ISE & Prospects Webinar: The shadowy world of qualification fraud and why it is a problem that just won’t go away.
For every real university there is a fake version busy issuing transcripts and certificates to unwitting (and sometimes witting) students. Unaccredited ‘learning providers’, meanwhile, slap university logos all over their websites to bolster their pseudo-credentials. In a job market where the majority of recruiters still don’t verify their applicants’ education credentials, qualification fraud continues to provide rich pickings for the fraudsters. We will look at the harsh reality of qualification fraud in 2023 and share best practice on how employers, universities and students can protect themselves.
Good afternoon everyone um thank you for joining us today in what is bound to be a very interesting um and and Hot Topic around the shadow shadowy world of qualification fraud and why it’s a problem that just won’t go away I don’t know about you but I’m personally really
Looking forward to hearing from Chris about this particular issue and and what what is happening uh and and what is continuing to challenge us so I’m gonna hand to Chris and um I will be um here in the background should you need me thank you Chris I look forward to this
Topic oh lovely thank you very much Georgia and good afternoon welcome everybody to this session uh it’s about qualification fraud mainly degree fraud that’s our area of expertise as I will explain shortly um but some of the principles apply to other qualifications and there’s a certain type of uh non-degree qualification that’s becoming
More and more problematic which we’ll look at in the course of this session um so much of what we’ll talk about has its um application across the board in education qualification fraud or any kind of formal qualification but degrees are this particular area of interest for
Us um that is because we that is prospect’s head is a degree verification system the the official one for universities in the UK and um it enables the verification of UK degree holders it’s the service that we set up in 2011 and since then we’ve uh processed getting on for 1.5 million degree
Verifications um so that’s our knowledge that’s our expertise and out of that has become a lot of awareness of uh the problem of of degree fraud um hence uh sessions like this and what I’m going to do over the course of the the hour that we have together is talk a little bit
About the overall context of the fraud the degree fraud problem um and of course particularly its effect and the impact that it has on recruiters employers Etc um we’re then going to explore some of the characteristics of the degree fraud shall we say industry Market World sphere but is an industry
Um and you’ll see just how much of an industry it is as we go along so looking at some examples of fake certificates U then we’re going to do a bit of a dive into the frankly endlessly fascinating rabbit whole world of fake universities and there’s so much
Material around those but we can’t do justice even in the time that we’ve got but we’ll we’ll pick some highlights out and show you how some of them operate we’re then going to look at the what might call the diploma problem and that’s what I mean when I’m talking about non-degree level qualifications
But those qualifications are part of the the h ation landscape certainly um and why they are becoming more and more the focus of the frauders um that ties into some questions around things to do with credentials and accreditation um so we’ll have a look at that um we’ll then
Go into some uh case studies of high-profile frauders people who’ve been actually convicted and gone to jail uh because they have lied on the CVS including exaggerating or faking outright their uh degree ifications U and then also some less well-known ones because this is a problem really that
The the tip of the iceberg is what people read about from time to time but it’s an issue that’s going on all the time below the surface across the world um then finally um a little look at the the larger fraud Spectrum in education um and some very positive steps that
Have been taken to to mitigate the effects of that particular around ESS Mills and you may be familiar with some of the work that’s been done on that we’ll have to look in more more detail and then finally of course what can you do about it what can we all do about it
What are the best practice that we can put in place how can we together fight degree fraud um and it is a battle and you’ll see as we go along just what the characteristics of that battle really are um but to begin with the uh the
World that we know of um in the UK this is some research by scias an organization that if you’re not familiar with I’d urge you to to get acquainted um scias specialized in issues around fraud and malpractice especially around financial fraud Etc one of the many services that they offer is um a
National fraud database um where instances of fraud that are experienced by employers can be logged and recorded and members have access to that so you can you can see if somebody has committed fraud in in a company or fraud in application or been convicted of fraudulent activity their name is stored
On the database and it’s resource for other employers um the they do a lot of research and the most recent one they’ve done around degrees uh was earlier this year um and this is not unusual these sorts of surveys are done we’ve done them ourselves from time to time um this
One in 11 people lying about their degree qualification out the sample of more than 2,000 um respondents that they had is not untypical um but I mean that is a lot that is a lot of people actually basically being either convicted found or admitted to doing it
Um and here’s a big part of the problem and this is where education and information comes in at a very early stage actually because we work with students around this before um you know danger is likely to sort of develop some of them do not think it’s illegal
Supplying false information on a job application they don’t realize um that it is actually technically legally fraud and people can be prosecuted they can lose their jobs for it and they can sometimes go to prison for it and sci-fi has do um a campaign aimed at younger people students who graduates
Particularly called don’t finish your career before it begins or don’t end your career before it begins I’m saying that the the time honored thing I’ll just make up a little bit of work experience or give myself a higher grade than I’ve actually got it’s totally obviously for all sorts of reasons it’s
Completely out of order and it can have very severe consequences um and then as the survey also went on to to uh establish the inclination that people might have for report in colleagues who’ lied on the CVS um and again there’s not a general propensity to do that there’s
A sort of feeling that people may cover up or indulge or look to one side when this sort of thing happens um and this is a theme that’s been constant for years um and it’s still going on um so that’s uh a sobering view of the current
Landscape some research a few years back now the first from stuff that we did had did with Credence the screening agency um out of 55,000 CVS we looked at 15% had academic discrepancies and the majority of those academic discrepancies were degree level misrepresentation or exaggerated grade inflation as it’s
Known people giving themselves a two one instead of a 22 or first instead of a a 21 uh or there may be things around the sort of the nature of the work they’ve done the course that they studies the university that they’ attended um or not
Um and um both smes and larger firms so just under 50% of both had experience of Fate degrees around the same time the ISC itself did a pul survey that included some questions about um verification Behavior Uh and this again it established what generally consistent ratios actually in proportions rather um
So majority of employers ISC members surveyed asked to see a certificate or evidence of the degree but only just over a third follow up with the only real really um proper check or step that you can take which is to check the details on the certificate with the
Awarding body so that’s where degree verification comes in and it’s still as far as we’re concerned and other people in in the sector in the market and industry it’s still a minority Pursuit actually making that check the idea being that for many employers it’s enough to see the certificate um but as
Will shortly establish the many reasons why you cannot take all certificates documentary evidence at face value so the obvious ways in which employers uh or any kind of organization or and universities too uh are affected by fraud well it’s terrible for your reputation potentially and later on in
This session we’ll look at some of the cases um where you know the the reflection upon the hiring firm or organization because they haven’t done due diligence on incoming staff about the qualifications or or other form of background checking um can be very very bad it’s it reflects
Very badly uh on the firm on the uh the activities of the company um there may well be risks associated with intellectual property brand associations and the brand part ties in with reputation intellectual property it can be and there have been cases of this where somebody who’s entered a firm um
Using false pretenses that their propensity for fraud doesn’t stop there in fact actually arguably the faking your qualification or exaggerating them or misrepresenting them that is the key that unlocks the door into a company or organization which then enables other forms of fraud or theft to take place so
People might be working without the proper qualifications on sensitive highly valuable intellectual or material property they may be affected with the way that the brand is perceived um so all of that is imperiled if it’s later discovered that that person is not basically who they said they were um the
Effect on on staff morale and well-being um this is again well documented when you learn that a fellow worker um is not who they say you are that the company has not been rigorous enough and has let somebody like that into the company that they may have been party or privy to
Sensitive confidential business practices or information um that does not go down well uh with with co-workers and um it does have a very negative effect on general staff feeling Vibes um and then particularly the financial impact cost of hiring the cost of rehiring all the time that is spent I
Mean in graduate recruitment or the recruitment of graduates whether you’re a major Blue Chip recruiter or smaller concern that takes on early careers level uh workers students and graduates it’s an expensive time necessarily expensive timec consuming business it requires a lot of attention a lot of
Commitment and a lot of budget uh and that can all be thrown away when an individual who’s entered that route through that route is discovered later on that they do not have the degree that they said they had or don’t have any degree at all or it’s from a madeup
University or with a fake certificate the cost of rehiring is significant you have to do it all over again and the um most recent data we have again it goes back a couple of years or so um this is some research done by axelos um well you
Can you see for yourself I mean 40% in in the survey that they undertook of companies spending more than 10,000 in the previous three years rehiring after employing someone who lied about the qualifications that’s a lot of companies in that survey um and 9% of them spending more than 40,000 because
Obviously you know the higher up the levels you go the more senior the appointment the more expensive the head hunting The Scouting onboarding the salaries Etc um if you don’t get it right at that level then of course it’s extremely expensive um but it’s expensive however you cut it it’s money
Wasted um and a half of those in the survey as you would expect given the outcomes of the survey said they did not always check candidates qualifications um and finally uh on on sort of the cost side of it and this is from the ons um survey they did found uh
Well 138,000 HR managers in the directory 14% of them dealing with at least five instances of employees not holding certifications they claimed that might be degrees it might be other might be professional body membership it might be chartered institutes it might be safety critical uh qualifications and
Certification um and as a point of the end makes that number could be even higher if more employers made checks it’s that kind of unreported crime thing isn’t it I mean these are only known about um where the checks have been made if the checks are not being made
Comprehensively if it’s only a minority of of employers doing it then of course you can extrapolate um and suggests that there is a whole world of fraud going on that employers aren’t necessarily even aware of though some cases they might suspect it based upon performance um we’ll move on
To fake certificates because the certificate is the whether it be presented digitally or in print however it’s mediated or produced the certificate is the sort of the the action point around how so much of how this this fraud Works um there will always be in this sort of crime a
Certificate somewhere or a transcript or sort of letter of some sort but some officiall looking document um and this is from this morning a Google search for buy degree certificates online the and this is again the tip of the iceberg there are multiple online entities selling fake degree certificates or
Versions of of of real world degree certificates or diplomas or any kind of educational qualification so we we search for degrees if you were to search for diplomas on their own probably for a levels for gcss for chartered Institute membership of of of membership of chared institutes and bodies Etc it’s
Absolutely prolific um and some of these including the most realistic fake university certificate in the UK it’s a tall claim but some of their produce depending on how much you prepared to pay for it will be of reasonably good quality it won’t necessarily fool everybody but we’ve certainly worked
With the universities who’ve encountered a fake certificate and they’ve told us that the quality was so good right down to Holograms and watermarks that they had to really spend some time checking its um authenticity and sometimes the the the fake certificate is so good that the
Only thing that gives gives it away will be something like a an error made in in like the vice Chancellor for example wasn’t there at the time with the date on the certificate or there was a different registar or something like that but at the high end of it if you
Buy a whole package of degrees transcripts doctorates Masters undergraduate the lot um can cost a few hundred pounds um you can equally pay5 or six pounds online for a reasonably good certificate um that uh that will pass bu to we did a test purchase on eBay for a degree or doctorate in fact
In uh in rocket science from the University of Manchester um and got by return poster very very beautifully produced very very goodlooking got the crest right got everything else some details you know an expert ey an informed I would would have rejected but uh and that was I think $695 via eBay
Incidentally eBay over the years has periodically been Infested by these sorts of fake providers they often work to to eliminate them from from the platforms and it’s the same with Amazon but it’s like mushrooms after rain as soon as you get rid of one set of them
New ones appear because the trade in this is global um and it’s extremely profitable and I should say at this point that the UK has the dubious honor of being one of the most faked high education systems uh in the world because of the obvious cache and um you
Know good reputation of UK higher education of course it’s a highly lucrative Market to defraud uh so the UK along with you know other um sectors in in Australia for example the United States particularly um yeah it’s a dubious on it’s a perverse tribute really to the quality of UK high ucation
That there’s so much fakery um going on um we work with let me just move on to the next slide um universities a lot around this as well as employers so when we set up head in 2011 it was fundamentally as an efficiency uh um savings service to
Provide a central portal for inquirers third parties employers screening agencies embassies um other universities to make checks against the universities uh data um and that’s where it’s it’s become a very important service but as soon as we started it we became um a repository it was like a a reservoir
Solly filling up um we became a repository for reports on fake universities and fake certificates um and we we’d get examples sent To Us by employers or by universities as well um or they might say well I’ve not heard of this University it doesn’t look right
Can you can you look into it for us so we built up this reporting service which I’ll talk about a bit more in a moment but we did a survey early this year with some of our University Partners in advance of qualification fraud awareness week which is a program of online events
And and uh real world events uh once again happily as well um where we look at issues around degree for and qualification for and best practice so we asked um s University Partners big number of them has your institution ever encountered a fake degree certificate because we believe um we’re we’re not
Quite 100% with the evidence based of this but we’re well on the way we believe that for every real University there is a shadow version um so I included the word shadowy in the title of this as a shadow alternative version um a mirror reflection if you like um of
The real institution trading sometimes with a variety of different names or sometimes just out and out like the University of Manchester rocket science PhD certificate trading out and out on the on the real credentials of the real thing so we asked them if they’d ever encountered a fake degree certificate
Um 45% of those who uh we surveyed said they had just 6% said they hadn’t and then the rest answered don’t know and extrapolating too much think well it’s one of those situations where you should know either way and if you don’t know it’s probably because there aren’t
The rigorous checks in place or there aren’t the sort of degree for mitigation policies necessarily um or maybe you know they don’t have access necessarily to the parts of the institution that deal with it um but it suggest an uncertainty um around half of them and just under half actually saying they
Have encountered fake degree certificates um and again it’s it’s typical of the the work of University they are places where They will receive examples from the outside world of versions of degree certificates for their graduates while they’re sending their graduates out into the job market into further study armed and equipped
With a qualification and the proof of that qualification somewhere along the line um fake versions are being created and we do a campaign every year students and graduates and it’s one of those regrettable things that you shouldn’t have to do it’s a bit of a kill Joy exercise but it’s dead important it’s
It’s under this sort of headline and don’t take a selfie of your degree certificate because it’s the most natural thing in the world obviously when somebody gets Award of the degree um you see it so often on on social media a picture of the degree and so proud just received a degree certificate
Three years hard work fantastic achievement and it’s it’s a lovely thing to do but sadly that natural human impulse going all over social media the frauders are just waiting for those pictures to go up because what that does it provides an immediate gallery of the latest degree certificate styles of the
Way in which the wording is is arranged of the where the crests are um so it gives a whole set of material people who immediately start churning out fake versions and worse the individual point of view it it enables identity theft you know very very quickly that can be
Turned into a digital asset for somebody taking the names and details of that person um and using it for for bad purposes um so it’s a highly risky thing so we we we do um address that um I suppose our line is you wouldn’t put a picture of your passport your driver’s
License or your NHS card or anything else up online treat a degree certificate as you know sensitive personal information because it’s very valuable to the person who’s been awarded it but it’s just as valuable as an asset to the people who out there in the world seeking to uh defraud it um so
Fake certificates are a huge part of the uh the world of degree fraud um and that led us to amongst other things developing a degree Ford reporting service we we we did it informally to begin with and then in 2015 it was um taken over I suppose for of B by the
Department for education and then subsequently by the office for students um because it was recognized um around that time around 2015 there’s a big Drive in High ucation and the media picked up on this um and in government as well um to start clamping down uh on
Degree fraud and it was understood that it had associations with other types of um fraud and um Financial crime in particular um and issues around visas Etc it all became a very very hot issue um and it’s ebed a little bit and flowed a little bit over time in terms of the
Intensity of it but degree for reporting service is still going on today we’ve now run it within J as part of the head service but over the years um we’ve investigated more than 300 fake universities and we’ve helped shut down around 80 of them and by helped shut
Down I mean we’ve worked with um for example the national fraud intelligence Bureau um and sometimes with domain providers and sometimes with trading standards um or with authorities in other countries to drive the what is almost always um the internet entity which is per perpetrating the fraud out
Of business or out of operation um we’ve never had a case where there’ve been raids upon bricks and mor fake universities because they very rarely exist like that although there are some instances whereare of in the world where there are physical establishments but almost entirely in the world that we
Deal in and the world that affects people the most these are online entities so we shut them down but of course again with that mushrooms after rain um an allery they do tend to pop up again and you can sometimes see the same provider trading under a slightly
Different identity but using the same kind of materials and structures and and language um as they were previously um and and interestingly on the head database and the head database should add is uh fundamentally an instit database of Institutions that are able to award degrees and that ties in with
The um the head database um or institutions that deliver higher education and their degrees are awarded by another another body so they’re legitimate degree awarding or degree delivering entities and we also have a sort of family tree structure on there so and this helps clarify things so if
Someone is going for a job with a degree certificate from Manchester poly Technic and the employer uh not unreasonably is not aware of Manchester poly Technic because it ceased to exist in 1992 head will tell them that those degrees are now awarded by Manchester Metropolitan University which is the the you know
Legacy institution uh from man po Technic and the same for all others and some of them are more Arcane where the the original institution is is just not known of at all these days so that’s really useful but despite all of that really important real world data we’ve
Got many more fake universities on the head database um they are crossed out in red uh or sorry highlighted in red and it says this is not a legitimate degree awarding uh institution which is a slightly um diplomatic way of saying is a fake University in almost every case
That is what they are um but I degree fraud party service it’s a very very important um Cory to the work we do on head we always want to receive reports from and if any of you at any time um have any doubts whatsoever about a certificate that you’ve seen as a
Recruiter a university you’ve encountered um or un not necessarily out things are out and out frauds and we’ll come on to this in a in a in a short while if you’re just not quite sure what the status is of an awarding body or where it sits in the scheme of things um
We can help you bring Clarity to those often thorny questions and I should say that these are issues are more difficult and more pressing the further beyond the borders of the UK you go where knowledge and awareness quite understandably of the UK system and the industry in the
Sector um isn’t strong that’s where this sort of standard information is really necessary so we before we move into looking at some actual detail of of of of how these these entities operate um we identified a long time ago what we call the Vicious Circle um of degree
Fraud and it’s a self-perpetuating cycle and it’s also sometimes what referred to referred to as a fraud Gap so if we just think back to some of that data that we looked at where by the is survey only 35% of its members at that time were actively checking degree certificates
With the awarding body um that’s in that case it’s a 65% fraud Gap opportunity um so where there’s low awareness of Fraud and the risk um let’s say amongst recruiters amongst government amongst organization amongst uh employers of any kind um where there may be low awareness
Of the ability to checks it might be something that people feel they should do but don’t know how to go about doing it Etc um Reliance on certificates and CVS is quite understandably because that is the evidence base that you have still and whether that be digital or whether
That be print or or anything else or incidentally on the veracity and reliability of what the individual tells you about themselves that’s all goes into sort of the trust profile if you like um so because of this the low awareness and the Reliance on documentations Etc and Reliance on
Assumed trust dishonest applicants take advantage of it they know that the likelihood or the possibility is worth taking the chance on and in many cases that belief is Vindicated they get away with fraud and it all goes back into feeding the cycle at the end of the
Session we’ll have a look at the virtuous circle of verification which is the natural answer and solution to all of that but this is pretty much how it works it’s rooted in low levels of awareness low levels of best practice in many cases um and a minority and I
Really should stress this it’s a minority of students or graduates who do this and the vast majority of students and graduates who are impacted or are part of the degree fraud World they sadly unwitting victims they enter into in good faith and all conscience transactions with education institutions
Which are not legitimate and are set up to um defraud them and we’re going to look at an example of that shortly um but there are some who don’t and that is a reality um and again we’ll share some examples of that later on um everything
Is upside down the title says I don’t want it to turn your upside down to read it but uh I was very late because I always am I’m very late to doctor on various things in in television and culture so only recently started watching um strange things um which I thought was
Brilliant I saw the first series I haven’t seen any others but it was really really good and I absolutely loved the idea of the upside down that shadow alter world that is totally adjacent and interwoven with the real one um which some of the characters step
In and out of um and it has some of the trappings of the real world um but of course it’s a terrible Grim dark miserable dangerous place um I don’t want to stretch the analogy too far but certainly there is an upside down a shadow World an alternate universe um of of fake
Universities um fake versions of real universities then what I’m kind of ironically calling real fake universities I.E they’re only fake they have no coroller in the real world they’re fundamental 100% upside down universities and fake certificates and fake transcripts and fake letters of recommendation and fake everything including fake references um we’ll save
That bit to the end but fake work references as well as fake certificates as well as fake transcripts an entirely fake alternate World um that is existing and frankly thriving just over our shoulders and um we shall step into it um as we go along starting with the
Misuse the shadowy misuse of names so the University of Manchester as most of us will know for sure is the University entity of Manchester along with Manchester Metropolitan University and then just down the road sford University and so on um now the Manchester univ the University of Manchester rather is has
To be spell with the capital T it’s not University of Manchester it’s the University of Manchester but very commonly people will say I went to Manchester University and quite right when they say that they mean they went to the University of Manchester but as a university name Manchester University
Does not exist so if you ever see a certificate or document with Manchester University on it and a degree award and qualification Etc that will be fake Manchester University does not exist it’s the University of Manchester that’s an example of common Parliament speech turning into like an identity
Institution identity um it happens a lot with um university of so uh University of su uh Su University there’s a load of fake certificates in circulation still from Sur University uh and they and the Manchester University ones um will mimic the real crests and the real layout and
They do this I don’t if it’s I don’t know if plausible deniability is the word but it’s a way of saying no no we’ve not really mimicked the real University we’re calling it something else it’s a novelty it’s a fake degree certificate novelty um which obviously totally bogus but then extensions on the
Theme we’ve come across and these are all on the head database greater Manchester University um that was a S one because s the University of salford’s um tagline a while back was a greater Manchester University which is a nice way of saying it’s in Greater Manchester
But Al it’s greater as well um but of course that has just been misused as greater Manchester University uh Manchester Union University um presumably something to do with the students union and then Manchester open University now the open university has premises in Manchester so might say I went to the open University in
Manchester somebody might even say I went to the Manchester open University but there it is it’s appeared on fake certificates um there’s been a fake website devoted to all of these institutions so that’s just four examples out of one real world University um a very very uh high-profile case actually going back a
Couple of years now was an and a perfect example if you like of how a real University is imitated um and misused in order to ract money from unwitting students and there’s some very sad human stories around this from so Newcastle International University um it emerged in the way that volcanic islands emerged
Out of nowhere and then disappeared just almost as quickly um it emerged around the time of enrollment and registration for the uh Academic Year um and it was an online entity operated overseas um but it succeeded in persuading ing a number a large number of international students to part with Hefty enrollment
Fees and deposits and registration fees um because um they reporting to be the international arm of Newcastle University and this is the homepage um and they borrowed a lot of the artwork and the material and the content and the design and structure of the real Newcastle University and it was set up
In very very um comprehensively the website had depth to it it wasn’t just a couple of like landing pages um so it did give a very very powerful impression of being the international arm of Newcastle University um and sadly tragically actually a few students turned up at real Newcastle University um in
Enrollment week um fully expecting to take the places on the course and of course they had to be told him sorry you we’ve got you have not registered with us and enrolled with us you’ve been the victims of a a sophisticated scam um and of course by the time the penny dropped
With people the the the frauders had pocketed the money closed up the operation and gone um but that’s a a very um it’s not a it’s not extreme but it’s a very particular example of how that kind of fraud Works in practice um but we also get universities um who
Don’t necessarily have um a real world um equivalent or Cory um this is one that we investigated earlier this year called think University and it it’s it’s a peculiar one because like a lot of these entities it’s not clear when you look at it where it’s supposed to be um
Established so a lot about this website um suggested it was from America it was like an American private university it may have been an online owning University um but it also had British associations it trades on an idea of being a legitimate British higher education provider and they sometimes have um British
Addresses that you can try and follow up um and in this case f University which changes spelling of fin within a few pages and put an e in it so it suggests like very sloppy creation um it does claim to be based in London but it’s used some content from London
Metropolitan University so this a really really strange and that’s why I said there’s a lot of weirdness and strangeness about the way that these online almost entirely on online fake universities or dodgy universities are set up and sometimes it’s casualness about the way that they go about doing
So in this case it’s sloppy they’re not even consistent in how they spell the fake University but unfortunately that doesn’t seem to matter that much um apart from offending um pedants and and uh you know scrupulous grammar people uh they still succeed in persuading students that they are legitimate or
Maybe they just they are a way in which a student can an unsup student can buy a qualification cheaply you know they don’t need necessarily to go into that much depth and detail or get it right all the time um but I think F still University is still around despite it
Being reported um this was one of the a very very big scam for a few years and this one’s almost certainly now defunct but um just in terms of like the taxonomy of Fate University names so we have the real universities or versions of a real University um and then we get
Fate universities based in real counties that don’t have a university and actually aren’t that many of those but Rutland um well it’s a ceremonial County isn’t it but it still it has a county identity it’s a very old part of England right at the heart of England um but
Rutland was given its own fake University by by the these um this outfit um and it was apparently the world’s number one online university and have been operating for more than a decade when the scam came to to Big public attention um it goes heavy on scholarships and exclusive scholarships
And financial support um because the more sophisticated these fate universities package up the entire pseudo academic pseudo coursework fake qualification fake transcript and funding opportunities but as we shall see funding of course is nothing of the sort it’s a trap um so what Rutland University um did um they
Did a mass email of um students in in many different countries a mass email um purporting to be from an education recruitment agency which they called London recruiters um delightedly announcing that the the target the subject of the of the uh the email recipient was eligible as they put it
For a major scholarship with a top on online university covering 95% of the tuition free fees um and they offered all sorts of discounts saying that they could enroll for this exclusive MBA at Rutland University in the heart of England the UK’s or the world’s number one online University from all than 10
Years and they could enroll on that for just £699 um and there was a lot of pressure on them to complete the application form um to secure the scholarship um which L many many students did um and found out well when when when they realized they weren’t getting any cours work or maybe
They did get some cour work but it was of such a a bale low level and so of such poor quality that maybe the penny dropped then or maybe some of them even went through a whole program of pseudo coursework but it’s likely that the scam
Was just to get the money in the pockets of the institution um the fake institution um and off they went um interestingly the Rutland University used a lot of um a lot of content from the University of Leicester which is obviously near near to the fictitious Rutland University um and actually made
Um a real academic in a real Department um I think in Department of Economics um they made that person the vice Chancellor as well which they didn’t know about until the the uh scam was investigated but they had pictures of him and everything and lots of other faculty members from the University of
Leester so it’s a completely Shameless a Shameless um exercise but not untypical um and also incidentally you they you may not see it on here but they claim that their um courses are accredited by something called the British distance learning Association which is a totally fictitious body um
None of the website phone numbers work nothing else work the only thing that did work and was real about this was the e-commerce mechanism which um extracted £699 from the bank accounts of um some very unwitting poor students um so that was uh another big example of a very
Well organized scam they’re not all as well organized as that um this one’s a just going back to the taxonomy question we’ve had a a university madeup university in a real County well this is a madeup university in a madeup county um so I’m sure everybody on the call
Will know that there is no such place as rig Shire but referring back to that point made about the knowledge of the UK higher education system and the UK Market similarly outside of the UK and frankly inside the UK too I mean geography isn’t everybody’s strong point
Um but certainly the further outside the UK you go you can’t be expected to know intimately what is and what isn’t a real British County or Shire and and rig Shire um it sounds it sounds English it sounds like it might be in the Chilton somewhere and it or one of the home
Counties um but anyway rig Shire traded for quite a while and again it was awarding certificates for a fee um and there are people out there in the world like there are from all of these entities with rig Shire degree certificates um it’s Vice Chancellor and
They went to the trouble of they didn’t fake a real person but they used some stock imagery um of a wise looking uh man looking looking thoughtfully at the camera um but the vice Chancellor fake Vice Chancellor cooked up a message um to to encourage people taking part in
The rickshire University experience um and I think this is like a lovely example of like corporate gobble Deo because actually it’s sort of plausible it’s it’s saying the sorts of things that you sometimes see on on corporate websites or or business people talk about saying things like because the
Upcoming years will certainly be more competitive and inspiring we need to continue to be relevant and maintain our performance for continuous improvement with common vision and strong cooperation we shall attain Brilliance keep up the good effort and stay competitive I mean no one could argue with those sentiments at all um but
They’re also utter mean utterly meaningless as well um and they sign off as ston gresle baronets Vice Chancellor of rigar University um and this one in particular we like this example because it really embodied the website itself was beautiful in the way that it it really traded on um ideas about
Britishness particularly englishness um some of the pictures of the campus and the accommodation none of which existed obviously um were like country houses or lakes or people boating and it had a very sort of dreamy English County oldfashioned feel about it so that of course and a crest for rig Shire which
Looks like a county Crest from somewhere in England um so it gave all these Impressions and associations you very beguiling and of course that kind of works in partnership with real marketing for the UK for British Council for high education which does trade on multiple ideas of what British ns are obviously
Not as narrow as this or as oldfashioned as this um but it it would have struck an out with many many people um and I don’t think anybody turned up at the looking for rig Shire um and was disappointed to find it didn’t exist but if they had have done the main campus
Building actually is the rear of a car park of some service office units in abedine um so it would have been disappointing it certainly doesn’t match how they set themselves up um on their website um but that’s rigged Shire and before we leave and it’s one of hundreds
Of Fate universities we’ve got in our database but before we leave have to give a shout out to the all-time favorite and nothing’s ever trumped this one as it were um brexit university um which emerged uh around the time of the EU referendum um but this is just
Perfect and this was quite a welldeveloped site actually in again it offered fake courses and fake certificates and you could enroll in it and probably had to pay through the knows to do it um but yeah um brexit university has remained as it were the number one fake name that we’ve come
Across in all the years we’ve come across some fantastic ones but this for for share frry and brass neck um but also for um very very sensible timeliness um it’s uh it takes some beating so so a short guide tour through the Rogues Gallery um I want to talk um
About a very important but related uh topic which is problems that we have with higher level qualifications so degrees you’ll know this I’m sure they’re tightly regulated the UK high education system it’s very diverse and you’ve got multiple types of institution and there are always arguments about
Equivalence and and quality and all of that but there are institutions and agencies which deal with all of that um so a degree is a known quantity you cannot just up and award a degree legitimately um you cannot just call yourself a university legitimately you need to have permission to do that even
If you’re using as a trading name outside of Academia but also high education level postgraduate certificates and diplomas they are not subject to the same kind of rigor scrutiny or anything else and actually it’s relatively easy any one of us right now on this on this session could set ourselves up as a
Post-graduate Level Training provider um by registering at company’s house by getting a UK register of learning providers uh number uh and then after that it’s pretty much on your way and there is no scrutiny monitoring no quality assessment no auditing and certainly nothing around finances um I
Want to look at an example which um is is a model example for this I want to be very clear I’m not imputing anything illegal about the this this firm that we’re looking at hrodc um whatsoever other than to say it trades in an area of ambiguity as many
And in fact an increasing number of providers do trade TR in because diplomas are easier to set up they’re easier to deliver um and it offers richer pickings for the unscrupulous but also for the scrupulous too there are issues around Clarity um so on the homepage of this this entity it
Describes itself as a postgraduate only institution now that immediately makes you think it’s a postgraduate teaching institution a postgraduate level education and in your mind the word postcard study Masters diploma start to sort of um get fixed and it claims to be verified by and registered with the department for
Education it’s an insanely fascinating um uh teach learning provider this this company this is up to number 12 of 246 hugely comprehensive uh courses and programs almost all of them U reporting to be leading to a postgraduate diploma um 24 46 in pretty much every area business activity industrial activity
Commerce Etc professional practice um imaginable engineering Financial Financial HR marketing I mean it’s just goes across the board um and just as extravagant as the as the depth and detail of it are the fees so we’ve highlighted one in yellow here this is not the only program which costs
On the face of it whether these rates are actually negotiable and they may well be but on the face of it and their perspective £45,000 for three months worth of study um other more economical ones can be delivered in five days for £5,000 um but the problem with this is
Particularly for students and students do take part in these programs and there there’s lots of the the learning videos on YouTube where the delivery appears to be a lot of people sitting in a room listening to a man go through line by line on PowerPoint slide um it’s extraordinarily sort of
Old-fashioned if you like or roote rather teaching methods um but many many students do enroll um the problem is how does a student know that the £45,000 that they might be paying or even the 15 or 20 for the more economical ones how do they know that that post-graduate
Diploma how do they know how that Stacks up with a postgraduate diploma offered by a real accredited University in the UK typical fees ranging between 5 and 7,000 how do they know how to compare the two things and make an informed judgment about where they should study and how
They should study um because on the face of it all diplomas are equal in that respect now obviously they’re not at all um in practice but people don’t necessarily know that and then from an employer point of view when presented by a graduate who’s going through a job or
Somebody with a qualification I’ve got a PG diploma in human resource management did a practitioners approach PG program it led to PG deploma sounds fantastic it was with a specialist postgraduate training institute um great if you take that at face value then and you don’t check or you don’t look into out any
Further you may have recruited somebody who actually doesn’t have the same level of technical knowledge and training that they would have had on similar course delivered by a university or an accredited higher education provider possibly it’s speculation but that’s is where the ambiguity comes into it um and
This UK rlp this comes up a lot that in this case it it doesn’t mean anything other than you’ve registered it’s like registering a company’s house beyond that it’s not about monitoring or assessment or auditing it means that you’ve registered and once that’s done you’re in the
System um and actually in this case when you look up the uh live UK rlp um website it turns out that this particular one was deactivated so shades of ambiguity trading on spirous credentials um so we mentioned the uh regist of learning providers um company’s house again doesn’t mean
Anything about the the probity the quality of your your company the markets you it says nothing about you other than you’ve gone through a registration process and of course you have to go through requirements to sort provide accounts Etc but from an education provision point of view a company’s
House registration is utterly meanus it just says you’ve set up as a company um and then real University and accreditation and partnership connections these are often used we investigated a college earlier this year again a legal entity but making claims that it was in partnership with at least
Three real universities um we be C out to those universities to ask them about their relationship they denied said they had no connection with them and they’d never heard of it and they were going to be writing straight away to this college it was a business uh College in London U
To ask them to take off um but on the face of it looking at the homepage think oh it’s great they’re working with the University of X and the University of Y they must be good and maybe they’re accrediting their programs um and then also so red flags very often on these
Sort of Uncertain ambiguous diploma providers or further study providers when they plaster the websites like a Formula 1 car with United Nations NHS Flags British Council ofstead companies Etc it often means they they’re just trying to bolster their pseudo credentials um we’ve had a a good case of this recently with the leads
International College which is a holy fake institution um it doesn’t have any physical premises as such um but it has a strong online presence um and again like many of these others it’s claims to have the best UK accredited study programs um it’s a leads International College which based in London it’s got
Nothing to do with leads whatsoever as far as we can tell um and in fact the picture of the um supposed faculty or main administration building um is in Lisbon so it’s uh Le London and Lisbon um and in none of those places is it a real thing but here’s another example of
The accreditation that is misused um all these either non-existent or have no meaning so authentication by the UK government legal notification office um in this case there’s no such thing as an accreditation for this body with any such organization it’s not been ratified By Her Majesty’s representative in the
UK government that’s totally unsupported and unsupportable and so on and so on all of these things have no meaning um but they look um impressive to the unted eye um and what that also means is if you look if you have an unted eye you wouldn’t necessarily be looking for
Where they’re really established but in this case their address leads to um a postmailbox setup in hoben in London underneath that scaffolding and then their register on company’s house um well they have two arms of the the business and the charitable side allegedly they’re both registered at neighboring houses in Leicester um so
The L thing crops up again so it’s leaves London lisban and Leicester um and then the claims made for on the website for accreditation it proudly talks about its license number from the British government which is its company’s registration um so all of these things where they exist at all go
Back to a very simple fact about setting up a business which has got no bearing on anything to do especially with it being an education provider but the most difficult areas and the ones that the most important for our purposes are where claims are made for accrediting
And awarding degrees that is the key thing to to establish with any kind of institution that you’re not sure about um and that can be done by checking with the office for students register and also something called the the listed bodies register which is um has been
Managed by the the government usually by the DFE um that tells you who is a university and who isn’t and who has the the right to deliver higher education um programs because not everybody does and it all has to be done properly um and in an accredited way um so we’ll move on
From the actual instances and have a quick look at some of the headlines that t have taken place because I me mentioned that tip of the iceberg thing periodically the um degree fraud and qualification fraud does become a big hot media topic and a big hot political
Topic um when it and it isn’t a Hot Topic it doesn’t mean it’s gone away but there are sometimes cases that are so high-profile file that they force attention um which is a very very useful period because that’s when you know more people get informed and educated about
The the depth and and um and danger of the issue um but this staggering tradeing fake degrees revealed um was around uh in the wake of um a huge case um going back to 2015 but it’s still the repercussions of this is still being felt um in Pakistan particularly where
It took place um but elsewhere in the world um is a company called aact which is a popular publicly trading legitimate company software company I think it was but they had a massive sideline in running fake universities diploma Mills very very well produced ones um with a in an e-commerce infrastructure for
Selling certificates selling transcripts taking registrations Etc um and this was um busted by international corporation from uh from the Press including the New York Times um Interpol were involved at one time and it became a huge issue in Pakistan where people went to jail um
But also it it was there it was um there was a lot of other corruption that came to light as a result of this um but this was like a huge Stone dropped in in in in the in the lake of degree grief for and the ripples keep on sort of coming
Out from the center um it’s it’s the it’s a sort of the the poster case of how deeply and how lucratively degree fraud can be um undertaken as an industry um but it’s not the only case whatsoever and headlines from over the years um these couple of these
Illustrate the fact that it’s very very common degree for or qualification for generally is often only exposed as a result of financial malfeasance in companies or organizations um so Comm man POS posing as a Vicor um or frauds to scammed from the NHS and and had fake army medals and sometimes delusional
People or or um fantasists about you their their their history they fake um you know qualifications or fake experience to support that but almost always is a financial aspect to it as well when I mentioned before about the qualification unlocks the door that gets people into organizations and into firms um where
They can start um it may be expenses fraud it may be financial fraud it may be channeling money into other accounts it could be any sorts of of malfeasance in a company um these headlines are with us all the time but the most high-profile and the worst this is absolutely Dreadful case
You may well have seen this because it’s been in the Press twice actually um this uh woman uh zolia Aly who was jailed originally in I think um 2018 um because it be came to light that as a result of forging and making changes um to the will of a vulnerable
Elderly person in Cumbria whom she was for whom she was a consultant psychiatrist um that was was I was detected the investigation then established horrifyingly that this senior psychiatrist who work in the NHS since the mid 90s who was a consultant as well um had no educational qualifications and what happened was um
She come to the UK in the 90s from New Zealand at a time when there was an arrangement with GMC where um qualifications from other jurisdictions in the Commonwealth um given a sort of put it through a separate sort of um checking process and I think basically
They taken at face value some very dodgy looking documents um and it hadn’t been very very rigorous in the way that she was checked because clearly they hadn’t established what her bonafides at all the taken face value some very poor quality looking documentation so she got
Into the system and it just went from bad to worse um and so she served a sentence um for that particular case but then a case was brought against her again for more General forgery in fraud and in uh Manchester earlier this year she was sentenced to seven years in
Prison um but it’s a terrible case because sometimes important to keep some proportion it’s never right that somebody should go into an organization or company on fake prot qualifications on principle and it’s unfair on everybody particularly unfair on students and graduates who work for for
Their degree and may lose out and get a job for somebody who’s bought something from eBay or fake the certificate Etc but there aren’t always life or death consequences however serious it might be but in this case um she was prescribing cses of treatment um strong medication for people with psychiatric problems and
Illnesses people were you know took her into their trust she was responsible for for treatment policy it’s Dreadful case and would have been obviated none of this would have happened if her qualifications have being checked properly at the start um the NHS crops up quite frequently because I think it’s
A high Target employer for frauders um so a number of the big press covering stories over the years including this person Philip Knight who um faked a degree in Classics to get a job as Chief Information and digital officer at Oxford University’s NHS Foundation trust because not withstanding that previous
Case clinical entry into the NHS qualifications of course are checked rigorously and properly through the General Medical Council but nonclinical it’s Pia and that’s why a number of cases um this was a very very high-profile one John Andrews who I think I lost count of the number of fake
Qualifications but he had at least one undergraduate qualification a master’s and a PhD and an MBA um he lied about his work experience as well um he started out working as a builder and then worked in various other other professions and trades and and industries but not at the level that he
Got to in the NHS all based upon fake qualifications um and he he earned more than a million pounds actually in a 10-year career and got to a very very senior position um and actually when he was tried for this he admitted to tinkering as it was described with his
Daughter’s degree certificate as well so it’s just like a Serial um fraudster and forger who um went a long way before it was detected um I should just mention with the NHS they very recently introduced um a fit and proper person’s framework for doing much more comp comprehensive checks on non-clinical
Staff and that’s a really really positive step U and that’s a model for any other safety critical well any industry really but any other safety critical high-risk industry whether that be um in you know civil engineering the nuclear industry in hazardous waste and certainly the NHS cannot be letting
People in to make decisions and policy um who do not have the qualifications that they they properly require um this case uh somebody in Manchester quite a few years ago now um again his uh degree fraud his qualification fraud uh came to light after a massive expense claim
Swindle that he undertook um I think he he defrauded them about 50,000 his employer in Manchester and again if the firm had just checked with Manchester Metropolitan University which is only down the road um when he joined them they’d have found out he did not have an
MA in human resource management or any other kind of qualification um huge case of um confidence trickster going on here this um man called David Scott he not only faked his um Med his engineering qualifications but he claimed to be an expert in um the the screen grab read non-parametric progression for analysis
Of complex surveys and Geographic visualization he stole that from a nam sake academic and added it to his list of credentials and it was only when colleagues realized that what why is this person managing this complex oil and gas installation um in Kazakhstan when he clearly has no aptitude or
Competence that was when questions were asked um similar questions should have been asked sooner um about um Daniel mithin Kulu in South Africa he was the um chief engineer of the passenger a agency of South Africa he fak six qualifications including diplomas and a master’s degree from the University of V
Waters Rand um he had no qualifications whats of job literally and in practice as well uh because he um was the head of engineering and oversaw and approved um a 6.2 billion Rand soorry 2.6 billion Rand contract for 25 diesel trains and 45 electric locomotives that were too tall
For the South African rail network the specifications were all wrong it was a massive case in South Africa um and again a model of where the consequences were you know huge because they hadn’t checked his qualifications um finally a case about Southeast Coast Ambulance Service driver the judge in this case
Came down really heavily on the employer saying is it absolutely scandalous that they didn’t make the right checks so all of this could have been obviated would never have happened um because this person had made up multiple qualifications and work experience as well um and like many of them went to
Jail um we’ve never come across somebody pretending to be a graduate at The Graduate ration ceremony and this is a bizarre case um I suppose because it was revealed and the person was arrested in the tracks as it were or stopped in the tracks it didn’t go on to then fake a
Certificate and then try and enter the labor market um but I think there was a strange one this I think it was somebody who’d told the family that they were at University and sustained this for several years and then had to get somehow into the degree ceremony which
Is it’s a desperate plight to be in um you know degree education or any kind of education shouldn’t be that important that you you pretend to attend a graduation but I say if this had not been uncovered almost certain they would have then tried to buy a fake lsse
Degree certificate and we’ll probably be trying to get a job by now um all of these are headline news stories and many many others um we have um many many other cases where they don’t hit the headlines um just dealing with this one we had a call on our fraud line um from
A charity in Canada very concerned because they were checking their one of their director’s degree credentials as part of a routine sort of um spot check um they’ never heard of Marone University of course we were able to tell them immediately um that it doesn’t exist at all didn’t need much sleuthing
And that’s because Sherlock Holmes lives in marily bone it’s so obviously fake and the degree certificate is um a very oldfashioned we don’t see this type of certificate as much anymore but the person concerned um had claimed to have done a six week online Masters in
Zoology um and then phoned us up on the Monday when it was clear that the game was up and firstly kind of going on the attack being the best ons of had saying that they believ they’ve been the victim of a scam and it was outrageous and they
Wanted to sort it out but obviously it’s a penny dropped with them up the reality of it they they realized um they were they’re being found out and of course they lost the job the charity also discovered that all of their work experience had been faked as well but
They’d had many other jobs before that highly senior and well paid um and have been in this company this charity for several months before they figured it out um it’s all part of what we call the full spectrum of fraud or the fraud Spectrum um leading to where people are
Getting jobs under the false pretences fake personal statements fake funding applications fake coursework fake qualifications all of these things add up to a total fraud Spectrum um I mentioned references um Reed found that 1% of candidates had used a reference house and this was new to us so there
Are now not only fate universities but there are reference houses that will make up companies for you um to go with your fake qualifications Etc and read at the moment of flagging one to two cases a week um sa Mills and I’m rushing this now I do apologize because we’re really
Up to time um sa Mill crack down the first major step in tackling the fraud Spectrum doesn’t mean it’s all gone away but it’s much harder now to trade as an sa Mill so that’s one part of the Spectrum which is very very hard to carry out and it’s very hard for
Students to get away with anymore we hope that qualification fraud will become just as rigorously enforced as we go on what we can all do about it and you as recruiters especially it’s dead obvious verify all incoming graduat tell them you do this put a degree for qu
Qualification fraud policy in place we can help you with that because we produce toolkits on it and Report instances of Fraud and cheating let us know if you come across a case that you’re not sure about tell scias way we’ve reported it to report it to the
Police because it is a criminal um act if you choose to take it to that level um and then finally the virtuous circle of degree verification goes without saying the more awareness there is the more best practice there is the more verification there is the greater awareness and so on and so forth
If you recruit and verify every time it makes it very hard it makes it less lucrative the grief fraud will become much less desirable for the frauders to go into and unscrupulous candidates will realize there really is nowhere to hide and that is the end of the slides and I
See Georgia there and thank you for your patience and if we have any questions perhaps we have some time to take them or should we wrap up now we have gone slightly over time Chris but thank you so much for that fascinating uh run through I haven’t actually seen any
Questions in the chat or in the Q&A however if you do have a question for Chris maybe if you’re okay Chris people can get in contact with us afterwards and we can post questions along would that be okay absolutely fantastic welcome them yeah well Chris thank you
So much a fantastic um webinar here today thank you everyone for for participating and as we say any questions please do let us know thank you everyone have a great afternoon thank you Chris thank you