AI English Practice Partner 'Guaranteed Pass' Scam: Refund If You Fail, Refund Channel Forever Queuing

Who Gets Targeted

The main victims are college students, workplace newcomers, and prospective international students in a hurry to submit language scores, mostly aged 18 to 28, with tight preparation schedules and limited budgets. They generally have a quick-success mentality and relatively high trust in AI technology, so they are easily caught off guard by claims such as AI adaptive learning and big data from official past exams. At the same time, this group pays insufficient attention to contract terms; when signing up, they focus only on the promise of a full refund if they fail and do not verify refund trigger conditions, validity periods, or burden of proof. Once delayed, they lack rights-protection experience and time, and eventually give up pursuing refunds. Some victims, facing exam anxiety compounded by financial pressure, are more inclined to believe the pitch that spending money buys certainty, making them prime targets for precision harvesting.

骗局怎么运作

• Step 1: Short-video and feed ad placement. Scammers run creatives on channels such as Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and WeChat Moments, promoting AI English speaking practice, smart planning, and a full refund if you fail, with pages marked limited-time from 1,999 yuan and 7-day no-reason. Ad landing pages display fabricated high-scoring student cases and AI assessment reports, guiding users to enter their phone number to receive a free AI level test, which is actually just an entry point for script-based lead collection. Operators screen high-intent users by running test ads in bulk, then follow up intensively via direct messages and phone calls.
• Step 2: Sales follow up by phone posing as class advisers. After receiving the test, users are pulled into WeChat groups where several shills chime in, claiming that after using the AI practice partner their speaking score rose from 5.5 to 7. The class adviser uses sales pitches such as the system automatically generating daily study tasks with AI and 24-hour foreign-teacher chat to steer users toward payment, promising a guaranteed-pass agreement and a refund channel via score report if they fail. The group also posts limited-time discount codes and countdown screenshots showing only 3 spots left, creating a sense of scarcity so users order hastily without comparing prices.
• Step 3: Hidden refund thresholds are set at signing. The contract defines failure as failing to reach the target score after studying continuously for at least 90 days, engaging in no fewer than 30 minutes of AI conversation daily, and completing all mock questions, while also requiring the score report to be submitted within 7 calendar days of issuance—none of these can be missing. Salespeople orally stress that it is very simple, just follow along normally, lulling users into relaxing their guard and not reading the terms carefully. The actual contract also ties study-task completion to the app's backend data; once a user's check-in is interrupted due to a system failure or account anomaly, they are deemed not to have met the refund conditions.
• Step 4: During the learning period, service quality is reduced under the pretext of technical upgrades and foreign-teacher queues. After paying, users find that the so-called AI foreign teacher is just a fixed-script bot that cannot correct errors covering grammar blind spots; some accounts are even restricted from advanced courses in the third week, with customer service saying AI compute is tight and that priority can be unlocked only by continuing to top up. Some users voluntarily give up due to the poor experience, which conveniently falls under the clause of no refund for incomplete study tasks. Operators also push secondary paid items such as sprint classes and question-prediction packs midway through the course, using refund-if-fail as bait to continue harvesting.
• Step 5: The refund channel is forever in queue. After users fail the exam and submit materials as required, customer service first says the materials have been accepted and will be processed in 7 to 15 working days. When contacted again after that period, a different person says there is a large volume of applications and a 60-day queue is required. During this time, they repeatedly ask for new evidence such as exported learning data records and login IP proof; each delay is excused as financial review or risk-control recheck. Eventually most users exceed the application deadline stipulated in the contract or the other party simply disappears. Even the few users who keep complaining to the platform cannot trace the operator because the registered entity changes frequently and the payment-collection account is inconsistent.

红旗信号（看到这些快跑）

• 🚩 Promises a full refund if you fail but requires thousands of yuan in tuition upfront, and the refund terms are buried in a lengthy electronic contract with no proactive summary provided.
• 🚩 Promotional pages heavily use vague phrases such as AI precision exam preparation and big-data question prediction, yet cannot provide filing with the education department or a school operating qualification number.
• 🚩 The so-called AI practice partner converses clumsily, only repeating common sentence patterns and unable to understand complex grammar questions, clearly inconsistent with claims of adaptive intelligence.
• 🚩 The refund process forces users through manual review and queuing; customer service keeps asking for additional study records, identity proof, payment receipts, and other materials, each time saying only one last item is missing.
• 🚩 The app or mini-program is frequently updated and renamed; customer-service accounts periodically disappear and then contact users from new numbers; the registered corporate entity and the payment-collection account do not match.

真实案例

• In March 2026, Southern Daily publicly reported that multiple users complained about a certain AI education/training product that recruited students under the name of AI adaptive score improvement; after signing a guaranteed-pass agreement, they failed the exam, and when applying for a refund, customer service delayed them by saying they were in the queue. Some waited more than four months and still had not received the money. The report also mentioned that a consumer paid 6,800 yuan for an IELTS AI guaranteed-pass course and, when finally seeking a refund, was asked to submit seven types of proof materials, and each time they supplemented them, they were told to keep queuing.
• In January 2026, the 100EC.CN E-commerce Research Center released a complaint ranking for language education, naming platforms such as Liulishuo, 51Talk, and VIPKID for refund difficulties. Users encountered lengthy manual review processes for refunds, with customer service repeatedly demanding materials and delays lasting more than half a year in the longest cases. One user complained that after applying for a refund, the platform first delayed for two weeks on the grounds that the score report needed verification, then required a complete 90-day continuous check-in study log; ultimately the user gave up because the data could not be exported from the app.
• Public reports in 2024 showed that a user bought a CET-4 guaranteed-pass service on Taobao; after paying 3,600 yuan, the merchant disappeared. Although the platform's customer service intervened, a full refund ultimately could not be made because the merchant's deposit was insufficient. This case has been widely cited by the media as a typical guaranteed-pass-plus-disappearance scheme, showing that even on large e-commerce platforms, a refund-if-you-fail promise can come to nothing if the entity absconds.
• In April 2026, Tencent News exposed the chaos in AI online training, pointing out that behind 9.9-yuan trial classes and 39.9-yuan toolkits, operators use the bait of easily earning 10,000 yuan a month to complete the first round of harvesting, then sell users thousand-yuan AI training camps. Among them, English practice partner products use the same guaranteed-pass refund pitch to drive traffic, and in the end the refund channel exists in name only. A reporter's test found that the so-called AI practice partner was actually a preset script and could not provide genuine pronunciation correction tailored to users' answers.

Official Stance

• On March 16, 2026, Southern Daily published 'Beware of False Advertising and Refund Difficulties in AI Education/Training,' noting problems in the AI education/training market such as overpromising learning results and opaque refund mechanisms. It reminded consumers to view AI score-improvement claims rationally and advised downloading the contract and carefully checking the refund terms.
• In January 2026, during the 315 period, the 100EC.CN E-commerce Research Center released typical cases of language education complaints, listing AI speaking-practice guaranteed-pass-with-no-refund as a key risk category and reminding consumers to verify refund triggers and application deadlines before signing a contract.
• In April 2026, Tencent News cited a reminder from market regulation authorities, stating that current AI online training features a three-stage scheme of low-price lead generation, high-price conversion, and refund-related disappearance. It advised users to keep payment records and promotional screenshots for rights protection and to be wary of cases where the payment-collection account and contracting entity are inconsistent.
• In April 2026, Huai'an police publicly issued an education refund fraud warning, noting that an operator induced users to download an unknown app and link bank cards under the pretext of refunding tuition, ultimately causing a user to lose 260,000 yuan. Police reminded the public that legitimate refunds will not require topping up first or enabling password-free payment.

How to Protect Yourself

• ✅ Before signing any guaranteed-pass agreement, require the salesperson to explain item by item the refund trigger conditions, application deadline, burden of proof, and arrival time for funds, and keep screen recordings or written evidence of customer-service promises.
• ✅ Use the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System to check whether the payment-collection entity and the promotion entity are the same, verify the education-related business scope and school operating license, refuse to transfer money to personal accounts or accounts not belonging to the contracting company, and be sure to save screenshots of the school operating license number and validity period.
• ✅ Keep all promotional pages, chat records, payment receipts, and electronic copies of the contract; in particular, capture screenshots of the original full-refund-if-you-fail promise to preserve evidence for later complaints or litigation.
• ✅ If a refund is delayed, prioritize submitting a complaint to the 12315 platform and uploading evidence; at the same time, you can initiate a dispute request with the payment channel to avoid missing the platform's appeal deadline by waiting a few more days.
• ✅ Be wary of any refund process that remains unpaid for more than 15 working days under the pretext of queuing or financial review; promptly report to market regulation authorities or public security organs to prevent the operator from absconding.