In a tale that seems all-too-familiar in the era of “fake information,” an admissions consultant is accusing long-time test prep site Beat The GMAT of creating fake consumer accounts and fabricating community debate. “I really do think these things happen a lot (around the net),” says Morgan, a previous derivatives investor for Susquehanna International Group and equity analyst for Albert Bridge Capital.

“I must say I believe that it’s something that should be taken to light. Morgan founded MBA Wisdom, an admissions consultancy, in 2014. Earlier this year, looking to interact with MBA seekers “in a manner that advertising my skills,” he explored assignments with Beat The GMAT and GMAT Club, another grouped online community site. 250 monthly fees, that he received his own page on the webpage. As a person who “throws myself directly into everything I do,” Morgan says in the early times of his “Expert” status at BTG he had “bundles of enthusiasm” as he started to respond to questions and offering advice. His efforts did not go undetected.

“My responses even caught the interest of the Beat The GMAT team, who reached out to me on numerous events to say thanks to me for the quality and volume of my content,” Morgan writes. But he noticed a trend in the questions he was receiving as well. The accounts only posted questions, and always in a higher volume; per day and per forum in fact they posted the same number, at the same time each day.

1. 12 hours of driving range set-up for golf schools/corporate programs
2. New York – 147%
3. Do you will need a patent, copyright, or intellectual property protection
4. Give an example of a company that is organized along divisional lines

All the questions were easy and repetitive, and everything included common one-line remarks at the end, indicating where in fact the questioners got stuck never. ‘IF EVERYBODY’S DOING IT, WHY CAN’T it is done by me? There have been other troubling signs. Morgan says that none of them of the accounts asking questions clarified private communications, and none implemented any of BTG’s Featured Experts, of which the site features dozens.

None responded to questions regarding their articles. Morgan concluded that the majority – in truth, he says, “probably 99%, close to all” – of the initial questions published in the BTG community forums came from false accounts. Dismayed, he contacted Justin Doff, Beat The GMAT director, and showed his concerns. “When I spoke to Justin about it, he seemed to believe GMAT Club was doing the same exactly, and maybe that entitled him to take action,” Morgan says. “‘If everyone’s carrying it out, why can’t I do it?

‘I said, ‘It’s unethical. It’s an extremely dishonest practice.’ I tried to clarify to him that creating fake profiles with pictures deliberately, with fake names, with personalities, it’s a dishonest practice. If you didn’t have anything to cover, you would say actually, these social people are Beat The GMAT associates. “However they don’t care.

Justin doesn’t care about anyone obtaining a good GMAT score. He just cares about having X number of questions and whether he can market the crap from the site. He just wants to make money. And when you out take that equation, you’ve just got a low-level forum with posts that are so low level, why would anyone come there? MODERATORS MAKING CONTENT: ‘STANDARD PRACTICE’?

Doff, speaking to Poets&Quants, says Beat The GMAT isn’t hiding anything about its practices. In fact, he says, BTG is “trumpeting” its employing and training of “moderator staff” as an enhancement to the website that is underway for approximately half a calendar year. Traditionally, of course, website moderators have been tasked with things like viewing out for spam and inflammatory content.

But Doff says now, moderators adding new content “is standard practice and in other similar forums here. For instance, on GMAT Club, you may be aware they have in regards to a dozen roughly moderators and ‘bumpbots’ to stimulate discussion and keep maintaining an orderly forum. It’s all right, part of an ongoing update, he adds, with a redesign, and new features as well as the new approach to content. As well as the changes have met with an overwhelmingly positive response, he claims. “Beat The GMAT site partners and users are happy with the added content since it provides many obvious benefits.