Back in August 2018 – 3 years ago – we posted about the case of education agency, Quack Study
In late July 2018, State Police in New South Wales, Australia arrested the director of education agency, Quack Study, Jorge Armando Becerra Perea for alleged fraud against international students.
Police acted following complaints about the education agency from a group of students from Columbia and Peru about inconsistencies with their international student health insurance payments, and course enrollments to different educational institutions in Australia.
In February 2019, Jorge Armando Becerra Perea, pleaded guilty before the Local Court in Sydney to charges relating to fraud against international students. He was sentenced to 18 months in jail and ordered to reimburse victims a total of $100,000. The jail sentence was immediately replaced with an order that Perea performed 300 hours of community service.
The Quack Study website is no longer active, and instead returns a generic Go Daddy page. Quack Study still has live accounts on Instagram, and Facebook, although it appears they have not been updated since mid-2019.
In our post three years ago, we also listed 18 Australian educational institutions that included Quack Study in the list of their education agents on their website. (Under Australian law, it is a requirement that educational institutions working with agents list their authorised education agents on their website.)
The AgentBee research team recently did another Google search, and found that several Australian educational institutions still list Quack Study – and some even Jorge Armando Becerra Perea specifically – in their list of authorised education agents.
My Business College
College of Sports & Fitness
Wells International College
Southern Academy
English Language Company
Education Agent misconduct – is it a blind spot for your institution?
The most likely explanation for the listings set out above is that the institutions are simply unaware of the incident.
Are you confident that your institution has systems in place to detect and respond to incidents of misconduct by your education agents?
Agent background checks – why and when?
Performing background checks on your education agents is a good way to reduce education agent risk – that is, the risk that one of your education agents will fail your institution and prospective students by acting unprofessionally or dishonestly.
It’s a good idea to build agent background checks in to your approach to education agent management. At a minimum you should consider doing an agent background check:
- before entering into an agreement or contract with a new agent that you have not worked with previously, and
- at each scheduled contract or performance review point with each of your authorised education agents.
How to background check your agents
AgentBee reports on incidents involving education agents around the world, including:
- unprofessional conduct
- dishonesty, and
- criminal conduct
Each incident is recorded in our Education Agent Alert Database and includes:
- agency/business name
- names of individuals implicated in the incident, and
- a detailed incident report.
Here’s a preview…
( The database may take a moment to load. Please be patient.)
The full Education Agent Alert Database contains over 100 alerts dating back to 2000. Our research team is regularly uncovering and adding new incidents.
You can use the database to do a check on your new and current education agents.
How to get real time education agent alerts
The Education Agent Alert Database is a great tool for background checking new and current agents, but it is also important that you know about new incidents involving agents in real time.
In the event that one of your current agents is involved you will know immediately and can decide what action to take.
Our clients get automatic notifications each time we identify and add a new education agent alert to the database.
Manage your education agent risk – starting now
If you would like access to the full Education Agent Alert Database, and real time alerts on incidents involving education agents please contact us.
