Educational fraud has really become a worldwide problem especially from past 10-15 years. If you are a human resources professional or hiring manager, you may come across many resumes listed educational credentials like a professional certification or college degree etc. if they are genuine, those credentials sound credible but what if they are from ‘diploma mills’!? I mean, what if they are fake!! Sounds untrustworthy, isn’t it!? What is your job here? Human resources professionals need to educate themselves to take necessary steps in order to find and suss out those suspect or fake degrees. Also, find fake degree certificate templates for free that are useful for your reference.
There are more chances for a human resource professional or a hiring manager to review the job applications and resumes from the applicants who want to work for your company or organization. Resumes generally include educational credentials but all the credentials are not genuine, there could be potential chance of submitting the fake degrees. Here is where the officials need to work smart.
We find a lot many bogus websites and ‘diploma mills’- diploma mills are companies that produce fraudulent documents or degrees online without requiring the buyer to do except to pay the fee for it. Diploma mills and fake universities operate with different levels of sophistication and claim to be able to issue fake degree certificates on ‘work or life experience’. Actually speaking, the process to set up fake universities that look like a real universities can be easy- a convincing domain with a professional educational website would do best. The deception is complete with the addition of relevant content to the website. Sometimes, the information is plagiarized directly from the genuine educational websites.
Under the Fraud Act 2006, it is absolutely illegal for anyone to produce or use fake degree certificates as genuine educational credentials. If so, the person could receive a prison sentence of up to ten years for fraudulent fake certificates whilst applying for jobs.
Checking Out Academic Credentials
Here is some important information for the federal officials or anyone out there seeking help to know completely about fake degrees. Below mentioned tips helps to verify academic credentials in an easy way.
Research the school on the internet- Use the internet to check whether the school is recognized by a legitimate organization. Usually, colleges and high schools are accredited by recognized agencies after undergoing a vigorous review on quality of educational programs. Many diploma mills claim to be accredited but actually they are bogus. So, do some research over internet and decide.
Contact the School- Do not neglect to contact the school to check for listed graduates who are awarded with certificates. It is a mandatory step though the applicant claim from a reputed school.
Ask the applicant for a proof of degree- If you get unsatisfactory answers from the above two steps, then you directly ask the applicant for the proof of degree completion along with school or college’s accreditation.
How to identify a fake degree certificate?
According to Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and the Department of Education officials, fake degrees or certificates could compromise you and your organization’s credibility. Here are few steps to be followed in order to weed out bogus academic credentials and insure your hiring process.
Though the fake certificate makers take utmost care to make a fake certificate look genuine and real, there are few tips we can carefully observe to find out the fake certificates. Let us know what they are.
Language: The warning sign of a fake degree certificate is use of Latin terminology on a degree certificate. Also, check for any spelling mistakes because diploma mills often do spelling or grammatical mistakes in most of the fake documents. Order of words may also held effectively to find out the fake credentials. For example: the words used as ‘Sheffield University’ which should be ‘The University of Sheffield’ or ‘Sheffield Hallam University’ tells that the document is fake.
Design: The effective way to weed out the fake document is inspecting the design of the certificate. Real and genuine degree certificates are embossed and a hologram watermark is visible when placed under the light. Also, check for the gold seal and signature written in ink with no spelling mistakes.
Use Google to Ensure Authenticity of a University: Website is the deadliest weapon for diploma mills in the process of presenting themselves as the real institution. They fool people by giving false trust through the plagiarized content, images, courses, news, and information present in the website. It is easy to check the authenticity of a college or university since the students of the real institute number will be more and keep on posting and talking about the college system and curriculum in different social networks. Google search may help you to decide whether the university is real or fake.
Out of Sequence Degrees: The usual and traditional progression of degrees we expect to see while reviewing any educational claims start from high school, bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, followed by any other advanced degree or doctoral degree. In case, an applicant claims a doctoral or master’s degree without a bachelor’s degree then the applicant is suspected to claim fake certificates from the diploma mill.
Quickie Degrees: Generally, it takes 2-4 years or even longer for advanced degrees to complete. If a person claims a college earned in a short time or several degrees completed in the same year, then consider those documents as a red flag.
The above clues are only a starting point to verify the red flags. A lot of research is required to identify fake or bogus degree certificates. Above elements are some clues used to spot fake degrees.
Common Reasons to opt Fake Degrees
People not every time use the fake degrees to fool the employers or federal officials. There are some other common and funny reasons that make people to opt fake degree certificates. For example:
- To show off at a family or friends reunion
- Give as a gift to loved ones and friends or colleagues
- Wow your friends and family
- Add to your social media profile
- Replace an original
- Boost your self-esteem
- Increase your desire to obtain a real diploma or degree
Final Say
Finally to identify fake degrees, be sure to double check all the emblems, logos, school name, graduation date, course of study, etc. to find red flags while reviewing educational credentials. We offer different kinds of fake degree certificate templates that are useful for your reference. All the templates are designed as realistic as possible. If you are looking for most realistic and true replica quality fake degrees and certificates, look no further than browsing our post.
It is absolutely illegal to fake a degree certificate and claim as a genuine degree under the Fraud Act. According to the act, if any person found claiming or making fake academic credentials are sentenced to prison up to 10 years. Even though degree fraudulent has become common and sophisticated, employers does not take much to
identify fake degrees and get protected from its ill effects.
No and Never! Yes, no educational institute or a repute organization encourages fake degree certificates or academic credentials. Buying a fake degree from a fake university will never ever help you to earn a job or seek a seat for an advanced course in a legitimized university. Colleges, military, government agencies, and employers always take and do preventive measures and background checks not to fall as a prey for fake degrees.
Diploma mill, a company or organization works to produce fabricated and illegitimate degree certificates, documents, and many more related to academic credentials. They sell fake degrees and certificates through online programs and websites by claiming a higher education institution which is completely illegal as it is considered as the unethical and internet fraud scheme.
No, Never!! Fake degree certificates are danger anytime in your life academically. You can never pass a background check with fake degrees and documents. Almost all the fields like high schools, military, government officials, and colleges go for background checks to check whether the applicant’s academic credentials are legitimate or not. So, any red flags regarding fake documents are caught up by the officials specially allotted to serve this purpose.
In general according to the law, creating fake degrees, certificates, and documents is a punishable offence across the world. The person who is guilty for producing fake degrees may be sentenced to prison minimum of 3 years to maximum of 10 years.
