Fraudsters began to breed applicants for tuition fees before enrolling in university

The scammers began calling applicants who plan to enroll in universities on a fee-based basis and offering to pay in advance to ensure enrollment. Alexander Perendzhiev, chief expert of the Moscow Anti-Corruption Committee, Associate Professor of the Department of Political Analysis and Socio-Psychological Processes at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, told Izvestia about this scheme.

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According to him, the situation with admission this year is tense, as the number of paid places in some specialties has been reduced, and fraudsters are trying to "wind up" the situation against this background.

"It used to be easier — I paid the money and was guaranteed admission. Now there is a competition even among paid users. This is where all these scam games begin," Perendzhiev explained.

Ashot Oganesyan, the founder of DLBI, a data leak intelligence and darknet monitoring service, confirmed the active use of a fraudulent scheme with pre-payment for training. Alexandra Pozharskaya, an expert of the Popular Front project For Borrowers' Rights and the Moshelovka platform, also knows about it.

To minimize contacts with scammers, information should be checked only on the official websites of universities and colleges, where enrollment lists are publicly available. In addition, before paying for something, it is necessary to contact the organization through official channels and clarify not only the availability of such a service, but also the correctness of the received details, experts recommended.

Read more in the exclusive Izvestia article:

Admission victims: Scammers trick applicants into paying before enrolling in a university