Guy Curtis (2020) from UWA has created a list to help students.
Tell-tale signs that you are looking at an illegal cheating site:
- Asking for payment to complete assignment work for you.
- Assurances that they offer good quality writers/writing.
- An Order button.
- Prices linked to assignment length and completion times.
- Attempts to justify why buying assignments might be okay.
- Testimonials from customers, often accompanied by stock photos of people who aren’t real students.
- Guarantees of plagiarism-free work.
- The need to create a personal account and login.
- One of a number of nearly identical sites with different domain names.
- Terms of service that disclaim responsibility if students are caught submitting work from the site.
- Various service guarantees such as 24/7 support, live chat, feedback, money-back if unsatisfied (research shows they don’t always deliver on these*).
Bibliography
Ellis, C., Zucker, I. M., & Randall, D. (2018). The infernal business of contract cheating: Understanding the business processes and models of academic custom writing sites. International Journal for Educational Integrity, 14(1), 1. doi: 10.1007/s40979-017-0024-3
Rowland, S., Slade, C., Wong, K-S. & Whiting, B. (2018) ‘Just turn to us’: the persuasive features of contract cheating websites, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 43(4), 652-665, doi: 10.1080/02602938.2017.1391948
*Sutherland-Smith, W., & Dullaghan, K. (2019). You don’t always get what you pay for: User experiences of engaging with contract cheating sites. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 44(8), 1148-1162. doi: 10.1080/02602938.2019.1576028