Would-be students may miss out on courses because they have been duped into thinking a foreign internet company is acting on behalf of UK colleges.
Dundee College said its logo and details of many of its courses had appeared without permission on a site run by a company called eMagister, whose registered office is in Barcelona, Spain.
A spokesman said the company had claimed to have details of potential applicants, but insisted that the college would have to pay before it gave them the names.
The college turned down this offer and is now warning all 42 other colleges in Scotland to beware of the company.
According to information on its website, eMagister is owned by Grupo Intercom, an internet technology specialist. In addition to its Spanish operation, it has sites dedicated to providing details of educational establishments and the courses they offer in several other countries, including the UK, Italy, France, Germany, the United States and Mexico.
It claims to offer information about 1.2 million courses from 13,000 providers.
The company’s website lists an address in Oxford Street, London, but directory inquiries has no listing for eMagister in the city. Attempts to contact it have been unsuccessful.
The Dundee College spokesman said, “What is really sinister about this company is that they have uploaded details of Dundee College courses, taken from our website without permission, and posted them on their own site, pretending to offer a legitimate online inquiry service, when in fact they are completely unauthorised.
“We suspect that there may be scores of people who believe they have contacted the college about enrolling on courses when, in fact, we know nothing about them.
“Not only is this damaging to the college’s reputation, but it could mean that these genuine inquiries are left hanging in limbo and therefore people miss their chance to enrol on a course.”
On the college section of the company’s UK website, a Dundee College logo was prominent. When this was clicked on, it took users through to a list of more than 400 courses the college offers.
However, it appears the geography may not be eMagister’s strong suit as the college is listed as being in Aberdeenshire.
The college’s marketing team has contacted some other colleges and discovered they were unaware that eMagister has been using their logos.
The spokesman said, “By using providers’ logos on online forms, eMagister is misleading potential students who believe they are contacting colleges directly, then the company tries to exact payment from colleges in exchange for the inquirers’ details.”
Umbrella body Scotland’s Colleges has been alerted to the company’s activities and asked to pass on a warning to all the other colleges in the country.