Muhammed Adam, a Lagos State-based lawyer, has described the digital certificate platform recently launched by the Nigerian office of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) as fraudulent after several unsuccessful attempts to access his certificate.

The digital certificate platform was launched on October 20 as a smart and secure way for institutions and organisations to confirm certificates. It also aims to prevent fraud and delay while ensuring a seamless access across mobile and web devices.

FIJ learnt from the organisation’s website that accessing the certificate costs ₦7,500, while sharing it costs ₦3,500. Also, an international request confirmation costs ₦5,000, while a local confirmation goes for ₦3,500.

Also, FIJ learnt that users would be charged for every service request on the platform regardless of whether it is successful or not.

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While some people have successfully used the WAEC digital certificate platform, user like Adam have described it as fraudulent due to reasons ranging from being debited more than once to being denied permission to view their certificates despite making payments.

The Lagos-based lawyer told FIJ that he decided to use the platform on Sunday because he thought it was real. However, after being debited N7,605, he only got a notification that he had no permission to view the certificate.

“I had an unfortunate experience on the platform, and it was later that I discovered it was a scam. After paying, they said I couldn’t access the certificate,” he told FIJ.

“The essence of payment is to have the consent to view it. I was meant to click on the lock icon after payment, and I did, but I could not view the certificate I paid for.

“I reached out to their support team, and all I got was that they were working on it.”

Like Adam, another user, who wished not to be named, was debited N7,605 after following the prompts. But he was denied access to the certificate.

He told FIJ that he used the platform on October 16, four days before it was formally flagged off, and when he encountered the problem, he lodged a complaint immediately. But since then, the support team has not resolved the issue.

“I used it prior to the launch date because the website was active. But I don’t think that was why it didn’t work,” he told FIJ.

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“After paying, I received a notification that I didn’t have permission to access the certificate that I paid to access.

“It’s like the platform only wants people’s money. It doesn’t care whether objectives are achieved. I also noticed all proceeds go to a tech company in Lekki.”

Similarly, Kemi Ahmed was wrongly debited N15,210 – twice the original amount – yet she could not access the certificate because she inputted a wrong phone number while creating her account on October 20.

To resolve the issue, she lodged a complaint with the support team by sending a message to the official email address on the website, but she did not receive a promising response.

Frustrated by the lack of resolution days after the issue, she described the digital scheme as an organised scam on Twitter.

Hello @waecnigeria @waecdigitalcert

After several failed attempt to get your support team to resolve the issues with using the digital platform and seeing all the negative feedback from people, i have come to realize this is all a SCAM! This is nothing but a fraud! A thread!

— Kemi Ahmed (@Khemipearl213) October 25, 2022

“On the 20th of October 2022, I created an account on the WAEC digital certificate platform. I entered my card details and made payment of N7,605 as requested so I could gain access to my digital certificate, but after inputting all my card details, I was redirected back to the form page without a notification of a successful transaction,” she tweeted on Tuesday.

“After a while, I got another N7,605 debit alert which summed up to N15,210 but I didn’t receive units as stated on the site, so I submitted a complaint on that. Later on, I received two emails stating that I now had 60 units in my portal. Note: I didn’t request for additional units; I only need to pay for one certificate, and I have nothing to do with the other 30 units on my portal. I had to send a bunch of emails requesting for a refund.

“I moved on to access my certificate, but I realised I couldn’t because while creating my account, I mistakenly entered an incorrect phone number and couldn’t get the OTP sent. I tried to edit the phone number, but the input field to that was disabled.

“This is really an unfortunate event. I can’t believe an organization like
@waecnigeria can be part of a scam. I have submitted several complaints on that, but I am yet to get any positive response! All I keep getting is ‘We are working on it’ This is an organised scam!”

“The issue I have with WAEC digital certificate is still unresolved. In fact, the support team stopped responding to my emails and messages,” Ahmed told FIJ.

“This is the worst experience I have ever had using an online platform. The WAEC digital certificate platform is an organised scam.”

Ayobami Adekojo also used the platform. However, unlike Adam, the unnamed user and Ahmed, he accessed the certificate after some “diplomacy”.

He said he paid N10,646 to recover his candidate number and access the certificate but in the process of inputting his information but it didn’t work at first.

“So there’s some happy ending to this after some ‘diplomacy,’” he said. “I have gotten my digital certificate. I still do not recommend this service because it’s obviously a lottery and you will lose your money if it doesn’t work.

“Unless you’re willing to gamble and then return here to drag the company and WAEC, you should reconsider using this service. As for me, Twitter has helped me to get what I was seeking. It’s not different from a scanned copy, and it’s another N3,500 to share this.”

Adekojo told FIJ that “the experience was bad. They charge for every unsuccessful attempt and mistake.”

On how it was resolved, he simply said, “I was refunded some of the ‘points’, and I used that to check again and the certificate was there.”

Meanwhile, a check through the Twitter handle of the WAEC digital certificate platform (@waecdigitalcert) revealed numerous complaints from Nigerians who have encountered unresolved challenges while using the platform.

When FIJ sent a message to the WAEC digital certificate support team’s email address on Friday, the response was:

“The development of the new digital certificate platform is in line with WAEC’s continuous record of meeting global needs by using cutting-edge technology to improve candidates’ experiences as they seek to continue their education.

“The platform was created to make it easy to access, share and confirm certificates with ease whilst also eliminating the bottlenecks, cost, and time it takes to confirm certificates to institutions and other interested parties.

“Since the launch, the system has lived up to that objective, and in contrast to the perception, over 90% of the users who have attempted to use the platform have been able to access their certificate having provided the correct information.

“There are, however, a few isolated cases whose information could not be validated because no corresponding record was found on the database or information provided did not match the certificate being queried. For data protection reasons, these categories of people will not be granted access. These have been treated on a case-by-case basis.

“For every single person that lodged a complaint, we provided a response that their case was being investigated and we would get back to them. Since then, some cases have been resolved having been granted access to their certificates, while others have been refunded via their wallets.

“Beyond that, we have listened to the yearnings of the people by implementing a logic that will ensure that these categories of people will not be debited for any failed attempt going forward.”