Fake GCSC and A-level exam papers are being sold on social media for prices ranging between tens to hundreds of pounds.
A BBC report states that most, if not every, student in the UK knows about such papers’ circulation on the internet, yet there’s no way of clamping them down. Though authorities are reporting such accounts to moderation, they can’t thwart them completely.
Beware of Fake Exam Papers
With GCSC and A-Level being two of the important certifications needed in the UK to pursue the best later on, students are always in need of good tips to pass them. And what if there are crooks who’re ready to sell the exam papers directly?
Well, student desperation is being exploited in the UK by some fraudsters – by selling fake GCSC and A-level papers on social media. As BBC documented, there are a bunch of accounts on every major social media selling the question papers of the above exams for as little as £7.50 to £4,000 per paper.
Though paper leakage is extremely rare in the UK, students are desperate to get anything that can help with their exams. And the very same urge is cashed by crooks, who approach with fake papers.
A couple of students talking to BBC said they saw accounts selling papers for up to £500, with one buying a paper for £900. Another one buying a paper for 60 feels “hurt and annoyed” after the fake account blocked him after paying the fee.
Despite warnings from the exam regulator Ofqual and assurances from exam boards on no paper leaks, the trade for fake exam papers in the UK continues to grow in social media.
In the pursuit of verifying these claims, BBC tried buying one such offering from a couple of accounts on Instagram. One quoted £150 for an AQA geography paper and £150 for an English language paper. Another account selling a single exam paper quoted £150.
Both accounts asked the payment to be made through Cash App, which the app blocked for suspicious reasons. In this case, the scammers asked the buyers to get them a gift card from a High Street retailer.
All this is for blocking the buyer or deleting their account immediately after payment or after a while. Though some accounts shared the papers as promised, these are mostly doctored images of previous exams, with small changes to the date and text on the front cover.
While countering these accounts is hard, the exam board AQA is doing the least – reporting such accounts to moderation on the counts of copyright
