November 11,2022

Peter Idowu (not real name), a Lagos State-based postgraduate student, has detailed how GPEC Global Resources, an Oyo State-based educational consult, defrauded him of N210,000 after promising to help him seek free postgraduate admission in Spain.

Idowu told FIJ that he fell for the educational outfit’s fraudulent scheme when he read about the postgraduate scholarship offer on Facebook.

“Sometime in February 2021, I saw a Facebook post from GPEC Global Resources in Ibadan saying they were helping people to secure scholarship admission in Spain. They even said it was a 70 per cent scholarship offer,” Idowu said.

“I copied the address of the firm because I was interested and visited them at their office in Ibadan. During my visit, I was made to understand I would pay N10,000 as consultation fee. I obliged and paid immediately.”

Idowu said he was further asked to pay an initial deposit of N200,000 to “kickstart his admission to Spain”.

“Afterwards, I was asked to pay N200,000 to kickstart the admission process. Immediately I paid the money, I stopped hearing from them,” the postgraduate student said.

“I visited them repeatedly but they kept asking me to come back. Throughout 2021 and till now, nothing has been done. I later found out that they didn’t process the admission.

“All my attempts to reach Oluwatosin Anjorin, the consult’s managing director, have been unsuccessful. Nobody in their firm will even attend to me. Even when I contacted the MD, he only gave endless empty promises of communicating the admission process to me.

The postgraduate student said that news had been flying around about how so many people had fallen victim to the same consult’s fake scholarship offer. He also said that he had to change his choice of institution to a university in the country after the offer failed.

“I heard this is how GPEC Global resources have been running for years. They will corner people, especially students, to their consulting firm, collect money, and then fail to carry out the job,” Idowu said.

“Now, I had to enroll at a Nigerian university for my postgraduate studies. I had wanted to school in Spain but GPEC disrupted my plans

What is more appalling is that even when I asked for a refund, they refused. Since I didn’t get the admission, I should at least get my money back.”

FIJ made several calls to the phone number made available on GPEC Global Resources’ website for comments, but they were not answered. The text message and email sent to the company had also not been responded to at press time