FRAUD ALERT: This website is fraudulent, you can’t upgrade your JAMB score by paying any amount

Nanji Nandang

Claim: A website, utmeoffical.net, claims it can upgrade scores  for candidates that did not score up to the cut-off mark in JAMB examination.

Verification has shown that the advertised JAMB results upgrade is a scam.

Full Text

The Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) is a Nigerian entrance examination board for tertiary-level institutions. The board conducts Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) for prospective candidates into Nigerian universities, and it is also charged with the responsibility of administering similar examinations for applicants to Nigerian public and private monotechnic, polytechnics, and colleges of education.

JAMB commenced the 2021 UTME across the country on the 19th of June and results were released to candidates on 25th June.

Recently, a website utmeoffical.net, claimed it can upgrade scores  for candidates that did not score up to cut off mark in the examination., The website claims to be a union of staff from various tertiary institutions in Nigeria, urging candidates to either subscribe immediately or lose out.

It went further to upload testimonial photos to prove that the claim is true.

It also asks candidates to freely specify any score they wish, noting that 200+ will cost 27,000 naira and 37,000 Nair for 300+.

In the same vein, a Facebook handle, Jamb upgrade 2021 has been publishing a series of posts recently, urging candidates to upgrade their JAMB scores, by calling or messaging (+2348067525387), noting that they do not collect money in full before upgrading the result.

It reads; “I can guarantee you that no matter what you score, I will upgrade it but not above 290 but for those who are going for medical related courses, the maximum upgrade score is 320.The upgrading has begun already so hurry up and get yours done immediately. You have from now till July to upgrade your result.”

In reaction to the post,  some of the users clamoured for help while others displayed their testimonies.

Verification

First off, we checked the JAMB website to verify this information but JAMB’s last publication was on the 14th of June 2021 and it it was not about the result upgrade.

Dubawa then contacted the number posted (+2348067525387) on WhatsApp to ask questions. The agent replied to our message immediately.

Then this writer asked for the upgrade of 130 JAMB score, the agent replied, “Per scratch card is #5,000 and each scratch card carries 50 marks, if you are buying 2 cards that’s #10,000, but for an instant, you scored 150 and you buy one scratch card, that’s 50 marks will be added to ur initial score to make it 200marks!”

This writer went further to ask if the process is approved by JAMB, the responder replied in the affirmative.

“Yes 100% ,due to the rate of JAMB failure this year we decided to bring in an opportunity for student who wish to get more score, although you may not see this on any news feed because we are using an hacked system to generate this upgrade but we also work with JAMB administration”

Screenshot of WhatsApp message

Dubawa also discovered that the JAMB upgrade Facebook page was created on the 26th June 2021, three days before JAMB released the 2021 results and it already has over 5000 followers.

Screenshot of Facebook page

So Dubawa went on to  contact the JAMB Public Relations Officer, Dr Fabian Benjamin, who said that candidates should not fall for  fraudsters that parade themselves online as  JAMB agents.

In his words, “JAMB does not use the internet to score candidates or to write examinations, we use Local Area Network, a collection of devices connected together in our office, we only use the internet to upload questions which takes at least three minutes. We only post the results on the internet for candidates to print out their scores but the original results that we would be sending to schools are not on the internet, so even if you decide to pay fraudsters to upgrade your score, it will be useless.

“Do not let anyone deceive you that they can hack our website to upgrade scores, they can only access the score we posted on the website not the original results we would be sending to Institutions for admission, beware, JAMB upgrade doesn’t work. JAMB results upgrade is a scam and myth. You need to be very careful.” he said.

Conclusion   

Findings have shown that JAMB results upgrade advertised by utmeoffical.net is a scam. Therefore, the public should disregard information published by the websites.

 The researcher produced this fact-check per the 2021 Kwame Karikari Fact-checking Fellowship partnership with JAY 101.9 FM Jos to facilitate the ethos of truth in journalism and enhance media literacy in the country