by China Veteran
Fri Apr 18, 2014 12:33 am
This is a very unusual and believable scam that fools hundreds of high school and university students every month into applying for a Chinese language course or university enrollment in China thinking they will get a free scholarship. Victims are contacted by email, or Skype or respond to thousands of ads that are spammed all over the internet by CUCAS which claims to be part of the Chinese Ministry of Education (denied by the Chinese government) and even offer to work for "free" on your behalf to process all the paperwork. But after you do all the paperwork and give them all your personal information, you are told to contact another "service company" called "Beijing Chiwest" which demands fees starting from $1,000 to $5,000 so that you can get your scholarship application processed. Both CUCAS and Beijing Chiwest are owned by the same guy (Peter Zheng) and both companies will tell you that they can get you into any of China's universities - take your pick.
Once you pay however, it is game over. They enroll you into the same 10 rinky-dink universities where they collect 20% commissions and tell you that you were not accepted in the school you selected. Refund? LOL!
This scam has been thriving more than four years due to the fact that the scammers obtained a .edu.cn domain site from the government agency where he used to be a manager (CERNET). To read all he details visit http://chinascampatrol.wordpress.com.
Do not be fooled by a great website and scores of fake review and shill testimonials. I invite scambaiters everywhere to have fun with this scummy operation that targets young students full of hope but not in a position to lose thousands of dollars.