Fake English Certificates - Avoid Them At All Costs!

Just a heads up that TEFL scams are rife online. Most common are fake English test and TEFL certificate scams.

The other day I found this advert submitted to the forum on my Niche Laboratory website's forum:

Get registered IELTS, TOEFL, ESOL All English Language Certificates.

We Produce Real registered IELTS, TOEFL, ESOL without you sitting for an exam. We are out here to help you get your documents easy and help you save your precious years !! and time.

Certificates will be Original and registered in the data base with online verification posiblities Once your details are imputed in the system it will be in the IELTS, TOEFL, ESOL web sites/system and will appear real and legit. We have been in this job for more than 8 years and have helped a lot of people in the past.

Email: (registereddocuments01@gmail.com)

Just a heads up that fake IELTS/TOEFL and other certificates are to be avoided at all costs. This goes for degree certificates and TEFL teaching certificates (but more about these later).

IETLS and TOEFL certificates are almost always required if you apply to study overseas. The better organisations will check the authenticity of any certificates submitted by applications. I know because I used to work in the admissions department of one of the UK's leading universities. It was surprising how many applications were rejected because of forged documents.

Of course you could probably study at a lesser organisation with fake documentation. But then a certificate for whatever you study there will be largely worthless in the global marketplace.

Fake TEFL Certificates - What's the Point?

It's so easy to find faked TEFL Certificates online. I'm not sure I really see the point of them because:

• A real 120 hour TEFL Certificate costs around $300. I think that's what I paid for my TEFL certificate from The TEFL Academy.
• A CELTA will cost about $2000 but if you do yours somewhere there's high demand for teachers then you're pretty much assured of a job when you finish the course. When I did my CELTA in Barcelona, Spain, all of the students on the course found teaching jobs after completing the course. Well except for me - I backpacked round Europe for a bit then went to work for an insurance company in London.
• If you're intending to teach in a country like China then you'll need to authenticate your teaching certificate. So it's essential you get a legit one in the first case.

When I applied for my first ever teaching job in China then I had to pay to get my bachelors degree, police check and TEFL teaching certificate authenticated. This cost me £350 which is a heck of a lot of money! However, I should only ever need to do this once.

My bundle of authenticated documents which were certified by the Chinese Embassy in London.

Finally remember that submitting fake documents when applying for a job is illegal in many countries. Most countries are very strict when it comes to immigration fraud, as these examples show:

• Three jailed for submitting fake academic qualifications to apply for work passes (Singapore)
• Fake university degrees in the spotlight (Thailand)

Two popular TEFL destinations - Thailand and China have become increasingly strict about immigration lately. So you don't want to be made an example of.


In the case of Thailand, it's even apparently common for university teaching staff to have fake degree certificates. This is just one reason why a degree from a university in Thailand doesn't carry much weight. It's a shame because in theory it would be a good place to study for an MA TESOL. But the reality is that academic standards in Thailand are pretty darned low.

Could you sleep at night in Thailand or China knowing your TEFL Certificate or Bachelor's degree certificates were forgeries? Teaching on fake certificates could get you deported and barred from re-entering the country, or even jailed!

Don't take that risk.