📰 From the news · Impersonating a real college/agent
Agencies wearing university logos, callers pretending to be the embassy: what DAAD and RWTH Aachen warn students about in Germany
Germany does not have a fake-medical-school problem. It has an intermediary problem, and the institutions that receive students have said so themselves.
The German Academic Exchange Service's India office publishes a standing warning under the heading "Beware of misleading agencies": some agencies have been "falsely claiming to represent German universities or institutions", or have been "using logos or elements of corporate identity of German institutions" to give that impression. DAAD's answer is not a list of good agents — it is a list of the official channels that make agents unnecessary: the government-backed study-in-germany.de portal, uni-assist (the application evaluator used by around 180 German universities), DAAD's own regional offices, and its MyGuide tool. Admission to a German public university, including medicine, runs through those channels and the universities' own offices; nobody can sell a place.
The agent trade around Germany is usually not about the seat itself but about the path to it. Medicine at a German public university is taught in German, admission is by grade and quota, and international applicants typically need language certification and often a preparatory year. That is a long, checkable process — which is precisely why sellers replace it with something short and unverifiable. The Ghaziabad consultancy published on this site, which took ₹15–20 lakh per family for "admissions" in Germany, Poland and Spain that the universities had never issued, is the clearest example: the families were introduced to "counterparts" in Germany, which felt like proof, and none of them had emailed a German university.
RWTH Aachen's public scam alert for international students shows the second layer, after arrival: fake job postings harvesting bank and insurance details; rental scams demanding deposits for apartments that do not exist; people impersonating police; and a documented case of fraudsters impersonating a Chinese anti-fraud authority, spoofing real phone numbers, forcing a student into hourly check-ins on messaging apps and presenting fake arrest warrants to extract payment. Reporting from India describes the same technique used against an Indian student in Berlin by callers posing as Indian officials threatening deportation. The university's advice is one sentence: "The police will never ask you for money."
What this means for a student anywhere: the more prestigious the destination, the more the fraud moves away from the institution and towards the people around you — the "representative", the "counterpart", the "official" on the phone. Germany's official bodies have published the antidote. Apply through the channels the government names, confirm everything with the university's own office, and treat any demand for money that arrives by phone or messenger as a crime in progress.
Were you affected by this case, or something like it? Report it with your own evidence, or tell your story — first-person accounts are what stop the next family.
This is a news-sourced case summary written by the TrustMBBS team, not a first-person account; see the sources above. They reflect one person's experience and are not a verdict on any institution. Report your own: Report a scam or tell your story.