A UK website offering ‘sponsorship’ to female university students in exchange for ‘private encounters’ with their backers appears to have been taken offline after being exposed in the British media. The students could earn scholarships of up to $24,000 a year, depending on how ‘intimate’ they were prepared to be with their sponsors.

The questionable service was exposed by The Independent after an undercover reporter posing as a student went to meet a staff member from SponsorAScholar.co.uk. The meeting was cut short after the site’s representative requested a ‘demonstration’ of the level of intimacy she was prepared to offer at a nearby apartment.

According to the Independent, while the ethics of SponsorAScholar’s ‘service’ are most questionable, it isn’t breaking any laws, as it operates in a so-called ‘grey zone’ of UK law. Sex workers and clients can be brought together without breaking the law, so long as the intermediary can plausibly deny brokering sex deals, says the Independent.

The service was offered to female students between the ages of 17 and 24 looking to secure funding for their university studies. Wealthy businessmen, invariable much older than the students, would act as the women’s sponsors, providing ‘tuition money’ in exchange for up to four sex sessions per term. SponsorAScholar claimed that it had already signed up more than 1,400 students for its services.

During the secretly filmed meeting, the site’s sleazy representative told the journalist she would have to complete a questionnaire outlining what she was comfortable doing. Following that, he said he needed a demonstration in which he would “assess” her abilities to see what how much sponsorship she was worth.

“The more you’re prepared to do, the more interest you’re going to get, and obviously the more sponsorship amount you’re going to get for that,” explained the site’s rep.

For those charitable souls wishing to ‘sponsor’ a student, they were required to pay a $160 access fee before choosing from a catalogue of wiling participants. This could not be verified however; when the Independent attempted to do so, it was informed it had been placed onto a ‘waiting list’, raising questions about the website’s authenticity — does it really offer sponsorship services, or is it simply part of a ploy by the sleazy ‘assessor’ to coerce young women into bed?

Following the Independent’s expose of the site, we’ll probably never know for certain. SponsorAScholar has since closed down, with a message stating that it is now under “maintenance”.