Advertising bosses are cracking down on essay mills after a Daily Record investigation. We told how Scottish students are being explicitly targeted by plagiarism factories after the UK parliament outlawed the dodgy trade in England and Wales.
Scotland has lagged behind with legislation, meaning students can buy tailor-made essays without any laws being broken. But the The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has now taken action against four companies who offer to write essays specifically for Scottish students for cash, as they falsely promised there would be no repercussions for their shady trade.
The ASA decided that it was misleading to imply there would be no penalties - as the Scottish universities or colleges could take their own punitive action against any student caught cheating. The action follows a Record investigation that showed cheating at Scottish universities is through the roof - up more than 1000% at some famous institutions.
We carried out a sting on two plagiarism operations, who promised us there would be no risks attached to essay we were paying to be written from scratch for as little as £140. And we demonstrated how Chatbot technology like Chat GPT can churn out passable essays in a matter of minutes.
One London-based firm targeted by the ASA, “Essay Mills”, had a page titled “Scotland’s Assignment Help Led by Former Professors”. Another company called British Dissertation Help boasted they could provide essays for students who were too lazy to do the work themselves.
The ASA banned the adverts after concluding they misleadingly implied students could submit an essay they had bought as their own without facing sanctions from their university or college.
In their written ruling the advertising watchdog said: “We considered that the overall impression of the ad was that students at Scottish institutions that used the service could submit an essay they had bought as their own and that there was no risk in doing so.
“However, we understood that students who committed plagiarism could face academic disciplinary measures, including expulsion from their institution. Because we considered the ad suggested that students could purchase and submit essays as their own without risk of repercussions when that was not the case, we concluded that it was misleading.”
Two other companies -Treat Assignment Help and Home of Dissertations - also had their adverts banned. Those firms included disclaimers in their ads saying essays bought from them should only be used as a guide and not submitted as final work. However, the ASA ruled that the disclaimers were not displayed prominently enough.
Treat Assignment Help, who are registered at an address in Manchester, and London-based Home of Dissertations both agreed to amend any problematic claims in their advertising. Essay Mills and British Dissertation Help did not respond to the ASA’s enquiries. All of the companies were approached for comment.
The Record asked the Scottish Government if any progress had been made in bringing forward laws against essay mills. But a statement we received indicated no progress in the past two months.
It states: “The Scottish Government is considering next steps to tackle contract cheating and `essay mills’ in Scotland, and recognises legislation may have a role to play as part of a wider package of measures.”
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