"It is technically impossible for there to be no record of the question if it was in fact posted on our platform." "We immediately conducted our own internal investigation and can categorically say that we have found no evidence that this exchange took place on the Chegg platform," the company said in a statement to USA TODAY. The Texas undergraduate did not respond to requests for comment.Ĭhegg denied the student and the alleged blackmailer had met on its platform. Despite a screenshot showing a Chegg question that was referenced in emails between the two, Chegg said it could not find a record of the question being sent. Kshitij Karan, whose name was on both the threat and the note to the professor, told USA TODAY he had not sent the threatening message to the student, but he had reached out to Gutierrez. He suggested the email containing the threat had been doctored. The emailer went dark, but Gutiérrez posted screenshots of the incident on Twitter with a warning to students. He told the sender, whom he suspected was an Indian national, that he had alerted the State Department. To Gutiérrez, chair of the mathematics department at the University of Texas, San Antonio, the possible blackmail was a far more serious issue. Students who use the sites, especially with their real names, make themselves vulnerable to possible attempts of blackmail, experts said. Vulnerable to blackmail?įor years, professors have lamented the use of college-help websites such as Chegg in academic dishonesty. Sign up for the only evening news roundup you'll ever need. “Extorting anyone is a crime,” he wrote back. Gutiérrez was angry, but his ire probably surprised the would-be whistleblower. "It will be a shame if something happened regarding the score." “I have sources everywhere and understand you have an exam coming up," the threatening email read. Days earlier, the Texas student said, he had received an email threatening to disclose he had used Chegg to fraudulently complete his coursework unless he paid off the person via PayPal. Gutiérrez snapped into action and got in touch with his student, who complicated the narrative. “It pains me to see students taking undue advantage of the pandemic situation to boost their GPA without putting any effort,” the emailer told Gutiérrez. Some academics and students know Chegg for another reason: claims it enables cheating in the classroom. The emailer said he worked for Chegg, a website that sells itself as a one-stop shop for collegians who need help with their studies. The person, who identified himself as an incoming graduate student in the USA, said he helped an undergraduate on a test after the two connected online. An apparent good Samaritan had bad news for math professor Juan Gutiérrez: One of his students cheated on an exam.