A couple of weeks
ago I got an e-mail from someone asking me if the website
Verifiabledegree.com was legitimate or not. So I decided to check the
site out and see what it was all about. I almost fell off my chair
when I saw the load of hogwash on this site and the lies they are
trying to sell, so I thought it would be a good idea, not only to
discuss the content of this specific website, but also buying university degrees in general.
At first glance
this website should already give you loads of warning signs. On the
main page there is not only this cheesy image of a girl studying (no
offence to the girl in the photo), but the site is poorly designed
with several parts overlapping each other. If these guys were really
serious about making a good impression they would have spent more
time on the design of this website:
So they say their
degrees are:
- Reliable, legal and official: That would be a no-brainer. Who wants an unreliable, illegal and unofficial degree?
- Secure: What does that mean? Will they send it to you in a fireproof safe?
- Confidential: So does that mean you can't show your degree to anyone, because it is confidential?
- Registered: Another no-brainer, what is the use of an unregistered degree, if there is such a thing anyway.
- Recognised: Any degree can be recognised it all depends on by whom. It will bring you no joy if it is only recognised by the guy who will pay you $1 an hour.
On their main page
they also have the following text in an image:
Now this is very
odd, especially if you take into account the importance of having
your website crawled by the search engines. Everyone wants to rank
high on Google, Yahoo and Bing, but you can't do this if you put all
your important keyword rich text in an image. They either do not now
how to optimise their website for search engines or they do not want
to be found by them. So lets take a look at what they are saying
here. You can get a degree from ANY university worldwide, within
DAYS! Well I can already tell you about a dozen universities who will
never hand out degrees like candy. So this is just a downright lie.
How in the world can something like this be legal and above board? As
a matter of fact, I can't see how anyone in his/her right state of
mind can believe in junk like this. I think you have a better chance of
losing weight with one of those ridiculous weight-loss pills than
getting a legal university degree through these guys.
Lets take a look
at the first paragraph on their "About" page:
"We help you purchase a
university degree online. You can get a university degree very
quickly that is verifiable, legal, accredited, and registered. You
don’t need to attend any college or university, don’t need to do
any coursework or assignments, and pass any examination."
No coursework,
assignments or exams? That sounds too good to be true... wait a
minute it is too good to be true. If it was really possible to obtain
a verifiable, legal, accredited and registered university degree,
just by paying a couple of bucks (okay, maybe a couple hundred), why
is there still so many conventional universities in business where
you actually study and write exams? Big names like Stanford,
Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, etc. would have been obsolete by now if
this was for real.
At the bottom of
the main page they also have the following "About Us"
statement:
"For 20
years, Verifiabledegree.com continues its mission to help individuals
build their dreams by providing degrees that are fast, authentic,
verifiable. reliable, and 100% legitimate. With over 100 linkages to
accredited universities worldwide, it gives hope to those who want to
upgrade lifestyle, change career, build confidence, and create a
better future"
Over 100 linkages
to accredited universities worldwide? I thought you guys said I could
get a degree from ANY university in the world? According to some
sources on the web there are over 9,000 universities world-wide, so
over 100 linkages is cutting it a bit short.
They also have a
Reputation
page where the picture becomes more clear about who these guys really
are. According to this page, instant degrees review have said some
nice things about them. Who is instant degrees review? Well, they
link the text "instant degrees review" with the Wikipedia page
for Bachelor of Fine Arts, so much for linking to the page of the
reviewer. One interesting piece of text on this page is the following
two sentences:
"The
instant degrees review will also tell you that confidentiality
is guaranteed by the institutions offering the instant degrees. It is
also a legally binding on your part never to reveal the link between
the institution providing you the instant degree and the name of the
institution from which you graduate."
Right, so that is
where the confidentiality part comes in. You are not allowed to say
that you bought a degree from University ABC through
Verifiabledegree.com. Who in this world will ever be so dumb to buy a
degree and then spill the beans about the source of the degree during
a job interview. Someone as dumb as that should not even be allowed
to buy a degree. By the way, what is a legally binding? Is it some
sort of glue only sold by lawyers?
On their FAQ
page you will find more inconsistencies about their services, for
example:
Q:
Do I have the right to know the name of the university where I got
the accredited online degree?
A:
Based on the confidential agreement with the university, we cannot
release the name of the university or college to you. However, we
guarantee that the degree is authentic, accredited, verifiable and
legal. This is also to protect the privacy of our existing customers.
We are 100% confident that our service is extremely secured.
Wait a minute, we just learned that you are not allowed to reveal the
link between the institution providing the instant degree and the
name of the institution from which you graduated, but how on earth
can you do that if you don't even know from which university you
graduated. Just imagine what your degree certificate will look like. "From the University of .... um... we can really say. This is to
certify that .....". Yeah, that is going to help a lot to get
that job you always wanted. Employers will never notice this, right?
Q: What makes you different from other university online
degree services?
A: We had been in business for more than 20 years and we
became online in 2000. Thousands of our customers had acquired their
accredited online degree through us. We provide transcript, student
records, reference letter, appreciation letter, acceptance letter and
graduation letter. In addition, we can also offer lawyer
certification and notarization (no lawyer will be that dumb if the
paper is diploma mill). If you want, we can also provide graduation
grown and hood for your graduation from our list of universities. We
can also provide several public universities degree for you (extra
fees may apply). Please check out if other providers can do this.
This is where the site starts to sound like a 419 scammer. Just read
the answer again. We became online in 2000, who speaks like
that? We provide transcript, sounds like some indigenous
tribal leader. Why would you need a lawyer to certify and notarize an
original, legitimate degree certificate, that is already adequately
valid in its own right? If you need a lawyer to certify it, then
there must be something wrong with it. "(no lawyer will be that
dumb if the paper is diploma mill)", there they go with that
tribal tone again. But they are right, no lawyer will be that dumb,
only one who bought his/her law degree.
Last, but not least, they can provide your graduation grown (or
perhaps hey meant gown) and hood that matches the colours of the
so-called university where you apparently graduated. Why would you
want something like this? The answer is simple, so that you can take
a bunch of fake photos in your graduation gown and hood. Can't you
see what these swindlers are doing, they are cooking up fake academic
records. All these records do not matter anyway. Employers don't give
a damn about your student records, acceptance, appreciation or any
reference letter for that matter, they are only interested in your
qualification and a valid, legitimate, original certificate to prove
that you obtained it in an honest way. Do you really think your
graduation gown is going to convince your employer that you deserve
that promotion? For all we know you could have worn that gown in your
high school Batman play.
On their Reasons
To Get Degrees page, found under the Services section of the
website, that makes no logical sense anyway, they also make the
following claims:
- Free verification? Isn't that the purpose of the official degree certificate issued by the university?
- Perfect supporting documents: The cooked up stuff I mentioned earlier.
- Not a diploma mill? According to Wikipedia a diploma mill "is an unaccredited higher education institution that offers bogus academic degrees and diplomas for a fee". This site fits that description perfectly.
- You do not sell life experience degrees, but you make the following statement on the very same page: "To get instant degrees, people are required to sign a work experience declaration. Using a credit system, it is then converted into a degree. A network of legally established colleges and universities are involved in the process of issuing instant degrees and this service has grown massively over the last decade." So you just call it work experience, same difference.
- Not a scam? Why would you want to make such a statement? If you offer honest and legitimate services there is no need to convince people that you are not a scam. It is normally a sign of a scam when people go to great lengths to convince you to the contrary.
- No bad reputation and no negative news? Well, you don't have a good reputation or any positive news either. If they have been in the business for over 20 years, why haven't I heard about them before?
So what about ordering and payment options? On their Shipping
and Payment FAQ page they have the following interesting
questions and answers:
Q: What is your payment scheme?
A: We accept one-time fee only. We don’t ask for
additional fees.
Anyone will expect to pay in advance to obtain a degree, so why the
need for a question like this? Are they trying to tell us that this
is Advance Fee Fraud?
Q: Where
do you accept payments if we get your degree online?
A: We
accept these payments from
- Western Union
- Alertpay (in special occasion)
Do I need to say
any more. There is a reason why some pages sounded like a 419
scammer. Western Union is a very popular payment method used by
scammers.
Q: Do
you accept credit cards?
A: Yes,
we do. If you get your degree online, it is even better to use your
credit card for fast service.
That is the last thing you should do. Do you also get that sense of
eagerness from these guys to get their hands on your credit card
information?
When
we move on to the ordering
page itself, you will notice that it is not SSL encrypted. This
means your personal and credit card information will be transmitted
over an insecure connection. If this was really legitimate company,
they would have gone through the trouble of purchasing an SSL
certificate so that you can (1) verify that they are safe to buy from
and (2) that your information will be encrypted during the
transaction. It is very important to note, that being in the
possession of a valid SSL certificate, does not make the vendor
necessarily absolutely trustworthy, but the absence of one on a site
where you need to enter sensitive information, tells you that they
are not concerned about the safety of your information.
A hilarious part of the ordering page is the section where you can
choose your grades to be shown on your academic transcripts. From an
A+ to an F. Who would want to buy a degree with an F on all of the
transcripts? I would rather study and aim for a C than paying money
to get an F. The choice of grades do not affect the price of the
degree, so whether you choose an A+ or an F, you still pay the same
amount and that's perhaps the most ridiculous part of this site. So
what about the price. According to their site an Honorary Doctorate
degree, with all the fake transcripts, gown, hood, etc. will cost
$1190. That is a lot of money for an F, but hey look on the bright
side, the graduation cap comes in different sizes, so you are sure to
find a cap that will fit.
The
link to the Contact page is
www.verifiabledegree.com/get-degree-online.
On any conventional website, you would have seen the word “contact”
somewhere in that link, but this link has absolutely no connection to
a contact page (most of the linking structure on this website makes
no sense at all). So whoever designed this website... must be a
retard. The contact page only has a simple contact form. There is not
even an e-mail address and for a company, who has been in business
for 20 years, I find it a bit odd that they do not have a physical
address or a telephone number listed on this page. This means, they
do not want to be found and what kind of people do not want to be
found, the kind who wants to take your money and run away.
As
expected the WHOIS information for this domain is protected by whoisprivacyprotect.com, so I had a feeling in my gut that it would
have been a waste of time looking up the WHOIS information.
So
we had a look at this website and I think it is clear that these
people are a bunch of crooks. But what about buying university
degrees in general. I think it is just unethical and dishonest. Don't
you think it is unfair to hold the same title as someone else, who
studied 5 years and paid thousands of dollars to obtain the degree
through blood, sweat and tears, while you only had to pay $1190, did
not even open a book and got your qualification within two weeks?
Sure, $1190 is a lot of money, but it is nothing compared to the
amount of money you need to complete a 5 year study course. Just
imagine how poor the quality of our workforce would be if everyone
could buy a degree, wouldn't that beat the whole purpose of a formal
education. The whole idea behind a degree is not that piece of paper,
but it is to educate yourself in a specific area and to lay a proper
foundation so that you are qualified to follow a specific career. Of
course nothing replaces experience, but without the education, you
can't expect to get very far.
Apart
from being dishonest and unethical, just think about the dangers of
appointing unqualified people in important posts. Strangely enough,
Verifiabledegree.com does not sell any medical, aviation, emergency
service or military related degrees, but they do sell degrees in
engineering, law and accounting. These are very professional fields
of work, with a lot of responsibilities. Imagine a structural
engineer with a purchased degree, assigned to the construction of 10
story building or a large bridge, or an accountant with a purchased
degree assigned to the finances of a large corporation listed on the
New York Stock Exchange. What about a lawyer with a purchased degree
assigned to defend an innocent person accused of murder and facing
the death penalty? Just think about the chaos if we let unqualified
people do the jobs of people who took years of studies and experience
to develop and hone their skills. And who said it all stops when you
get your degree, most professional careers require continual
professional development, to stay ahead of your game. How do you
expect someone with a purchased degree to do continual professional
development without the foundation of a proper education? It is
practically impossible.
The
reality is, people do buy fake degrees, unqualified people are placed
in positions due to things like affirmative action and employment
equity. In South Africa we have first hand experience of people who
have the necessary qualifications (not really sure how they got them), but they can't do the job and even
worse, people appointed in certain positions of responsibility without
any formal education, but that is not the subject of this discussion.
You can't honestly buy a degree, you have to earn it through hard
work and perseverance. This is how it always was and how it
always will be until the end of time, it is as simple as that.
About
the Author
Coenraad is webmaster and founder of Cyber Top Cops, leaders in Internet security, analysers of security software and raising awareness about spam and malicious software.
Coenraad is webmaster and founder of Cyber Top Cops, leaders in Internet security, analysers of security software and raising awareness about spam and malicious software.
