Member of the public helps the WCED to track down enrolment scam
This week, a member of the public notified the WCED of a fake enrolment notice/advert that was circulated around Du Noon.
The advert read as follows:
“2020 Grade 8 and Grade 1 students enrolment is currently open for all schools that are in the Western Cape. Registration is open until the 15th of March. You cannot register the students directly at the school all you need to do is come at Silulo Ulutho Technologies bring with you your ID, your child’s birth certificate, the last report and you will be charged a fee of R50 which is the 2018 December report. Please register your child as soon as possible so is to secure a place for the for next year.”
This notice/advert is of course a fake.
The WCED immediately called the company that is on the fake notice/advert. A man from the Du Noon office answered and confirmed that they were encouraging parents to register online with them. He said that he had been asked to do so by a WCED school in order to assist parents with online enrolment. He indicated that the R50 was the cost to provide internet access.
The WCED investigated further and called the school in question. The principal said that he has had no engagement with the company on enrolments. The school is also not part of the online admissions pilot, and therefore were not encouraging parents to apply on-line. Parents may submit paper-based application forms from the school, as has been done in the past.
The WCED sent out a press release alerting parents to the fake notice. It subsequently got extensive coverage in numerous daily print and online news publications, social media and radio.
The company has also been asked to ensure that the notices are removed. While we cannot guarantee that all of the notices have been taken down, we have at least alerted many parents to this scam.
Parents must note that if they do not have access to digital resources to apply online, even if it is at one of our pilot schools, then they may submit a paper-based application form instead.
We thank the member of the public that alerted us to this fake notice. By working together, we managed to expose a practice that was profiteering off the poor.