After getting a score of 4.5 last year, Pham Nhung retook the IELTS test many times but could not get higher marks.
The sophomore at a university in Hanoi wants to get a score of 6.0 as soon as possible to meet her school’s graduation criterion.
She looked up online earlier this year for community groups selling IELTS exam papers.
After she contacted a page, a staff member offered three different packages: VND599,000 ($24.45) for IELTS predicted questions every quarter until December 2022, a VND5 million “Diamond” package with eight exam papers delivered two or three months before the exam and a VND36 million “VIP” package with one “genuine” test with “100% accuracy” included.
The person told Nhung the exam questions were “top secret” and obtained directly from the British Council and IDP.
She bought the Diamond package after seeing several good reviews on the page.
But the actual test did not match any of the exam papers she had received. When she tried to get a refund from the, she was blocked.
Nhung is among many people paying millions of dong for “genuine” IELTS test papers with answers. The demand for IELTS is skyrocketing as more and more universities have made the certificate one of their admission priorities.
In 2017, only a few colleges had IELTS as an admission criterion. But that number increased last year when more than 30 schools incorporated it into the admission process.
There are many other similar scammers like the page Nhung contacted who extract VND120…
