[NO NONSENSE ANSWER] Is Turndetect Permanently Down?

Turnitin’s AI detector has caused a lot of headaches for students who want to see exactly what their professors see. That’s why many people turned to Turndetect.com. However, if you try visiting Turndetect.com today, in many places you would probably just see a Cloudflare “SSL handshake failed – Error 525” screen instead of the regular dashboard. This means Cloudflare can connect to your browser, but it can’t establish a secured link to Turndetect’s own servers. It is effectively down for a lot of people. Keep reading to know more about it.

What Turndetect Was (And How It Worked)

Turndetect.com was NOT your usual subscription-based tool. Instead, they sold redeemable codes through resellers, who then sold them to students and agencies. Once you redeemed a code, you got:

• Turnitin-like AI detection scores, and
• Similarity reports that often matched real Turnitin reports, at least when the service was still functioning.

It was super attractive because you could see Turnitin-style checks without needing an instructor account or any institutional login. However, if it is not made to accomplish a stable connection with Turnitin, it won’t be able to do it consistently.

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Why Turndetect Likely Broke

Turndetect was in a gray zone from the start. Their setup seemed to rely on back-end access to Turnitin. After Turnitin tightened its security in last week of November 2025 (particularly their AI detection tools and the rate limits), you can guess what happened. Rate-limit basically means you can only make a certain number of paper checks in a given time period. And if Turndetect was pushing a high volume of checks, it would be easy for Turnitin to notice and shut them off or block them.

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A few people on Trustpilot have reported that:

• The daily checks dropped from 100 to just 15 or even 5.
• The website kept going into never-ending “maintenance.”
• Now, it’s mostly showing Cloudflare 525 errors instead of a proper dashboard.

All these signs indicate that Turndetect’s model is basically no longer sustainable. The original infrastructure is blocked or heavily rate-limited, so the site is not able to give any real output to users.

What About Existing Users?

Many students or small agencies paid actual money for access codes, only for Turndetect to crash entirely. It’s practically a rug pull, whether intentional or not. Resellers often ignore refund requests or blame temporary issues, leaving users with worthless codes and no recourse. On Trustpilot, some users have fumed about paying for new codes only to see the entire site go down for good the same day.

Why Unofficial Turnitin Proxies Are So Risky

Turndetect’s downfall isn’t unusual. Plenty of websites claim to provide “Official Turnitin access,” “Real Turnitin AI detection,” or “Turnitin similarity match,” but many of them are just as fragile or possibly even fake from the start. Here’s why it’s super risky:

• You have zero control over the back-end. If the single institutional account or integration feeding the service is blocked, the entire site will fail overnight.
• You carry all the financial risk yourself. If the site disappears, your codes or “lifetime deals” vanish too.
• It could violate policies. Even if you don’t realize it, uploading your paper to an unauthorized site might breach Turnitin’s terms of use or your university’s academic integrity rules.
• Data security is unknown. You’re giving your full document to a site you can’t fully verify. Who knows if they store or resell it?
• Some services that “once worked” allow a wave of scammy copycats to appear, claiming the same features but offering nothing real.

Basically, the entire system can crumble at any moment, and you’re left with no real solutions. Please remember that there is no free lunch, if you are thinking about the upside (checking with Turnitin before submitting), please consider that there is downside risk (losing your money) too.

The thing is that, yes, for a while, Turndetect created legitimate Turnitin reports. This attracted a bunch of new users and resellers. But as soon as Turnitin ramped up security and new people started flooding in, the back-end “tricks” Turndetect used became too obvious to hide. Eventually, the service started seeing the signs: fewer daily checks, more downtime, big error messages, and the Cloudflare meltdown. That’s typical for unauthorized proxies—once the fix they rely on is patched or blocked, everything collapses.

How Students Can Protect Themselves

1. Use official channels. Ask your instructor or department if they can run a draft for you, or see if your course platform (like Canvas, Moodle, etc.) has a draft-check feature.
2. If you want an external checker, do your homework first. Look at real reviews on Trustpilot (not obviously fake ones). Check if the site is well-known.
3. Avoid giving them your only copy. Always keep a backup.
4. Be aware of data and privacy. Don’t upload anything that has personal info or that you can’t afford to leak somewhere else.
5. Focus on genuine writing and proper referencing. Even official Turnitin AI detection can show false positives, so the best approach is to do your own work, cite sources correctly, and check your references thoroughly.

Is Turndetect.com Down – And What Now?

Yes, Turndetect.com is effectively down. People see Cloudflare SSL errors, the site was already cutting its daily checks, and user complaints have been piling up on Trustpilot for months. You shouldn’t rely on unauthorized Turnitin proxies, period. It might look like a quick fix, but they almost always end up costing you money or risking your academic reputation. If you truly need a Turnitin-style check, see if your school offers any official solution, or at least pick a reputable third-party tool that’s transparent about how it operates.

Turndetect worked for a bit—until it didn’t. The next site might do the same. So be extremely careful with your assignments and focus on legitimate ways to improve your writing. It’s much safer, and you won’t be left in a lurch when these shady proxies break down for good.