news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

poster news chief reporter zhang haizhen and reporter wen luyi reported

"100% guaranteed admission, 100% graduation, full refund if not admitted..." recently, many netizens revealed that some education and training institutions claimed that they could issue full-time college diplomas without taking exams or attending school. some people paid tens of thousands of yuan but found out that they were cheated.

why are academic degree enhancement scams so common? what is the difference between a purchased full-time college diploma and a real diploma? in recent days, poster news reporters have found that similar "academic degree enhancement" scammers are distributed across the country, and most of the time span of the scam is between 2021 and 2023.

about 200 people were defrauded of millions of dollars

in 2021, due to work needs, cao jin from kunming, yunnan plans to apply for a diploma in dental medicine.

at the end of the year, cao jin saw an advertisement for applying for a full-time college diploma on an online platform. after leaving his contact information, a netizen who claimed to be surnamed wang added him on wechat. cao jin marked his wechat name as "teacher wang".

teacher wang said that there is a 100% guarantee that cao jin will be successfully admitted. if he is not admitted, the full fee will be refunded. after admission, he does not need to take the exam. he can just pay the tuition and study in the school. he only needs to go to school once at the end of each semester.

screenshot of mr. wang’s promise before cao jin signed up

on december 28, 2021, under the guidance of mr. wang, cao jin transferred a deposit of 2,000 yuan to a beijing education technology company and signed an "academic service agreement" (hereinafter referred to as the agreement) with the company. the two parties agreed that if cao jin could not find his personal student status and admission information on the china higher education student information and career center website or the school's official website, the company would refund the full amount.

afterwards, cao jin transferred another 49,800 yuan to the company, of which 29,800 yuan was the fee for entrusting the company to register for the oral medicine assistant physician examination on his behalf.

but unexpectedly, after paying the money, cao jin did not receive the admission letter, and his student status could not be found on the china higher education student information and career center website. even the assistant physician exam that he had entrusted to register for was not answered. cao jin's 51,800 yuan was wasted. "last year, when i called the education company, someone answered the phone. now they don't even answer the phone."

cao jin told poster news that he later joined a wechat group of victims of the education company's fraud. there were about 200 members in the group, and the amount of money defrauded reached millions.

fake admission letter

cao jin was not the only one who was cheated. liu yong from huzhou, zhejiang also encountered a similar scam.

liu yong works in sales and has always wanted to obtain a higher degree. in june 2022, he left his contact information in an advertisement link for "education improvement" on an online platform.

soon, a person claiming to be a teacher from beijing huiben education technology co., ltd. (hereinafter referred to as huiben education) added liu yong's wechat. according to the teacher, the tuition fees for a full-time college diploma for three years are 5,300 yuan, 3,600 yuan, and 3,600 yuan respectively. huiben education's service fee for helping to register and obtain the certificate is 8,000 yuan. after paying the fee, you don't need to go to school, attend classes, or take exams. you can get a full-time college diploma in three years.

liu yong was tempted. in july 2022, he transferred 5,000 yuan to the bank account provided by huiben education as the registration fee. in november of the same year, after liu yong urged many times, the teacher of huiben education said that "enrollment can be processed" and asked liu yong to transfer the first year's tuition of 5,300 yuan and the remaining service fee of 3,000 yuan to the account. later, liu yong received a paper admission letter.

the notice reads: liu yong has been admitted to lanzhou foreign language vocational college to study business administration, with a three-year program. please report to the school with this notice between december 5 and december 15, 2022. this notice is valid before december 28, 2022.

after receiving the admission letter, liu yong felt relieved: "i insisted on getting a paper admission letter because i thought it would have the school's official seal and the education agency would not forge it."

in december 2022, liu yong signed a supplementary agreement with huiben education. the agreement stipulates that liu yong will get his graduation certificate in 2025, and liu yong's academic record will follow the school's principles and be uniformly reported to the education bureau and the admission information network. it should not exceed march 31, 2023 at the latest. otherwise, it will be refunded in full and returned to liu yong by the original route.

supplementary agreement signed by liu yong and huiben education

that month, liu yong transferred 5,300 yuan and 3,000 yuan to huiben education in two installments.

on march 31, 2023, the deadline for checking the student status and enrollment information network agreed in the agreement had passed, but liu yong checked the china higher education student information and career center website many times and could not find his student status at all. he immediately contacted the teacher of huiben education who had been in contact with him before and asked for a refund according to the agreement.

the teacher asked liu yong to add two "teaching teachers" from huiben education. liu yong communicated with the two "teaching teachers" many times, and the other party also repeatedly said "you can get a refund", "i will fill out the information for you to apply for a refund tomorrow", and "the refund will be within 45 working days". however, from april 2023 to date, liu yong has not received a penny.

during the repeated communication with huiben education, liu yong discovered that many netizens had posted the admission letters sent by huiben education, and many of the admission letters looked similar to the ones he received, except that the official seals were different, some were from lanzhou vocational and technical college, and some were from nanjing university of science and technology.

similar admission letters, but signed by different schools

liu yong had no choice but to call the admissions office of lanzhou foreign language vocational and technical college to verify, but the other party told him that "the admission letter is fake."

in may 2023, liu yong reported the case to the anji county public security bureau of huzhou city, zhejiang province.

taking the road of rights protection

after falling into the "diploma trap", the victims embarked on the path of defending their rights.

in december 2023, liu yong received a reply from the anji county public security bureau: the police went to beijing to retrieve the judgment of the lawsuit filed by students against beijing huiben education technology co., ltd. in the same period - (2023) jing0107 minchu 2793, and collected evidence from the employees of beijing huiben education technology co., ltd. the investigation found that before september 2022, beijing huiben education technology co., ltd. could indeed help students from other places to apply for admission to lanzhou foreign language vocational college of gansu province, and the witness cai moumou had already registered for admission. however, after september 2022, due to policy adjustments by lanzhou foreign language vocational college, it no longer accepted students from outside gansu province, resulting in some students from other places who had handled business at beijing huiben education technology co., ltd. before september being unable to enroll. liu yong is one of them.

after receiving the case, the police went to beijing huiben education technology co., ltd. and found that the company had been deregistered and no longer existed at the company's registered address. after consultation with the legal department of the anji county public security bureau, it was determined that the case was a contract fraud (the standard for filing a case is that the amount of money defrauded is 20,000 yuan), and the amount of money liu yong was defrauded of did not reach the standard for filing a case. in the early stage, the police in charge of the case have begun to contact other victims for further investigation and evidence collection, and issued a subpoena to meng mouyang, the actual operator of beijing huiben education technology co., ltd. the case is still under investigation.

liu yong revealed that he knew seven people who had been deceived, and the total amount of money defrauded by huiben education was nearly 110,000 yuan. what made liu yong even more angry was that "the person who claimed to be a teacher at huiben education changed his name to a teacher at beijing wensi chuangda education technology co., ltd. (hereinafter referred to as wensi chuangda) and continued to deceive people under a different guise."

peng hui from hefei, anhui was deceived by this new "vest". at the end of 2023, peng hui transferred 60,000 yuan to this new company. after failing to find his student information within the deadline, he repeatedly urged for a refund but to no avail. it was not until august 2024 that he proposed to call the police, and the other party returned 39,000 yuan.

cao jin from kunming, yunnan, also chose to call the police. on july 5 this year, cao jin reported the case to the jinniu police station of the xishan branch of the kunming public security bureau. the case has been filed for investigation. the police officer of the jinniu police station said that the fraud cases involving the education company that cao jin was deceived were spread all over the country, and it would take time to dig deep, study and analyze.

how valuable is a part-time education diploma?

in recent years, society has increasingly higher requirements for academic qualifications, and more and more "working people" hope to improve their academic qualifications through on-the-job learning. for working students, the most important thing is how to improve their academic qualifications without any worries and get their diplomas quickly and safely.

speaking of the difference between full-time and part-time, the ministry of education's information office once issued a document explaining that the forms of higher education are divided into full-time and part-time according to the time the learners spend studying at school. full-time refers to the form of education in which students study full-time at school within the national prescribed period of study. part-time education refers to the form of education in which students study part of the time at school within the prescribed period of study, and use their spare time to study the rest, or use all of their spare time to study, including various night universities, correspondence universities, radio and television universities, etc. that implement adult higher education.

simply put, students who take the college entrance examination are called full-time students, and adult education is part-time. adult education includes adult education, distance education, self-study, open education, etc. in addition to the class time and method, full-time undergraduates are different from part-time students, and the examination format and graduation certificate are also different.

as "working people" who are far away from the college entrance examination and cannot live on campus, they can only improve their academic qualifications through part-time education. however, in the real job market, the value of part-time education diplomas is far less than that of full-time education diplomas.

however, there were new changes in 2019. this year, the ministry of education, the national development and reform commission, the ministry of finance, the ministry of human resources and social security, the ministry of agriculture and rural affairs, and the ministry of veterans affairs jointly issued the "implementation plan for the special work of expanding the enrollment of higher vocational schools", which kicked off the three-year expansion of higher vocational school enrollment by one million.

in 2019, the number of students enrolled in higher vocational colleges increased by 1 million. in 2020 and 2021, higher vocational colleges will continue to increase enrollment by 2 million. after the expansion, high school graduates, retired soldiers, laid-off workers, migrant workers and new professional farmers, who could only get part-time diplomas through adult education in the past, can also apply for higher vocational colleges to obtain full-time college diplomas.

in november 2021, the "notice of the general office of the ministry of education on further improving the classification examination work of higher vocational colleges" was issued, which clarified the enrollment of key groups in the previous three years of higher vocational college enrollment expansion, and stipulated: "regions with conditions are encouraged to further expand the scale of classified recruitment. ordinary high school graduates, secondary vocational school graduates, retired soldiers, laid-off workers, migrant workers, high-quality farmers and other social personnel who meet the local college entrance examination registration requirements can apply for the exam."

since then, each province, autonomous region, and municipality has issued its own notice on the classified examination and enrollment of higher vocational colleges, with different scopes of applicants and deadlines. during the period of higher vocational college enrollment expansion from 2019 to 2021, people from the society who can apply for full-time colleges may not be able to apply after 2022. among them, household registration and cultural quality examinations have become barriers.

taking the 2024 classification examination and enrollment of higher vocational colleges in shandong and guizhou as an example, the shandong province higher vocational (junior college) independent examination and enrollment targets graduates of secondary vocational schools in shandong province and social personnel. social personnel who apply for the examination should obtain a high school education diploma or have equivalent academic qualifications. the independent enrollment examination must pass the "cultural quality + professional skills" examination (except for retired soldiers). in guizhou province, retired soldiers with guizhou household registration, laid-off and unemployed persons, migrant workers, high-quality farmers, enterprise employees and grassroots agricultural technicians in the province are required to participate in vocational skills adaptability tests, but there is no mention of the requirement to participate in cultural literacy tests.

compared with the two provinces, the success rate of social people applying for full-time colleges in guizhou is higher. the strict rules and regulations for the admission of higher vocational colleges in various provinces make some social people either too lazy to study, or unable to apply in provinces with looser admission regulations due to household registration or actual residence issues, and then choose to pay money to education companies to solve the problem.

in addition, it usually takes three years to graduate from higher vocational education. some education companies have put up advertisements such as "pay an extra fee and you can graduate from higher vocational education and get a certificate in one year" to attract people in society who are in urgent need of a diploma. these people often find out that they have been cheated only after paying the relevant fees, and suffer heavy losses.

the mentality of luck meets the scam "bait"

recently, a reporter from poster news learned through qichacha that beijing huiben education technology co., ltd. is still in existence, but its operations are abnormal and its legal person is restricted from high consumption; beijing wenshi chuangda education technology co., ltd. was deregistered on august 7 this year; another education company has changed its name and is currently in existence, and its legal person has been determined to be a dishonest debtor.

the reporter called the three companies many times and tried to add company personnel on wechat, but to no avail.

nowadays, advertisements for educational institutions and companies offering full-time college diplomas still pop up on major platforms.

on august 19, a reporter from poster news randomly added a staff member of an educational institution in shaanxi named "education advancement" on wechat. the staff member said that working people can apply for full-time colleges and only need to go to school three times. the tuition fee is 3,500 yuan/year, and they also need to pay 8,800 yuan in registration fees and service fees. the school is in guizhou, and as for the household registration problem of people from other provinces, they "have a way to solve it, and the process is formal and legal."

the staff member also mentioned, "nowadays, facial recognition is used. anyone who says that they don't need online learning and exams is 100% a liar." when the reporter asked about the exam subjects and what would happen if they failed the exam, the staff member said, "it's very simple, just go through the process."

so, is it illegal to just pay money to "buy" a diploma without attending classes or taking exams? what are the risks for people in society to enroll in full-time colleges through education companies? what penalties will the education companies involved receive if they fail to solve the registration and enrollment issues as agreed after collecting the fees? how can applicants protect their rights? in response to these questions, poster news reporters interviewed fu jian, a lawyer at henan zejin law firm.

fu jian said that full-time colleges generally require students to take unified entrance exams, and that one cannot directly obtain a diploma by registering for a full-time college through an education company. the promises made by the education company are suspected of false advertising and fraud, and registering through an education company may not achieve the purpose of going to school and may also lead to financial losses. in addition, paying for a diploma without attending classes clearly violates the education law of the people's republic of china and other relevant laws and regulations, and even if one buys a diploma, it will not be recognized.

"the three education companies involved collected the fees but failed to resolve registration and student status as agreed, which is both a breach of contract and a violation of the law. applicants who have paid can call the police first. if they cannot get criminal relief, they can also retain evidence and file a civil lawsuit, requiring the education company to bear the liability for breach of contract." fu jian said.

(cao jin, liu yong, peng hui and other interviewers in this article are all pseudonyms)