Fake degrees are used for all types of reasons – from impressing friends to getting a job. Using fake academic credentials can lead to legal trouble, a decline in employee morale, and loss of revenue for companies.
Ezell estimates that phony diploma mills do $7 billion a year in business worldwide. He has a few ideas to help stop them:
Counterfeit Academic Qualifications
According to the National Student Clearinghouse, bogus academic qualifications have become a global problem. This is due to diploma mills, which are hard to police and supply what seems to be an insatiable demand for fake certificates. This is also fuelled by sophisticated photoshopping tools that can recreate the current designs of university degrees and their signatures, crests, stamps, holograms and forms of words. This can lead to a range of issues from wrongful employment to illicit access to regulated professions, such as medicine and engineering.
Some individuals seek a fake degree for prestige or status, while others are simply looking for a quick way to boost their career. Either way, the consequences for companies can be disastrous, especially when individuals are using their qualifications to secure a position that is not appropriate to their level of experience. To combat this issue, companies need to be able to verify credentials. This can be done by looking for inconsistencies in candidate information, checking for degrees from unaccredited institutions and identifying candidates who are reluctant to provide details of their education.
Diploma Mills
Diploma mills are unaccredited higher education institutions that offer bogus academic degrees and diplomas for a fee. They often claim to be accredited by a fake accrediting agency to make themselves appear more legitimate and attract potential students.
Diploma mills tend to operate in countries with lax regulatory oversight and are difficult to root out. They also tend to target people seeking a shortcut to career advancement and higher earnings. They frequently use names that are eerily similar to well-known, authentic schools or have American-like institution names (such as Columbiana University or Columbus University) to bolster their legitimacy and evade scrutiny.
A diploma from a degree mill can be a huge red flag on a candidate’s resume, particularly if it is in a field where competence can be hard to verify. If an employer hires someone with a fake degree, it can lead to lawsuits, a bad company image, and lower employee morale. By conducting thorough research and using tools like ScoutLogic’s Education Verification service, employers can avoid hiring candidates with fake degrees.
Fake Medical Degrees
A shocking case out of Washington state highlights how bogus credentials can be dangerous.
The case of nurses who bought fake nursing diplomas to work in hospitals shows how easy it is for fraudsters to get into healthcare. It also reveals the importance of hospitals taking the time to verify diplomas and transcripts.
According to Allen Ezell, who led the FBI Dipscam team and has since started his own verification service, phony diploma mills do about $7 billion per year in sales. He believes the rise in fake degrees is due to more people wanting to advance in their careers without going to college, and the growth of online education.
He says it would be hard to create a blacklist of diploma mills, because the scammers could change names and internet domains. However, he suggests that employers check with a government agency that keeps lists of accredited schools and verifies transcripts. In the US, for example, the Department of Education does this. He also recommends noticing out-of-sequence degrees and looking for mismatched locations, like where the person attended school and worked during their degree program.
Fake Law Degrees
Using fake law degrees can lead to criminal charges and professional sanctions. It can also ruin a person’s career and cause significant financial loss. Some people even go so far as to use fake law degrees in their legal practices, resulting in fraud and malpractice.
Fake law degrees are easy to obtain on the internet. Many websites offer these degrees from well-known universities. They often feature university seals, signatures and water marks. These sites also have accreditation bodies listed. Many people are turning to these fake degrees in order to change careers. Their current job may be boring or they may struggle to pay the bills.
Normative economics literature models the detection probability p and penalty L as the variables of available political actions to discourage the use of fake degrees (see Becker 1968). Regulators can raise the probability of detection by increasing monitoring, changing legal rules to increase the likelihood of conviction, or by increasing the level of penalties and shame imposed on holders of fake degrees. Using a fake law degree can have negative effects on the economy, such as limiting worker mobility and reducing the quality of labor in a given region or country.
Fake Degrees in Engineering
Many people knowingly purchase fake diplomas and use them to enhance their career prospects. George Gollin, a board member of the US-based Council for Higher Education Accreditation, says fake degrees are more accessible than ever. He said some degree mills offer degrees based on life experience, while others require token coursework. A fake degree can cost as little as $1,000, he said.
The fake diplomas are made to look authentic, with logos, crests, signatory, stamps and holograms of the university being claimed. They can even be paired with a transcript to give the impression of authenticity and try here now https://lambang247.pro/.
A recent investigation in Saudi Arabia found that thousands of foreign engineers with fake degrees were working in the country’s construction industry. The investigators found that Indians, Filipinos and Egyptians were among those who used fake qualifications to get jobs in the kingdom. The bogus degrees were used to obtain visas and work permits. They also allowed them to bypass the required years of professional experience to become engineers. When companies do verify the credentials of their employees, they will often hire background checking firms that can spot a phony qualification in seconds.