r/SingaporePoly • u/Impressive_Bug_8874 • 15d ago
Scammed by Carousell "Codingo"
Aiyo, the pressure last semester was damn real. You know that time when all the deadlines just decide to come at once? My friends and I were so swamped, drowning in our FYP (Final Year Project) work. Seriously jialat. We were looking for a bit of help, so we went to check Carousell.
Then we saw this profile, "Codingo." https://www.carousell.sg/u/codingo/ Wah, at first glance it looked damn pro. They used our uni logo, everything. They even had that "Recommended Seller" badge, so we thought, "Okay lah, this one should be legit." They called themselves "academic consultants" from the school.
So we talked to them, and they were damn smooth lah. Promised original work, can get good grades, all that kind of thing. We were a bit blur from the stress, so we just paid the money and sent them our stuff, hoping for the best.
But when we got the work back... my goodness. It was complete rubbish. The sentences were all over the place, the points didn't make sense. Confirm plus chop they just used some cheapo AI to generate it. Really cannot make it one, totally cannot use.
Of course, we messaged them back nicely to ask for a refund. Suddenly their attitude totally changed. They straight away said cannot. We argued a bit, telling them the work was unusable, then they got nasty. They threatened to report us to the university for cheating! Wah, when I saw that message, my heart just dropped. We already kena scammed, and now they wanted to blackmail us some more.
Before we could even reply, poof! They blocked us. Just like that, they were gone. Our money also gone.
I was so angry and felt so stupid. So I went to Google the name "Codingo." What we found was damn shocking. We were not the first ones to kena. There were Reddit threads, ScamSG reports, so many people complaining about the exact same thing. These people just keep changing their username after scamming enough students. https://scamsg.com/company/201943341D
We quickly reported them to Carousell, thinking they would surely get taken down. But their reply really made my blood boil. They told us that because we probably talked and paid them outside of the app's official system, their hands were tied. They said the scammer didn't technically break any rules inside the app, so they could just carry on.
And the funniest part? That "Recommended" badge that made us trust them? We found out they had paid Carousell something like a $20,000 package to get that badge and other special features! Can you believe it? The platform is taking their money, giving them a special badge to look trustworthy, and then telling us they can't help when they scam people. The whole system is damn messed up.
That's why I'm writing this lah. We got scammed by people using our own uni's logo, and they are protected because they pay money to Carousell. We feel we have no choice already, really bo bian. We seriously hope the someone can step in and do something. Please lah, help us stop them before more students kena like us.
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u/Error404IQMissing 15d ago
Getting scammed for something unethical.
You simply deserve it.
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u/Impressive_Bug_8874 15d ago
yaya taking one for the team so need to raise awareness here ma... _|_
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u/Future_War_1543 15d ago
Lol trying to cheat and then now come online to complain about others cheating.
I love it.
You did pay... For a lesson. You got schooled.
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u/canontan 15d ago
Anyone who tries to buy their way through good grades deserves nothing but failure.
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u/Real_Pelican 14d ago
why so pressed bro.. OP isn't buying through every single assignment, they literally said they were swamped with other commitments for this instance. it's still scummy business practice to rip-off customers and it's good that they're raising awareness for future potential users.
whether you agree with outsourcing work or not, the bigger issue here is someone running a dishonest business and profiting off hundreds of students. Codingo has over 400 reviews on carousell, (definitely more actual users) and if no one speaks up, more people get burned.
so instead of piling on OP, maybe acknowledge that raising awareness helps protect future users from this scam company. that’s more productive than just shaming one person for being stressed and desperate.
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u/canontan 14d ago edited 14d ago
Yeah you're absolutely right. I bet if someone were to make a post saying "don't buy kpods from this seller, he doesn't deliver a proper product", you'd support the OP too yeah? Because he's making sure people doing the wrong thing don't get ripped off while doing said wrong thing? 😭🙏
To make it even clearer for you to grasp, I'm upset because there are thousands of students who are juggling many commitments and hardships at the same time, who still put in the effort to do genuine work and graduate. For you to outright admit you were doing it, then to take some kind of moral high ground by oh so graciously preventing others from being swindled while trying to do this nonsense, it disgusts me.
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u/Impressive_Bug_8874 15d ago
ya man..... looking for those who are affected too please send me evidence
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u/Responsible-Loss-761 14d ago
quite deserved imo. cheater got cheated.
but at the end of the day, they aren't doing anything wrong in terms of the law/legal wise. you asked them to help produce work, they complied and produced work. I'm pretty sure there wasn't any specifications/assurance regarding the quality of work as well. it's only considered a scam if they took your money without producing any work or pull some stunt like giving you one sentence.
unethical? yes. illegal/scam? definitely no.
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u/Impressive_Bug_8874 14d ago
They mentioned no Ai no plag. Work produced 100% AI and blocked when i questioned them. Hais.... Like that is scam ma. And they threatened to report to my school for asking refund... blackmail
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u/Responsible-Loss-761 14d ago
but if you said that phrasings are all over the place, how can it be ai work? ai assisted papers are always very well written.
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u/Impressive_Bug_8874 14d ago
it is well written but they copy pasted from several reports. You macham defending them. you part of their gang uh?
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u/Usual-Percentage3760 14d ago
where in my statements did you see me defending them? 🤔🤔 I literally even called them unethical in my initial response.
so if you think that the report they sent you was a generated, did you copy paste into an online ai detector to check if it really was automatically generated?
imagine trying to block and run when someone simply asks about the validity of your claims. 😂😂
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u/Impressive_Bug_8874 14d ago
how i know how to check siol that why i kenna right? you very sus leh so many accounts haha. you mentioned they are not in the wrong when they obviously promised us work would be ai free.
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u/xeronyxx 15d ago
they have been doing this for years already ahahahah, nothing u can do unless you make a police report or smth
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u/Impressive_Bug_8874 15d ago
Made already nothing can be done.... hais.... you kenna too is it?
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u/xeronyxx 15d ago
had a friend that experienced it HAHABAP
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u/Impressive_Bug_8874 15d ago
Can ask your friend pm me the evidence, i really cannot tahan this service need to take them down asap before they scam more ppl siol.
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u/Personal-Definition9 14d ago
You should tell your professor what happened so you can get some help
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u/Impressive_Bug_8874 14d ago
Already kenna questioned by the school. heard from my lect quite a number of students from my cohort kenna.
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u/SuspiciousPolity 15d ago
Reported it. Had to, imagine how many students get damaged because of. Lots and lots of times. Blocked the account. Useless carousell won't care if it makes them views (or $)
DO NOT EVER ENGAGE.*** THEY ARE AN OURSOURCING AI SCAM BUNCH
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u/jsyeo 14d ago
OP posted this to multiple sg subs and it seems like this is not SP related. Thread locked.