It is estimated that the number of essay writing services in the UK is close to 1000, and the number of services available has been growing during the pandemic as vulnerable students are targeted. Essay mills are unscrupulous businesses and exploit students, they risk undermining the qualifications and hard work of students who fall victim to their scams.
Essay mills often pose as legitimate/genuine student support, they may offer free “proof reading”, grammar and spelling checks and tutor/peer support. This is often how they lure students in, they then offer to rewrite a piece of work for a fee. This is the big red flag, student support is FREE, and the college have advisors and support in place to help you throughout your course. Any company asking for money or additional notes in return for support is more than likely an essay mill.
Essay mills often pop up on social media and specifically target students who may have searched for key words and phrases such as “help with assignments”, “how to write a report”, “how to reference”. They then use cookies and analytics to push targeted ads.
Some essay mills also offer money or discounts to students to upload notes (either their own or lecture notes) and attempt to recruit students to advertise their services in halls and student hot spots. Uploading someone else’s notes comes with additional risks related to copyright, and uploading notes just goes on to feed the monster and puts other students at risk and further undermines qualifications.
Don’t be tempted to copy or share your work or buy assessments online. We want our students to be proud of their achievements and to create a community that stamps out these essay mills. To support our students we’ve signposted to where you can access tips to studying effectively and how to access genuiene support.