Shop owner caught selling honor roll certificates

A shop owner was warned by police in Huai’an of Jiangsu province for selling fake honor roll certificates to students and encouraging them to lie to their parents for pocket money, Yangtze Evening News reported.

The shop owner’s business was exposed by a video clip posted online by unnamed netizens.

In the clip, the shop owner surnamed Xue hurriedly fills an honor roll certificate within a minute while hawking the product to students, saying parents will not find out the truth and will give them pocket money in Spring Festival.

He sold each certificate for 2 yuan. To make the certificate look authentic, Xue also stamped it.

Since Xue’s behavior was not criminal, he was only warned.

Some weibo users said if they had such certificates in childhood, they would have avoided lots of punishment. Others said such a behavior will encourage children to lie from a young age.

“When I was small, my parents would buy me such certificates and say teachers just forgot to give me one,” a netizen wrote, adding that his parents told white lies that were for his own good.

Xie Jianing contributed to this story.