Social media sites urged to stop A-level and GCSE scammers

Teams of analysts at exam boards scour social media sites to look for scammers and report any fraudulent accounts.

But they can only report the incidents in the same way as any other social media user.

Some of the scam accounts often remain active for several days after they have been reported.

The JCQ wants exam boards to be granted direct access to the social media site’s enforcement teams to shut the accounts down more quickly and stop students being “conned”.

“Anything we can do together with social platforms is absolutely crucial,” said JCQ chief executive Margaret Farragher.

A spokesperson for Meta, Instagram’s parent company, has said it does not allow exams or answer sheets to be sold on its platform and removes any accounts that are flagged.

TikTok has said it removes any content that tries to defraud or scam members and urged users to report any accounts claiming to sell exam papers.

Separately, The International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) has said “a very small number of students” have accessed some of its exam papers after they were shared online.

More than 150,000 students aged 16 to 19 study for the International Baccalaureates in 143 countries, including the UK.

Some students have claimed papers were leaked on Reddit and Telegram.

An IBO spokesperson confirmed there have been instances of time zone cheating, where students who have completed their exams in certain countries share information with those yet to sit them.

However, the IBO said this activity was on the “fringes” and added there is “no evidence of widespread cheating”.

Any students found to have cheated could face a range of consequences, such as receiving no marks for individual exams or being banned from sitting any future IBO exams altogether.