*Astroturfing:* Coordinated campaigns where accounts pose as students sharing "cheatsheets" and "predicted exam leaks." Other accounts then upvote, leave supportive comments, and ask follow-up questions—creating the illusion of organic student excitement. Multiple threads have exposed this pattern [1][2][3].

*Paid fake posts:* High school students report being offered payment to write promotional Reddit posts [4].

*Pressuring critics:* Users who post negative reviews report being contacted directly by company representatives, told it's "a shame" they're posting publicly [5]. Critical comments receive coordinated mass downvotes [6].

*Soliciting copyrighted materials:* They use TikTok influencers and fake reddit posts to persuade students to sell them official IB exam papers, violating IB policies [7].

The r/IBO moderators are actively investigating [8].

These practices appear to be working great for them. Recently, they acquired OnePrep (oneprep.xyz), a free SAT prep tool that was already popular on r/sat. Since the acquisition, the same manipulation tactics have been deployed at scale: 150 Trustpilot reviews in a window of a few days [9], and widespread coordinated Reddit manipulation—multiple accounts posting "tips" that recommend Oneprep, coordinated upvoting, and fake enthusiasm in comments. The most prominent example was a 2,000+ upvote post removed by moderators for manipulation, but it's part of a sustained campaign across the subreddit.

*Sources:*

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/IBO/comments/1p55qun/ [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/IBO/comments/1jsb00a/ [3] https://www.reddit.com/r/IBO/comments/1ohcohi/ [4] https://www.reddit.com/r/IBO/comments/1p55qun/comment/nqmhal3/ [5] https://www.reddit.com/r/IBO/comments/1my1ajx/comment/na94upv/ [6] https://www.reddit.com/r/IBO/comments/1my1ajx/comment/na8zvs4/ [7] https://www.reddit.com/r/IBO/comments/1mej900/ [8] https://www.reddit.com/r/IBO/comments/1my1ajx/comment/nagdkl5/ [9] https://www.trustpilot.com/review/oneprep.xyz