Friday, December 7, 2007

Fake Diplomas Are Illegal

Many people wonder what the deal is with ridiculous spam messages such as these:

F A S T T R A C K D E G R E E P R O G R A M Obtain the degree you=
deserve, based on your present knowledge and life experience. A prospero=
us future, money earning power, and the Admiration of all. Degrees from a=
n Established, Prestigious, Leading Institution. Your Degree will show ex=
actly what you really can do. Get the Job, Promotion, Business Opportunit=
y and Social Advancement you Desire! Eliminates classrooms and traveling.=
Achieve your Bachelors, Masters, MBA, or PhDin the field of your experti=
se Professional and affordable Call now - your Graduation is a phone call=
away. Please call:1-206-888-2083


This is what's referred to as "Diploma Mill" spam. If it sounds shady, that's because it is. In fact it's 100% illegal to sell fake diplomas, and more importantly it's a crime to represent yourself as having earned such a degree when applying for work.

The spam operation works like this:

- A sponsor handles the printing and shipping of the fake diplomas.
- Sponsor contacts spammers / mailers in the hopes of drumming up leads
- Spammer sends a message to millions of recipients (who probably, like me, don't want them)
- Inevitably one or two of them call the number, which is a voicemail prompt which reads as follows (for the number above, anyway - it varies):

Thank you for calling the university degree program. After the tone, please leave your name and two telephone numbers. One where you can be reached during the daytime hours and one for evenings.

Please do speak clearly after the tone. One of the registrars will be in touch with you shortly. Thank you and have a nice day.


From there, the spammer provides your voicemail response to the diploma sponsor. Lately that process has become a bit more labor intensive for the spammer, since (of course) so many people DON'T want to be contacted regarding this so-called "offer." As a result, several angry recipients of these emails have left voicemails in the hopes of tracking down who is behind them. This leads to issues for the spammer, who previously used to just hand over the voicemails only to be told by a pissed-off diploma sponsor that 4 out of 5 of the calls were angry complaints, or legitimate sounding responses that led to an angry person at the other end of the phone when it came time to reel them in.

So now the spammers have to filter out the complainers from the legitimate people who want to illegally purchase their fake diplomas.

An example of a fake diplomaYou'll notice that they word the voicemail in such a way as to indicate that you're undergoing some University-style admissions process. In reality this is, as one might expect, a purely commercial process. You want the piece of paper. They want your money. No background check takes place. No school transcripts of any sort are required. All you need is a credit card and an address to ship the phony diploma to. And you're done.

The hazards involved with this flatly illegal practice should be obvious to anyone. Would you trust any new doctor with a diploma on their wall if you were aware that any percentage of real people actively spend their money on these documents? Would you trust a new hire in any field if they presented you with this document as evidence of their expertise? Would you trust a contractor to make any repairs or modifications to your property if they claimed to have a degree or diploma claiming their excellence at what they do?

This kind of fraudulent representation has already happened, and led to some horrifying consequences. In 2003 one Laurence Perry was convicted of manslaughter. He took an 8 year old girl off her insulin and she died. Later, it was discovered that he represented himself with fake medical degrees. That's an old story, so in all likelihood he's out of jail by now.

A similar story unfolded as recently as a week ago, when "Doctor" John Curran was convicted of wire fraud and money laundering, after he "treated" 18 year old Taylor Alves in 2002 for terminal ovarian cancer. He basically ruined her life, which was already in jeopardy after such a crushing diagnosis. He's behind bars for 12 years.

Certainly it's not only medical degrees or MBA's which are on offer from these operations.

The sponsors behind these illegal documents treat it as though it's any other product. One member of bulkerforum.biz (among numerous others) who goes by the name of "Princess" is clearly very experienced in this field. She posted the following back in October of 2007, and apparently generated quite a bit of interest:

Topic: Mailers needed

princess

Joined: 15 Sep 2006
Posts: 25

PostPosted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 2:24 pm
Post subject: Mailers needed

Hi all.
for those who do not already know :)
I Sponsor a University program.
I am looking for more mailers to join our mailing group because my program is expanding.
A leads related program.
Pay starts at $18 to $20 depending on volume, for a good lead.

Q: What is a good lead?
A: A person who responds to your non URL adds who calls the phone number and leaves his contact information with a working phone number. It's so simple just too good to be true.

I use a non URL add that works through an email voice mail system, there is a phone number in our adds.
Only USA or Canada leads needed.
A qualified Mailer should be able to generate at least 10-20 good leads per day.
12 leads *$20 = 240$ USD a day
The conversion our good mailers have, is 70% good leads and about 30% bad. They make from $500 to $1500 weekly.
Payments, sent weekly via Bank Wire or WU.

I have a very good relationship with all our mailers and treat them well because I recognize that they are the fuel that helps run my business.
Please look me up and we can discuss this further.
You can contact me on ICQ # 338-284-118

Thanks Dianna


Cute. "Princess" Dianna wants to sell us fake degrees.

She continued to push this promotion several more times right through November 2007.

Note the specificity of what constitutes a "good lead". No websites, period. This is probably due to the arrest, prosecution and conviction of sponsors such as Craig and Alton Poe, back in December 2004. You can read a brief description of their conviction here. The story itself is quite entertaining not only because it involves lowlife criminal spammers going to jail, but also because of how it came to the attention of the Pennsylvania Deputy Attorney General:

Colby Nolan (pictured, left) is probably the first animal to hold this distinction -- an executive MBA from a university.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Jerry Pappert isn't amused, since Colby is a pet cat and a Texas-based online college allegedly gave the feline a degree for $399.

...

Pappert's office used the pet cat to investigate an alleged scheme designed to promote and sell bogus online academic degrees.


The main reason it was so easy to prosecute them and send them to jail is because they gathered their so-called "diploma leads" via easy to identify websites. Diploma sponsors couldn't ignore this and so they adopted a variety of alternate methods of generating the leads, most notably via throwaway voicemail phone numbers.

None of this makes the practice any more legal, or any more legitimate. If you attempt to use a fake document to gain employment, that's a crime. in the United States: It's a federal offence. Several states have begun cracking down on these illicit operations, and more than half of the states in the US have specific laws on the books regarding the sale of these documents, or the use of them as personal documentation.

As with most other types of spam-related crime, this is generally considered a variety of fraud.

In the case of the Poe brothers, they also generated fake grades transcripts, which is a further federal offence.

As with most other products promoted via illegal spammers: you should avoid these at all costs. Princess said it herself: "It's so simple just too good to be true."

There is a fantastic blog which tracks illegal diploma mills called (appropriately) diplomamillnews.blogspot.com. Definitely worth a read.

One can only hope that spammers convicted of this type of fraud end up being represented by lawyers with similar "credentials."

SiL / IKS / concerned citizen

5 comments:

AlphaCentauri said...

It's amazing that when given nothing more tangible than a non-toll-free phone number written with O's instead of zeroes, people will send several hundred dollars to these scammers for a piece of paper they could have printed themselves.

A fake degree is useless without a fake university to confirm it as legitimate. Most employers probably already assume they won't get any information about a job applicant from a university without sending a signed consent form from that applicant.

What do these guys tell employers when they apply? "No, really, my school doesn't need you to mail them anything, and there's no need for you to look up the phone number for the university registrar; you can just dial this phone number here and ask them about me. Really. Trust me."

Of course the worst thing for the fake-diploma earner would be if he gets a job, but the credentials aren't checked for a year or so. Now he's got a former employer on his resume always ready to reveal why he was terminated. Stupid and dishonest. That will follow him for years.

IKillSpammerz said...

Welcome Alpha Centauri to the comments... :)

> It's amazing that when given nothing more tangible than a
> non-toll-free phone number written with O's instead of
> zeroes, people will send several hundred dollars to these
> scammers for a piece of paper they could have printed
> themselves.


That last part is questionable. Apparently the "quality" of these documents is quite high. Vellum parchment, raised or embossed text, watermarking, etc. All the signs of what should be a legitimate document, only it's from a "university" you've never heard of.

> A fake degree is useless without a fake university to
> confirm it as legitimate. Most employers probably already
> assume they won't get any information about a job applicant
> from a university without sending a signed consent form from
> that applicant.


Keep in mind, many fake diploma resellers will now also sell you a fake transcript. The sale or purchase of that type of document is actually much more damaging, in far more states, because it smacks of misrepresentation, and that is a form of fraud carrying a higher level of punishment.

Many of these "unaccredited institutions" do feature working phone numbers. It's not known if there is any staff on the other end to confirm whether someone has received a diploma from them or not. I would assume not, since the sole goal of these operations is profit via fraud.

It turns out that "fake diplomas" get around a lot of legal criticism because there is a burgeoning market for what are referred to as "novelty" diplomas. e.g. "I got a PhD from the University of Good Looks", etc. Because companies which offer these "fake / novelty" documents are doing so as a form of parody, it doesn't fall under any federal statute and therefore no federal law specifically blocks the sale or purchase of these documents.

The law take much greater notice, however, of someone attempting to pass one of these documents off as a legitimate award or accolade. For example, you wouldn't necessarily be charged with fraud if you attempted to use that "Good Looks PhD", but if you had a fake document which purported that you had a Masters in civic engineering, that is rather obviously a different story.

Sites like the diploma mill news blog are offering (on a volunteer basis, no less) as complete a listing of fake diploma "universities" as I've seen anywhere on the Internet. That's a valuable resource for any company wishing to do some background checking.

Since 9/11, background checks have generally become much more thorough, for good or for worse. One would hope that this would mean that the days of fake diploma sales (of the type we're talking about here) would decline immensely.

> What do these guys tell employers when they apply? "No,
> really, my school doesn't need you to mail them anything,
> and there's no need for you to look up the phone number for
> the university registrar; you can just dial this phone
> number here and ask them about me. Really. Trust me."


According to many of the postings on that diploma mill news site: they don't tell them anything, and apparently silently hope that nobody will ask. This is the only reason they work at all as any form of background reference for the desperate souls who are otherwise locked out of that huge promotion.

> Of course the worst thing for the fake-diploma earner would
> be if he gets a job, but the credentials aren't checked for
> a year or so. Now he's got a former employer on his resume
> always ready to reveal why he was terminated. Stupid and
> dishonest. That will follow him for years.


And his or her story (usually "his", you'll notice) will end up on blogs like this one. :)

I also have a bit of an update: it's not hard to research the phone numbers being spammed in these messages. And Alpha Centauri has my thanks for providing a means of easily looking up a phone number's area code and exchange listing (the first three digits of a phone number.)

You can do so here.

Looking up the number will provide you with the operator of that area code and exchange. It may seem a bit daunting, because several numbers end up under the jurisdiction of numerous providers. But take, for example, a number I was spammed with today: 702-507-0027. [view the link here.]

It is solely operated by "XO Communications" in San Jose, California. You can complain to them directly about that diploma mill number by contacting their corporate offices at (703) 547-2000.

It works, and it doesn't take much time. So far I've personally complained about 18 such spamvertised phone numbers, with seven of them being shut down. You can stop this crap from continuing to be profitable.

Thanks for the comment.

SiL / IKS / concerned citizen

Fake University Diploma said...

With that diploma in hand, the possibilities seem limitless. But the reality is that once you’ve earned that certificate or degree, your career options largely depend on the type of accreditation your college has been granted. Just like you can’t start practicing medicine with a paralegal degree, you can’t pursue a career in welding without proper accreditation to back up your credentials.

IKillSpammerz said...

> Just like you can't start practicing medicine with a
> paralegal degree, you can't pursue a career in welding
> without proper accreditation to back up your credentials.


While that is definitely true, there are numerous stories every week of people being fired or charged with criminal misrepresentation for doing exactly that. Well: not exactly, but these are people holding what they claim to be valid medical degrees, or law enforcement diplomas, etc. etc. If you read the aforementioned blog, Diploma Mill News, you'll see what I'm talking about. One would think that this wouldn't happen as often as it does, but clearly it does.

SiL

IKillSpammerz said...

To all of you morons at so-called "diploma world": your unwanted spam comments are extremely childish. I get it: your novelty degrees are legal. Very clearly, you either can't read my original posting, or you don't care to. Either way I don't care: the types of diplomas I'm talking about are most definitely illegal.

Stop spamming this blog, and stop being such idiots about this topic.

SiL