Can you make money while lying down?, Certificate affiliation
"Exemption from exams and obtaining certificates", "Certificate affiliation", "Certificate storage"... When certificates become the doorstep for promotion and salary increases, some people hope to earn money through exams, while others grasp people's thirst for "certificates" and use them as a tool for making money. Can you really make money by lying down and relying on certificates?
What are the risks of certificate attachment?
Certificate affiliation refers to the individual who holds a qualification certificate attaching the certificate to the name of the relevant enterprise, which is nominally an employee of the enterprise. In reality, only the certificate needs to be handed over to the enterprise for custody. Affiliated enterprises require a certain number of certified "employees" to obtain relevant qualifications and undertake corresponding business projects, while affiliated individuals can receive regular "remuneration".
China News Network contacted a human resources service company in Hebei. According to the official website, the company has established extensive business cooperation relationships with thousands of construction enterprises. The company staff stated that the company's business involves searching for relevant certificate holders for construction enterprises and attaching certificates to the holders.
According to the staff member, to apply for certificate affiliation, social security needs to be paid in the certificate using unit. Construction enterprises need to apply for qualifications with certificates, and the housing and construction department's requirement for enterprises to apply for qualifications is to pay social security. "At present, the national social security network has not been fully realized. It is possible to 'register' for enterprises in other regions outside the province where the social security payment is made, and the certificate using enterprise can temporarily pay social security for a few months to the holder in order to 'register'.".
There is a certain risk of obtaining a certificate in another location. The staff member mentioned, "Some enterprises and institutions will check the social security status of employees. If it is found, the unit will ask employees to withdraw their certificates and stop paying social security from other places. We have seen many of these situations."
The company charges service fees to certification companies and sometimes uses some certificates themselves. For the first level construction engineer certificate, the company's cooperating enterprises offer a price of approximately 2000 yuan for three months or 6000 to 7000 yuan per year, divided into short-term and long-term affiliations.
A certain affiliated intermediary in Hunan offered different prices.
The intermediary mentioned that it can help holders of "One Construction" and "One Manufacturing" certificates connect with enterprises, and the only social security is about 10000 yuan per year, which will be several thousand yuan lower than the only social security. After coordination, the intermediary promised that a state-owned enterprise in Shenzhen can offer a price of 12000 yuan per year to purchase the annual five insurances, but requires the certificate holder to have only one social security.
Unlike the previous intermediary, the company this intermediary collaborates with requires affiliation with construction projects rather than qualifications. "There is definitely a risk," the intermediary said.
What are the tricks for affiliated intermediaries?
As the demand for certificate holders and businesses grows, certificate affiliated institutions constantly emerge between the two.
According to the Judgment Document Network, there are 1290 cases related to certificate affiliation, including fraud cases related to affiliation. What are the tricks used by intermediaries in the transaction of certificate affiliation?
According to media reports, some training institutions claim to provide a "one-stop service" from training, certification to registration. As long as you pay the fees and participate in the training, you can pass the exam and receive compensation through "certification". Unlike the "large job gap" and "scarce certificates" promoted by institutions, these certificates have extremely low value and are not needed by enterprises. However, some certificates with high thresholds and relatively scarce qualifications are subject to strict assessment and cannot be exempted from examination for certification.
The National Vocational Qualification Catalogue stipulates 72 vocational qualifications, and engaging in these professions requires obtaining vocational qualifications. Most of the skills certificates issued by training institutions are self operated and cannot be queried in the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security system.
Some netizens also shared their experience of being scammed by affiliated intermediaries.
A netizen is applying for certificate affiliation services at a human resources service company in Hebei province mentioned above. She mentioned that when the agreed time limit for affiliation expired, the intermediary refused to return the certificate. Some intermediaries use the identity information and certificate information of the certificate holder to continue to register with the next company.
Some netizens have stated that after signing the contract with the intermediary, the intermediary has been delayed in paying the deposit, while the enterprise has stated that it has not requested her certificate from the intermediary. The netizen then requested the intermediary to return the certificate, but the intermediary stated that the certificate was not in their possession.
Is certificate attachment legal?
Lawyer Ding Jinkun from Shanghai Dabang Law Firm pointed out in an interview with China News Service that the act of certificate attachment is illegal. Essentially, this behavior belongs to nominal borrowing, rather than actual employment, and does not match the name. "Whether the certificate holder is employed or not depends not solely on social security, but on whether they actually work for the company."
Ding Jinkun also stated that the Social Security Law stipulates that an individual only has one social security, and there are also issues with paying two social security contributions at the same time.
Ding Jinkun pointed out that "the act of misappropriating certificates through affiliated intermediaries should be subject to administrative penalties and civil liability. In serious cases, it is suspected of fraud."
In recent years, the central and local governments have continued to carry out actions to crack down on certificate cheating.
Faced with the persistent problem of certificate registration, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security issued a notice on centralized management of vocational qualification certificate registration as early as 2017, deploying measures to crack down on the problem of certificate registration in areas such as drug circulation, environmental impact assessment, construction, and patent agency.
In November 2018, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Rural Development and seven other departments adopted effective measures such as social security comparison and personnel file verification to crack down on the "certificate hanging" behavior in the field of engineering construction.
With the acceleration of the networking process of databases such as social security, professional titles, and professional qualification certificates, the rectification of "certificate hanging" has been quite effective. In April of this year, the Sichuan Provincial Department of Housing and Urban Rural Development publicly announced the results of the "double random" examination of the professional qualifications of registered construction engineers in 2023. Among the 3402 registered construction engineers, 1200 were found to have inconsistent social security payment units and registered units, suspected of "hanging certificates".
The relevant person in charge of the housing and construction department in Sichuan stated that once it is found that there are personnel whose social security payment units and registration units are inconsistent, they will be listed as abnormal certificate registration status first. After the public announcement is completed, if no objections are raised, the certificate will be processed according to the prescribed procedures and revoked.