Word: diploma
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...business of selling bogus degrees to people seeking to boost their egos, or more likely their job prospects, is growing. The FBI estimates that there are at least 100 diploma mills in the U.S. selling 10,000 to 15,000 phony sheepskins a year. No cracking of books or taking of stiff exams is required. In fact, most of these counterfeit colleges demand little more than a fee for a degree (usually a few hundred dollars for a B.A. and up to $5,000 for a Ph.D.). They advertise their wares in the classified-ad sections of magazines with alluring...
Four years ago this multimillion-dollar business came under the eye of the FBI, the U.S. Post Office and the Internal Revenue Service. Since then, in an investigation dubbed Dipscam, more than 20 diploma mills have been closed down and three operators have been sent to jail. Last week John Blazer pleaded guilty to mail fraud for sending out degrees from his bogus universities of East Georgia and the Bahama Islands; he received a two-year prison term. And in Arkansas last year, George C. Lyon, 79, was given a year in prison and fined $2,000 after selling...
There are problems with bringing charges, the FBI admits. While an investigation into mail or wire fraud can take up to two years, an alert diploma salesman can move on to a new location almost overnight. Charles Alfred Durham, 54, of Seneca, S.C., who has been charged with mail fraud in connection with three diploma mills, has a clever defense: that the diplomas, costing up to $940 for a doctorate, were only "expensive novelties." Says Durham's lawyer, Daniel Day: "People who bought these diplomas knew exactly what they were getting, and I don't think...
...maintains that people who buy the diplomas are often partners in fraud. Over a decade, one diploma mill, Southeastern University in Greenville, S.C., graduated 620 students, including 171 county, state and federal employees...
Such "graduates" frequently mislead employers to get raises. But many buyers are simply naive, believing that a mail-order diploma can certify what has been learned on the job. A night security guard in Temple, Texas, says he bought a B.A. in law enforcement from Southwestern University in Tucson for $500 in 1982 because he "wanted something to hang on my wall and feel proud about." Ultimately, he became suspicious about his purchase: the transcript showed good grades for unrelated "courses," including an A in trigonometry. The Arizona house of representatives has passed legislation (awaiting state-senate passage this spring...