‘Essay mills’ reprimanded over ‘misleading’ adverts

Several websites offering academic writing services have been ordered to remove adverts that were found to have implied students could submit essays they had bought online as their own work.

The UK’s Advertising Standards Agency has reprimanded four companies that were targeting Scottish students, where a new English law that has banned the advertising of such services does not apply.

Brilliant Minds Ltd, British Dissertation Help, Treat Assignment Help and Home of Dissertations were all told to remove or amend adverts that were found to have breached the UK’s advertising code.

In February 2023, text on the website essaymills.co.uk – run by Brilliant Minds – told prospective customers that “we write every paper free from plagiarism, so you can hold a unique paper in your hands” and “every order is prepared from the ground to ensure the outcomes are original. The whole process is carried out from scratch – from ideation to research to finally composing the document. This eliminates all the possibilities of plagiarism.”

In a ruling posted online, the ASA said it “considered the overall impression of the ad was that students at Scottish institutions could purchase an original essay from EssayMills and submit it as their own work without risk, particularly because the essay would be plagiarism-free.”

“We understood that students who committed plagiarism could face academic disciplinary measures, including expulsion from their institution. However, the ad made no reference to the risks involved in consumers purchasing work from EssayMills and submitting it as their own.

“We considered that was material information that was likely to affect consumers’ understanding of the ad’s overall message and their decision to use the service.

“Because we considered the ad suggested students could purchase and submit essays as their own without risk of repercussions when that was not the case, we concluded it was misleading.”

Brilliant Minds did not respond to the ASA’s enquiries, the watchdog said, but has been told the advert “must not appear again in the current form” and the matter was referred to the compliance team.

Similar rulings were made against the three other companies named. British Dissertation Help was found to be making claims that it could help students “accomplish maximum grades”.

This contributed to the impression “that consumers would understand they could easily purchase an original, plagiarism-free, essay to hand in as their own work,” ASA said. The company was ordered not to use the advert again.

Home of Dissertations had listed a disclaimer on its site, telling customers that essays provided were “for research purposes and are not intended to be presented as final work”.

ASA said: “We considered consumers would have only been aware of the disclaimer if they scrolled to the bottom of the listing and read the full page of text, which was not necessary in order to contact the advertiser about the advertised service.

“It was, therefore, insufficiently prominent. We also considered the information provided was insufficient to counteract the overall misleading impression given by the ad that consumers would be able to submit purchased essays as their own without risk.”

The company said it had agreed to amend any “problematic claims” in its advertising.

Similarly Treat Assignment Help also displayed a disclaimer on its site but the text was smaller than the rest of the wording on the page and the ASA deemed “it could easily be overlooked”.

The company told the ASA it was now “a tutoring service” and was “no longer using the website complained about, and would remove any problematic claims”.

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com