Focus

Forged certificates peddler uses pregnancy as cover

By Huang Yuli (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-06-18 07:55

It is not easy to escape advertisements for forged certificates in Beijing. BI DE / FOR CHINA DAILY

The north part of Zhongguancun Avenue runs like a flowing silk ribbon across Haidian district, alongside which stand Renmin University of China, big shopping malls, four-star hotels and boutiques.

Sun Xiao (not her real name) and her colleagues work in the center of this bustling area.

Sun and her friends sell forged student IDs on the roadside.

Each time a pedestrian passes by, she asks in a whisper: "Do you need forged certificates?"

"I'm three months pregnant," said Sun. Indicating the women around her, she added: "These women are either pregnant or feeding a baby, we protect ourselves in this way, since peddling forged certificates is illegal."

Sun and her friends are from rural areas in central Henan province; her husband is a farmer at home; they have a daughter already.

"But we want a son," Sun said.

When asked to show the "certificates", she took me to a nearby public toilet and pulled the forged student cards from her pocket. She had fake ID cards for four universities: Peking University, Renmin University of China, Beijing Foreign Studies University, and the University of International Business and Economics. Each ID costs 15 yuan, except for Renmin University, which has a "new edition". That costs 30 yuan.

Posters for forged certificates overspread a newspaper bulletin near a subway station in the capital. LI GANG / FOR CHINA DAILY

"It's OK, nobody checks them with a critical eye," Sun said, responding to my remark that the IDs seemed a little thinner than the real ones.

You provide a photo and she stamps an embossed seal on it.

"You need to write your personal info on yourself, and then you can use it at tourist sites, parks, cinemas, shows and are entitled to student preference," she said.

"It's not easy to sell forged certificates. When I don't sell a single one, I'm even afraid of spending money for lunch. Drinks are a luxury, and my friend often fetches water from the bank nearby for her baby to drink."

Speaking of her future plans, Sun was quite sure: "I'm going back home after some time doing this, and give birth to the baby."

Sun Xiao's group of street ID sellers is getting smaller, as the police and city administrative office catch them; and now many have shifted their sales to the Internet.

A search of banzheng (in English make certificates) on baidu.com results in 100 pages of online stores supplying various types including diplomas, driving licenses, ID cards, business licenses and property ownership certificates. However, student IDs are the most common ones.

A sales manager in the telecommunication industry surnamed Wang said she had been using forged student IDs to get discounts after she graduated from college. "It's practical, and nobody gets hurt," said Sun.

She had recommended the person she bought her fake student ID from many of her friends, and all the feedback she got was quite "positive".

"A 39-year-old college student was once questioned as he showed his forged student card to the server in a KTV - the man looked just too old to be a student, but he was still charged the student price after he insisted he was a student," she added.

In addition to student IDs, fake graduation certificates and various credentials have also proved to be a hot pursuit especially among students who are leaving the college in a bid to gain a competitiveness in the fierce job seeking market.