6/29/08

Times: Fake Universities Become a Problem

You always have to check credentials. There are degrees for sale from fake colleges, universities, theological seminaries, yeshivas. Employers beware!
Diploma Mill Concerns Extend Beyond Fraud
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO

The man said he was a retired military officer from Syria, which the American government deems a sponsor of terrorists. He wanted credentials as a chemical engineer, useful for getting a visa to work in the United States. Could James Monroe University help?

For $1,277, it did. Within days, he received three undergraduate and advanced degrees in chemistry and environmental engineering, based on his “life experience,” according to documents in federal court. Although the degrees looked authentic, Monroe had no faculty or courses; the “adviser” evaluating “life experience” was a high school dropout.

Monroe was one of more than 120 fictitious universities operated by Dixie and Steven K. Randock Sr., a couple from Colbert, Wash., who sold diplomas for a price, according to a three-year federal investigation that ended in guilty pleas from the Randocks to mail and wire fraud. The inquiry into their diploma mill, which operated most often as St. Regis University, provides the most up-to-date portrait of how diploma factories can harness the rapidly evolving power of the Internet to expand their reach.

The Randocks will be sentenced on Wednesday. Six former employees have also pleaded guilty to federal charges and await sentencing...
P.S.: Here are some free phony ordinations -

1 comment:

John D. Enright said...

"I'll have a regular ordination with a D.Div. on the side. That's to go, please."