Fraudsters sell TOEFL, IELTS results for up to SR4,500

RIYADH: Five years after the Twitter account “Halakouni” was created to raise awareness about fake universities and limit the spread of forged certificates, an equally serious scam has surfaced and is growing: sale of English language test results.
Results in tests like TOEFL, IELTS and others that determine the level of English language proficiency among non-native speakers and which are required by over 3,000 universities around the world as a prerequisite for enrollment at university are now being sold to those wishing to bypass the test requirements.
Advertisements for "good results" in exchange for a certain sum by anonymous accounts are popular on social media. Most of those who run such accounts are Arabs. Some work from in the Kingdom, others from countries like the UAE, Jordan and even Russia.
Accounts are secrete and anonymous to avoid prosecution. The account holders often have more than one account and leave no digital trail.
The promised results are sent via mail after payment, and communication is cut off immediately on receipt of the results. Some do not even care to send the fake certificates after receiving payment.
Many testing centers now fingerprint test takers to prevent impostors.
To obtain a fake test score for IELTS, one has to pay about SR2,800; TOEFL costs around SR3,200. Some sell IELTS scores for as much as SR4,500 and TOEFL scores for around SR4,000.
The money is paid to a local or foreign bank, or via a money transfer company, while photos of the individuals requiring the service, scanned passport information and the receipt of the money transfer is provided via email or WhatsApp.
Results are usually provided within one week, 12 days at most, compared to official centers that give testing appointments from one week to one month, and who give out results up to 45 days later.
According to the vice president of the National Center for Measurement and Evaluation (Qiyas),Abdullah al-Qataei, the tests taken at official centers are strictly monitored and cannot be forged.