It looks you're dealing with Kenyan fraudsters. What is their website? Stop communicating with them. You can say your account was hacked if you really are out of options (but it's always best to tell the truth if that can save you). Don't pay them any money. Never reply to their emails or phone calls.

Btw - they have no "CEO." Pretty sure it's one scammer using different emails / fake names.

It's a foreign scam ring. They operate via ukthesishelp.co.uk, ukresearchexpert.co.uk, uktopdissertation.co.uk among others.

They are not UK based. All names and addresses on their sites are fake.

They have no "lawyer;" as I mentioned, it's the same scammer who uses different emails and fake names to contact you.

Cease communicating with them. Pay them nothing. Even if you pay them 100K, they will still harass you. Writers have nothing to do with the scam; they use the good-bad cop drama to scare you.

Look at their website; just because they wrote "London UK" it doesn't mean they are from London UK. You'd find them closer to Nairobi, Kenya.

I'd not delete it; you may need it.

You should know better what to do, I don't give you legal advice here. Personally, I'd wait and do nothing for at least a couple of days. You can expect more scam threats, but I'd do nothing at this point. Perhaps experienced people here will give you their advice too.

I'd be careful. Some African scammers make you pay $5 or $1 as a trial, but their only goal is to collect your payment information. I don't know of any legitimate writing service that provides a "trial" service.

I've just checked their website and noticed this answer to the question if they save notes.

"No, we do not save any of your private data. All notes are saved on your local device using cookies."

Well, as someone with programming experience I can tell you that the maximum size of a cookie is 4096 bytes and nobody would store anything than a simple string in a cookie. I doubt what they claim here is true and suspect they store everything in their external database.

If they operate out of Ukraine or Cyprus, they don't care to break the laws and post misleading statements.

Asking for a full refund may trigger negative emotions. You paid little money for a so-so product, so the company thought you still got a good deal. That's how it works in life too; you cannot expect a Lexus quality if you buy a Dodge. Did you ask for a full refund or were open to accept a partial refund or a free revision?

If you didn't use the work at all, you don't have much to worry about. If they are not stupid and you did not dispute the charge (it might escalate their threats if you do), my advice is to ignore them.

Was the email from the "Department of Education" real? It could be faked.

If it has "via" in the "From" area, it's a scam email. Department of Education doesn't care about individual students. Btw, they also have no "legal team" - it's the same scammer responding to your emails. I suggest to ignore them.

No consequences. These Kenyan scammers will move on to another potential victim if you just ignore them. They may try to send you more emails but whatever they say they have nothing on you.

What Reply-To email shows up when you click on the Reply button from the "Department of Education" email? I'm sure it's a different email (it's actually the scammer's email). The scammers have no case. "Department of Education" is closed on the weekends. Also, why don't you post the scammer's website name to protect other students.

In your gmail, click on the down arrow and check what email appears next to the 'reply-to.'

education.gov.ie doesn't exist. The scammers use a phished email to send it via 5ymail.me, an anonymous email scam provider. Don't spend more time on this junk, it's a scam.

As far as I know, AI only paraphrases the information. It is unable to create new concepts. If you read one AI-generated paper on a topic, reading another 10 will not get you any new knowledge..

How did you find them? I don't know of any student who would use them. The only text their have ever written are fake reviews. A website that automatically posts "reviews" is in control of them. They can revise them, write them from scratch, or delete them at any time.

You're dealing with African fraudsters, even though Ukrainians are equally skillful.

None of them has ever visited Europe, unless on Google maps. That's why, they use apps like Whatsup to try to hide their location, but if the area code is 254, it's Kenya. Check for other similar codes.

The question is, why did your daughter choose to work with the scammers?

Did she find them on fake review websites like Sitejabber, Google Reviews, Facebook, or Trustpilot? 95% of these reviews have been written by the scammers purporting to be students, they are totally fake testimonials.

After having read dozens of such experiences, why don't you stick with established freelancers or services that have existed for two decades or more? If a service has 100 positive reviews posted in the last few years, it is a scam.

No real student is going to post a positive review unless he is paid for it. If a company has 90% of positive reviews and there are dozens or hundreds of them, stay away! It is fraud - guaranteed.

80% of "companies" that advertise to be "UK-based" are either from Kenya, India, Pakistan, or Ukraine. The more "UK" is displayed on their page, the more chances they are not from the UK. I'd suggest working with companies that have existed for at least 1 or 2 decades (there are still a few left).

Choose a service that sells copyrights along with the dissertation.

Fake TrustPilot and other reviews, it's 100% not from the UK. Closer to India or Pakistan.

First of all, how would you know they are from the UK? Second, what do they want from you, could you paste their message (removing your details).

Looking at the screenshot:

1. The scammer provided a fake name (Neil Taylor). I'm pretty sure the scammer is not British.

2. I'd safely assume that they (the university - if it was sent there) just blocked the email and will do nothing. The email sounds like extortion. Or maybe they'll take the bait to find out the real data of the scammer and report him to the police for harassment, extortion, giving false information, and blackmail.

Your anonymous username (Baba84) is anonymous enough for you to keep it private. Just make sure you don't include your real name or contact information and it should work just fine.

Right; that's why, I doubt anyone from the university would take such emails seriously. It's like replying to a lottery scam email. Besides, it would require a formal investigation and considering students are the university's "patrons" it would take a lot of moving parts to get to the bottom of it, so they just ignore it.

Imagine a guy walking into a bank and telling the clerk that he knows for a fact that one of their patrons stole money from him. The guy essentially wants the bank to become his free legal representative, even though he has no association with the institution. As long as the bank's patron hasn't stolen anything, I doubt they would want to work for the random guy / scammer. Their answer would be: "call the police or have your own lawyer formally contact us, so that we may look into it."

Do you know where they send emails from? Do you have their IP? I don't see you posting any identifiable information so it doesn't matter at this point. Do they use an account associated with the sites or just a random gmail/outlook (totally anonymous) account? It seems some freelancing scammer is trying to mess with you and I doubt they use their business address to contact you.

What kind of service did you order from them?

It seems like companies like Google or Microsoft might be undermining themselves by releasing AI text generation tools. Corporations are now using AI to create content that feels inauthentic and robotic. Ironically, now Google's own AI seems to be favoring forums and social media in rankings, which are known for human-generated content. It's like they're going full circle :) Personally, I pretty much avoid reading all kinds of robot-written text (getting better and better at detecting it).

They keep doing it even today :(

Sorry, by "they" I meant "them" in general (ie. unscrupulous essay services).

I guess AI can do it though. One thing is sure - AI doesn't make grammar/spelling mistakes. It may write nonsense, but nonetheless its writing is (technically) error-free.

It appears that freelance writers are more likely to extort students than writing services. Is there a reason for this trend? Regardless, the advice remains consistent: don't give in to extortion attempts. Ignore threats and protect yourself.

It'd interesting to know why the pre-written market has "died." Not everything is published freely online.

Good points. Regarding Academon, it was a very popular site back then.

The legal language tends to be very broad for a reason. I wonder if by "essay mills" they also mean authors for hire / freelancers?

It's possible, but most addresses posted on these websites are fake. For example,

10 Main Street
New York, NY

These days, African scammers use AI text generators to create text content; as above.

Can you describe any negative experiences you've had? It seems you're competing with them for business, and you are not a student; am I right?

If we talk about Britaineducopyrights.co.uk, it shows strong signs of being a scam. The domain was only registered on June 1, 2023, roughly coinciding with the implementation of the British "anti-plagiarism" law. Legitimate legal or government institutions typically wouldn't use a .co.uk domain. This website likely aims to extort money from individuals, businesses, and organizations. It's safe to report it to the appropriate British authorities and block their emails.

A letter - do you mean by postal mail sent to your residence address or just an email?

It is an extortion scam. A real legal office would never send just an email if they were serious.

At first, AI writing appears eloquent, but it has no substance. It can write 10 pages about nothing. I hear that professors are catching up with this nonsense. Google is now reverting their search engine model after they realized the auto-generated junk that no human wants to read has polluted their search results.