Authorities warn consumers against refund scams

Education and public security authorities have reminded parents and students to be wary of fraudulent behavior around refunds for tutoring courses, after many courses were suspended due to the government's efforts to reduce students' excessive academic burden.

Recently, there have been people issuing notices in the name of the Ministry of Education or pretending to be tutoring institution employees in order to swindle parents and students who want to get refunds for tutoring courses, according to a notice issued by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Public Security on Thursday.

Parents and students need to be vigilant when receiving calls from tutoring companies and they can consult authorities if they are not familiar with refund policies, the notice said.

Any requirements for additional payments required to get course refunds are frauds, it said, adding that those affected should call the police immediately.

Last year, the general offices of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council, China's Cabinet, issued the "double reduction"-a shorthand for alleviating the twin burdens of homework and private extracurricular tuition on primary and secondary school students.

The policy banned academic tutoring courses at weekends, during national holidays or winter and summer vacations.

Remaining academic tutoring institutions should transfer to nonprofit organizations and the average tutoring fees have been reduced by more than 40 percent, according to the Ministry of Education.

The number of offline academic tutoring institutions has been slashed by 92 percent and online ones by 87 percent, according to the ministry.

With tutoring institutions shutting down academic courses or their business completely, parents have run into great difficulties in getting refunds. Some have even been tricked into paying money in advance to get refunds.

In one case, a mother surnamed Luo in Zhuhai, Guangdong province was tricked out of more than 330,000 yuan ($49,000) to get refunds for her children's tutoring courses, according to Xiaoxiang Morning Herald.

The institution's "finance personnel" asked Luo to enter a chat group on the social messaging app QQ and buy goods from a disguised e-commerce platform.

Another "parent" sent screenshots of being refunded 10,000 yuan plus a bonus of 1,280 yuan for completing certain tasks.

Southern Metropolis Daily reported that a refund notice issued by so-called government authorities on microblogging platform Sina Weibo had promised to refund parents and students at music tutor VIP Peilian after they joined a QQ chat group.

However, the newspaper said they were then asked to download an app and pay money first to get a refund.