The American Council on Education warned consumers today against using any services that charge fees to take the General Educational Development test online or via mail. The test, which gauges mastery of the standard high-school curriculum, can be taken in person only at designated locations in each state.

In a news release, a spokeswoman for ACE, which owns the GED test, said that state GED officials had recently reported rising numbers of complaints from people who had paid money to take a test they thought was the GED, only to discover later that their results were not officially certified.

The spokeswoman, Sylvia E. Robinson, said her organization would be making a greater effort to inform the public of the fake Web sites. —Elizabeth F. Farrell