Got Scammed by Exam Helper - Department of Education?

Hi there, I just discovered this website and just want to share it so people can avoid the service or tempting to use to thing twice. I reaching out to some advertisement on Google to help me with my test. I sent them the money for them to hired someone. Then, one claimed as account manager, named Anthony Parker, told me to connect with an IT expert.

They lead me to rent some programs which they guarantee to bypass school lockdown browser. $1499 for refundable security deposit then increase it to $2600 when they remotely accessed to my laptop told me I need more advance program, which those amount I didnt send them. I told the IT guys to stop at this point and I said I will study and do my own test and requested money back since they said its refundable. I was back and forward with my for 3 days, I see they dont have tendency to keep their word.

I used credit card for the transaction via PayPal, after I called the bank to report the case. Anthony, the account manager, immediately messaged me with that if I proceed with case the Department of Education will be notified and for sure will ruin my academic.

What do you guys think? Should I cancel the case? Please help me out, give me some input!

I used a fake name with a new email to to message them to protect myself and never provide them my university log-in.

There's no such thing as any investigation into student academic conduct by any Department of Education either in the US or UK. Only your academic institution would ever conduct such an investigation, and only if it was one of your professors who notified them, not some stranger online. I continue to be amazed at the gullibility of students who trust these criminals with their sensitive personal information. Definitely pursue the matter directly through your credit card company to recover your money. In that regard, the most important bits of information to share with them are the emails in which you requested to cancel the transaction before they ever actually did anything for you and the blackmail threats, themselves. Also include any emails referring to it being "refundable" and/or screen shots of those types of promises on their website (and preserve those screens ASAP before they can be changed).

Don't respond to any of their messages, at all. Block them on every medium through which they contact you and report them to law enforcement without any fear that LE authorities will have any interest in investigating you or in reporting you to your institution. That's not a thing, no matter who tells you otherwise. Report them to ic3.gov/Home/ComplaintChoice in the US and to actionfraud.police.uk/how-to-report-fraud in the UK. Whatever you do, absolutely do not even consider contacting your institution, either for help (because they can't provide any) or (especially) to confess first, before they "report" you to your school. Don't even bother reading their continued attempts to contact you and don't even continue posting details on this forum, because there's a good chance they're reading this and if they know you're frightened, they'll just continue threatening you.

Ignore and block their messages and don't respond to anything else from them. You already did the most important thing by reporting this and naming the company, to help other students avoid falling into the same trap. Next time, only use a provider who will disclose his complete ID information, because without anonymity, blackmail is impossible, at least in the US and UK.

Perfect. That means there's nothing they could possibly do to you. All the more reason to resist any impulse to read any of their continued nonsense or to respond to them at all. Just block them, forget about them as soon as you file your credit card dispute, and move on with your life. Lesson learned and, hopefully, by others reading this, as well.

These sorts of services proliferate on social media, specifically FaceBook where they exist as Groups which require you to join them to be a part of what is supposed to be an open discussion community.

These then turn out to be avenues for these scammers to prey on unsuspecting students who are looking for an easy way to pass their academic requirements or tests. They never deliver and the student has to redo everything that is submitted to them. Do not rely on the programs they provide at an extra fee either since they are not really useful in terms of what the student needs. I agree with FLW that the Department of Education has better things to do than investigate individual students. The schools do this based on the academic honor code that a student signs upon admission to the school. No worries in this case. you moved in a manner that will protect yourself from all possible threats the scammer could think of inflicting on you.