Scammers have been charging up to £4,000 for GCSE and A-level papers on Instagram and TikTok – which are highly likely to be fake
Bill Hewison, a case analyst at exam board, AQA, said many scammers use doctored images of previous exams, changing the date and text on the front cover to try to dupe students."Right at the other end of the scale, you've got thousands of pounds [being quoted] - two, three, four thousand pounds."
BBC News was granted exclusive access to see how AQA's malpractice teams try to shut down the fraudulent accounts. They do not know who is behind the accounts, but they have scoured social media for anyone claiming to sell papers to students, before and during exam season. Exam boards have no power to shut the accounts down so instead, they report them to social media platforms - often citing copyright as a way to escalate the complaint.Snapchat said they take fraudulent accounts off the platform and urged users to report suspicious activity.But legitimate leaks are rare - and fraudulent accounts on social media are a growing problem.
"If we do a search on Tuesday, we will see five accounts. If we do the same search on Wednesday, we will see 10 accounts," Mr Hewison said.JCQ chief executive Margaret Farragher said it was like "digital whack-a-mole".Ofqual chief regulator Jo Saxton told students not to rely on "fraudsters on the internet" ahead of their exams.
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