Mainland student sentenced to three months in jail for hiring proxy takers for TOEFL exam

A mainland student was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment for hiring a test-taker to sit the TOEFL exam in Cambodia on her behalf to meet her graduation requirements at Lingnan University. 

The 22-year-old defendant, Huang Xinyi, appeared at Tuen Mun Magistrates' Courts this morning for sentencing after pleading guilty to one count of attempting to obtain services by deception.

The court heard Huang emailed a falsified TOEFL score report to the university to seek approval for graduation on May 27, 2024.

Enrolled in a Bachelor of Social Sciences program in Public Administration and Smart Governance from September 2022, she was required to achieve a minimum score of 87 on the TOEFL or 6.5 on the IELTS to graduate in 2024.

However, staff became suspicious when the photograph on the score report did not match Huang's appearance.

In response, Huang falsely claimed she had taken the test in Cambodia in May and had altered the photo for cosmetic reasons.

The university contacted the TOEFL authority, which confirmed that impersonation had occurred, prompting Huang to confess her offense in a written statement.

Failing four attempts before hiring a test-taker

Huang was arrested on February 8 last year, admitting to failing both TOEFL and IELTS exams four times. After learning that obtaining a good score might be easier in Cambodia, she traveled there to take the exam.

She claimed she fell ill on the test day and was approached by an unknown person who offered to take the test for US$300. 

Upon receiving the score report featuring an unfamiliar test-taker's photo, she altered the image to resemble herself.

In handing down the sentence, Magistrate David Chum Yau-fong cited a social service report which found Huang's remorse appeared "superficial," based more on fear of punishment than genuine understanding of her actions.

Chum condemned her act as “qualification laundering,”  equating the use of a fake degree to secure work or further study with money laundering,  which necessitates a deterrent sentence. 

Considering her past volunteer work at the university, her sentence was adjusted from five months to three months following her guilty plea. 

In a related case, another mainland student, 24, was also sentenced to three months imprisonment after pleading guilty to the same charge. 

He was found to have submitted a falsified TOEFL score result to graduate from the same programme at the university on May 21, 2025.