minimum score and we can set a higher requirement, as long as we pay an additional fee and do not aim for a score of 10 because "he cannot guarantee it because it depends on the teacher's grading method". If we want to "finalize" the order, we have to send this person a photo of the student card or CCCD for "proof" purposes. And in addition to the subjects, this person also accepts English and Russian exams at levels B1 and B2.

Another account named BNT advertised that it specializes in "supporting" chemistry-related subjects, including middle and high school. This person introduced himself as having won two national chemistry awards and many first and second prizes at the provincial and city levels, as well as being able to "support" the new program. "400k out of 8 points, you send me each question you finish, not all at once. But I'll tell you in advance that I only accept money transfers before doing it," BNT said.

Courses of famous teachers originally cost several million VND, now you can own everything for just a few hundred thousand VND but the quality is not guaranteed.

Meanwhile, the TT account, who introduced himself as a student majoring in history at Hanoi National University of Education, appeared confused when asked for "support" for the 11th grade exam, which is the new general education program. "I haven't read the book yet so I don't know the content, I'm afraid I won't be able to read it in time to help you. For those taking the 12th grade exam, I will accept scores of 8.5 to 9 or 9.25. If the score is below the required score, I will refund 30-50% of the money," this person said.

As for TH account, the advertisement only requires paying 250,000 VND, the buyer of the service will get a minimum of 8 points in history. "I can do both multiple choice and essay tests, the time it takes depends on the questions you send, but it will be available 15 minutes before the end of the exam," TH said.

Besides high school students, students are the main target of these "study support" groups, with 4 common services: studying by shifts or "full package", long-term; doing homework, essays, presentations; pretending to go to school to take exams directly; or "supporting" exams remotely. The advertised costs range from a few hundred thousand to a few million VND. And to conveniently find "customers", these groups also set up other channels such as Messenger, Zalo, Telegram. (to be continued)

Risks of 'underground' courses

There are many cases of "losing money and getting sick" because of "illegal" courses. For example, an account shared on the group that after buying an "illegal" course to prepare for the 2024 high school graduation exam, this person only received documents for 2022 and was cut off from the seller. Similarly, Hoang Tu's account said that he bought exam preparation materials for 2023 but discovered a week before the exam that the documents in the "illegal" course were for 2022.

Unlike the two cases above, Nguyen Tran Quynh Nhu, a student at the University of Technology (Ho Chi Minh City National University), had her account deleted and was not refunded because she logged in on multiple devices. "Once, when I logged in on another device, my account was deleted and I was not refunded the money I paid," Nhu said.

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