Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Saren, Yes, over your sar. Yes.
Speaker 3: Do you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 2: I do? Good question, Elizabeth. Okay, Tommy Smothers recently passed away,
Speaker 2: I know, alright, Yeah, so they had the Smothers Brother
Speaker 2: Comedy Hour. Do you ever know about what Keith Moon
Speaker 2: did on that show? No? So the who we're supposed
Speaker 2: to perform My Generation? Right, so you got all of them?
Speaker 2: Rodger Daltrey, Keith Moon is the drummer. Townshend's guitarist, right,
Speaker 2: so Moon bass drum. Right, He's got a little thing
Speaker 2: set up or the end of the song and when
Speaker 2: it gets to the end of the song he hits
Speaker 2: it and the drum explodes. He had loaned up to
Speaker 2: blow up live on TV.
Speaker 3: It's very Keith.
Speaker 2: When I say blow up, I mean like Roger Daltrey
Speaker 2: gets thrown at the camera right. The towns and Pete
Speaker 2: Townsend's hair is like on fire, singing smoking when they
Speaker 2: can when the smoke abates right now, and whistle cool
Speaker 2: as any bass player's just standing there like look whatever
Speaker 2: of that, because go and get me a drink. Right anyway,
Speaker 2: I thought that was absolutely amazing. Because also Keith Moon
Speaker 2: he got shrapnel in his own arm, so it played
Speaker 2: back ris on it right? Who never invited on TV
Speaker 2: to do that type of show ever again? Yeah, so
Speaker 2: there you go. Temmy Smothers, all right, rip and gave
Speaker 2: us that all right Moon? Right? Ridiculous?
Speaker 3: Huh that is ridiculous blowing up a set for effect.
Speaker 3: Do you know what else is ridiculous? Elizabeth fraud zaren
Speaker 3: it's fraud. This is ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd
Speaker 3: and outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's always ninety nine
Speaker 3: percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculus.
Speaker 2: Oh you damn.
Speaker 3: Do you know what I have in common with Lord Kelvin?
Speaker 3: The famous physicist Adam Smith, the father of economics, seven
Speaker 3: Nobel laureates, three British Prime ministers, and actor Gerard Butler.
Speaker 2: A love of argyle socks and air bathing clothes.
Speaker 3: We are all University of Glasgow graduates. Yes, so I
Speaker 3: have my master's degree from the University of Glasgow in Scotland.
Speaker 3: Yes you do, thank you, thank you so much. Did
Speaker 3: you know the place opened in fourteen fifty.
Speaker 2: One, as in like the Middle Ages.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's ancient ancient.
Speaker 2: I know, it's one of the oldest in the world.
Speaker 2: If not, I know, I think Bologna is a little
Speaker 2: bit older.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's one of what they call the ancient universities
Speaker 3: of Europe. Lots of notable Alumniamian you do that long.
Speaker 2: Yeah, figure you're going to hit a couple.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't easy to get in, and it wasn't
Speaker 3: easy to get the degree with highest distinction.
Speaker 2: Look at you.
Speaker 3: But and it's not just like the diploma. It's everything
Speaker 3: behind it, you know. It's the effort that I put
Speaker 3: in so I can display certain skills as a result.
Speaker 2: Sure, and then also the imprimature of that school tells
Speaker 2: us that you did all this exactly.
Speaker 3: So people are proud of their alma maters.
Speaker 2: Yes, their sole mother.
Speaker 3: Jim Mann, chief Information Technology Officer of the State of Kansas.
Speaker 3: He was proud of his degree in business administration from
Speaker 3: the University of Devonshire. Jim Man Jim Man. George Way,
Speaker 3: President of Liberia and a retired Liberian football player. He
Speaker 3: was proud of his degree from Parkwood University.
Speaker 2: Football soccer, not football football.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Costas Margaritis, he's a Greek politician and he's a
Speaker 3: member of the New Democracy Party there. He has a
Speaker 3: degree from Shelbourne University.
Speaker 2: He's very proud of it, of course.
Speaker 3: Leonard Ingram aka bag One Raw Africa. He's a self
Speaker 3: proclaimed anger management specialist. He's writing a bunch of books.
Speaker 3: He was on that Penn and Teller TV show.
Speaker 2: Oh interesting.
Speaker 3: He's proud of his PA philosophy from glen.
Speaker 2: Cullen University, Glenn Collin.
Speaker 3: Who are these people's.
Speaker 2: Eric, Elizabeth? Are these friends of yours?
Speaker 3: No, these people are phonies. University of Devonshire, Parkwood University,
Speaker 3: Shelbourne University, glen Cullen University. They're all fake colleges.
Speaker 2: Oh, but the people are real.
Speaker 3: People are real. The colleges are faked.
Speaker 2: So they're not like AI people.
Speaker 3: No, they're real people with fake diplomas. Got These colleges
Speaker 3: are fronts for one diploma mill operation called university degree program.
Speaker 2: Wait one. They have all these different flavors of college
Speaker 2: you can pick.
Speaker 3: The Chronicle of Higher Education called this the quote Granddaddy
Speaker 3: of diploma mills. And so we'll get to this particular
Speaker 3: operation later, but right now, I want to give you
Speaker 3: some background.
Speaker 2: Please, I love background.
Speaker 3: What is a diploma Mill's.
Speaker 2: Errand Elizabeth, what is a diploma mill?
Speaker 3: Well, in today's society, Webster's Dictionary defines diploma mill as
Speaker 3: quote a usually unregulated institution of higher education granting degrees
Speaker 3: with few or no academic requirements. So it's a business
Speaker 3: that sells illegitimate diplomas for bogus degrees.
Speaker 2: Ah, degrees, those are important, I hear there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're kind of uh sometimes.
Speaker 2: So people use them all the time to leverage things
Speaker 2: they do.
Speaker 3: That is true. And so some of these diploma mills
Speaker 3: they claim that they offer credit.
Speaker 2: For prior learning, credit for prior learning, and.
Speaker 3: That's a legitimate thing, but it has to be very
Speaker 3: carefully documented with like a confirmed method of conversion from
Speaker 3: experience to academic credit.
Speaker 2: So like if I was a un interpreter working in French,
Speaker 2: like the Francophone on the African continent, I could go
Speaker 2: in and get like French five credits, sure, something like that,
Speaker 2: something like that.
Speaker 3: Okay, So some of the diploma mills they don't even
Speaker 3: bother with any kind of conversion. Most of them also
Speaker 3: have a fake a creditor that make it look like
Speaker 3: there's some sort of quality assurance.
Speaker 4: Ah.
Speaker 3: And so you hear degree mill and diploma mill and
Speaker 3: they aren't the same thing.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, degree mill issues diplomas from unaccredited in institutions that
Speaker 3: may be legal in some states but are generally illegitimate.
Speaker 2: That's a degree mill, so this is like a medical
Speaker 2: degree from a school in Grenada totally.
Speaker 3: And then the diploma mill they issue counterfeit diplomas bearing
Speaker 3: the names of real universities.
Speaker 4: Uh huh.
Speaker 3: Sometimes there's an overlap in that I mentioned accreditation. Yes,
Speaker 3: diploma mills, they're usually shopping degrees from colleges that aren't
Speaker 3: accredited by a recognized institutional accreditor, and accreditors apparently like
Speaker 3: they keep colleges accountable to set standards.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you bring this up. I know all about it. Credits, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: I could tell you, I could wax poetic about it,
Speaker 2: because it's a really integral component of the academic experience,
Speaker 2: and people don't understand that colleges with us is accreditation.
Speaker 2: They could pose as we're seeing as anybody, and the
Speaker 2: creditor actually guarantees your education in a way as much
Speaker 2: as your teacher does.
Speaker 3: Sure, No, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad you've brought that up, and.
Speaker 3: It's like I should say that because a college is
Speaker 3: unaccredited doesn't mean it's bad or fake.
Speaker 2: No, so you know it.
Speaker 3: But accreditation is.
Speaker 2: Accreditation is like basically a certification of this stuff is
Speaker 2: what it says.
Speaker 3: And I think from my understanding, it's generally like sort
Speaker 3: of gate keeping federal financial aids. Interesting up of yeah,
Speaker 3: you should have known these things. For diploma mills, since
Speaker 3: they don't have the seal of approval from an accreditor,
Speaker 3: they have to do other stuff that's going to make
Speaker 3: them look legit to students. So some will say that
Speaker 3: they're fully accredited, but the accreditor is another scam on
Speaker 3: its own. There are accreditation mills, and so they make
Speaker 3: their websites look legit and they claim to be approved
Speaker 3: by the government like you know an accreditor would be,
Speaker 3: and then the college can link to that fake accreditor
Speaker 3: and students think it's all on the up and up,
Speaker 3: of course, and other times the fake college will say
Speaker 3: that they are internationally recognized by organizations like UNESCO, and
Speaker 3: that sounds impressive. Sure, problem is that UNESCO has no
Speaker 3: authority to recognize or credit colleges cultural sites completely. Oh
Speaker 3: that sounds you know, bad though, so some diploma and
Speaker 3: degree mills they like they draw students in by telling
Speaker 3: them that work history professional education can count towards a degree,
Speaker 3: which in some cases can't. Like you said, they might
Speaker 3: even have the student write a dissertation or a thesis.
Speaker 3: Of course, the papers are usually like four pages long
Speaker 3: and don't require a defense. Okay, just turn it in.
Speaker 3: Another trick to make the place look legit is to
Speaker 3: use the following language in their promotional materials. They'll say
Speaker 3: degrees are quote attested and sealed for authenticity by government
Speaker 3: appointed notary.
Speaker 2: You're supposed to get a sealed notarized.
Speaker 3: All it means is that the signature on the document
Speaker 3: has been verified, so has nothing to do with the
Speaker 3: contents of the document. I could get a replica of
Speaker 3: like the Declaration of Independence, sign it in front of
Speaker 3: a notary, get their stamp on it, boom, notarized.
Speaker 2: Yes, and the seal of course actually on the paper.
Speaker 2: It's not like it's been sealed in wax exactly. I
Speaker 2: misunderstood yes, thank you, or that.
Speaker 3: Maybe they say it's sealed most who knows so students
Speaker 3: they either fall for the dupe or they're into the
Speaker 3: scam because the college uses names that sound legit and
Speaker 3: are easily confused with real collegists. Do you remember doctor
Speaker 3: Dante yeh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, babbetizing doctor Donne exactly.
Speaker 3: He won his song one best song. He ran a
Speaker 3: diploma mill. If you'll recall Columbia State University, because I
Speaker 3: talked about it. Then. Distance learning was all the rage
Speaker 3: in the late nineties, so he did correspondence courses by mail.
Speaker 3: He also did some online learning there, and he operated
Speaker 3: out of a mail drop in Louisiana. It's the one
Speaker 3: that higher ed expert John Bear said, quote Columbia State
Speaker 3: University is a complete fake. There's no such university. The
Speaker 3: photograph on the cover of their catalog is of Notre
Speaker 3: Dame University in Indiana, while administrative office number two three
Speaker 3: one is a three inch square mailbox.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, education come in a lot of different way.
Speaker 3: It's not one size fits all.
Speaker 2: What if you're saving money by using pictures of other colleges.
Speaker 3: Here's a quick note about that environment very environmental. You're
Speaker 3: so conscientious, doctor Bear. Little aside on him. He's listed
Speaker 3: all over as a higher education expert. But I also
Speaker 3: stumbled onto a higher Education Distance Learning Conspiracy message board.
Speaker 3: What there's a post about him?
Speaker 2: Okay, say that all again.
Speaker 3: Higher Education Distance Learning Conspiracy message Board. It was just
Speaker 3: like too much. It was too good, and I was
Speaker 3: just like, did someone make this just like to dupe me?
Speaker 3: Because it's it's they know I'd think this is hilarious.
Speaker 3: So someone on there wrote this article thing about like
Speaker 3: alleging that John Bear is in his real name and
Speaker 3: that he secretly runs diploma mills himself and he's trying
Speaker 3: to destroy the competition. Like it was a rabbit hole,
Speaker 3: to be sure, and it was weird. And anyway, back
Speaker 3: to Colombia, Okay, back to this day my alma mater,
Speaker 3: remember a Columbia State University. A six to eight page
Speaker 3: thesis got you a master's degree, yes, and at twelve
Speaker 3: page one got you a doctorate yes, and then both
Speaker 3: degrees could be completed in I don't know, twenty seven
Speaker 3: days a long month average was like two to four months.
Speaker 2: Okay, yes, you could get a PhD.
Speaker 3: For like three grand and they let you haggle and that.
Speaker 3: So he had Columbia State University. Some of the US
Speaker 3: diploma mills they use British sounding names. Like the ones
Speaker 3: I talked about Earl Year. These are similar but not
Speaker 3: identical to the names of.
Speaker 2: Actual universe Saint Exeter.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly. They do this for two reasons. First, British
Speaker 3: universities are seen as like superior, super rigorous.
Speaker 2: Of course, yes, it's why we have British sounding actors
Speaker 2: always playing in historical movies, because it's a whole Yes,
Speaker 2: of course sound British.
Speaker 3: And then there's the fact that they're far away and
Speaker 3: not likely to be like driven by or visited by
Speaker 3: average American.
Speaker 2: You can't go and take a self in front of
Speaker 2: like the school, exactly.
Speaker 3: And so some examples of British sounding names used by
Speaker 3: diploma mills are Shaftsbury University, Oh yes, University of Dunham,
Speaker 3: Reading University, and Suffield University.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, it's just like just off.
Speaker 3: Higher ed institutions in the US have the UURL suffix
Speaker 3: on their websites dot edu. Some diploma mills use an
Speaker 3: AC top level domain name like which resembles a genuine
Speaker 3: second level academic domain name like AC dot UK. So
Speaker 3: like you know, for UK University it's you know, dot
Speaker 3: ac dot UK, okay, but the AC is actually the
Speaker 3: domain for Ascension Island, and so this has become so
Speaker 3: prevalent that legit colleges are starting to register that ac
Speaker 3: domain for their institutions just to redirect to their real
Speaker 3: sites to prevent digital scammers from using.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Interesting.
Speaker 3: So what's it like to go to a diploma a mill?
Speaker 2: Can you actually go to one?
Speaker 3: I guess so? Like, you may have to buy textbooks, Okay,
Speaker 3: you might have to take some tests really yeah, whether
Speaker 3: those are graded or not, who knows.
Speaker 2: But you actually have to pretend to do some of
Speaker 2: the work.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it depends. It's on the flavor of it. You
Speaker 3: may have to write a paper.
Speaker 2: And call it a what is this college?
Speaker 3: Someone might read it, maybe not, maybe not. I would
Speaker 3: love to get my hands on some of the papers
Speaker 3: turned into those places. Yeah, I would probably have an aneurysm.
Speaker 3: The programs available are generally pretty squishy squish, I mean,
Speaker 3: they aren't hard sciences. I lean on things that are
Speaker 3: like more vague or subjective or esoteric, and like sometimes
Speaker 3: it's total pseudoscience, like the gay like PhDs in aromatherapy
Speaker 3: and astrology. Oh yeah, like or anything obscure or lacking
Speaker 3: peer review.
Speaker 2: My friend and I we invented a fake college for
Speaker 2: a while called Sandalwood State College, and we actually offered
Speaker 2: degrees in a roma therapy. So yeah, I just wanted
Speaker 2: to let you know that I've been working this scam myself,
Speaker 2: So go on.
Speaker 3: I taught at a community college that had a name
Speaker 3: very similar to a university that was well known, and
Speaker 3: there were a lot of confusion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I could see that who.
Speaker 3: Teaches at these diplomas.
Speaker 2: Teaches at these elizabeth A.
Speaker 3: Student's never going to meet them because you know, they
Speaker 3: don't have a campus. No one's actually going going. No,
Speaker 3: they just stand out, so they just sign off on
Speaker 3: assignments or like for a price, a student can get
Speaker 3: a reference letter. It's like in a la krte systems
Speaker 3: like this.
Speaker 2: Yes, why not if there are.
Speaker 3: Professors employed, their certification to teach is either a degree
Speaker 3: from that very fake institution or something from somewhere else
Speaker 3: that's totally unrelated to any of the received degrees. So
Speaker 3: it's like if I started teaching advanced mathematics at prof
Speaker 3: and bottom Glen University, like I'd sign you off on anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but like, do you ever have any like disgraced
Speaker 2: teachers who've like also fall into this where they're like,
Speaker 2: you know, basically cashing out.
Speaker 3: Probably exactly. Well, and like if there's a faculty directory
Speaker 3: on the college website with like really robust professor bios,
Speaker 3: it's likely stolen from the website of a real university.
Speaker 3: See you wonder, like who you know, what other places
Speaker 3: are they? No professors means no classrooms.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 3: In order to be accredited, colleges have to provide library
Speaker 3: and student support services, and for online work, there has
Speaker 3: to be evidence of what they call regular and substantive interaction.
Speaker 2: Okay, regular and substitute so they actually have to face
Speaker 2: face to face time.
Speaker 3: Not face to face, but for like distance education, zoom calls,
Speaker 3: calls present any kind of communication with.
Speaker 2: Your instructor and your fellow students.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're not just like plugging in and they do
Speaker 3: automated tests.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you this is very important to accreditors.
Speaker 2: They're always talking about student outcomes, and this is something
Speaker 2: that's very important to really. Yeah, yeah, important because in
Speaker 2: the face to FaceTime is a way for you to
Speaker 2: gauge that.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, well, all that evidence of interaction isn't true.
Speaker 3: Obviously at a mill, there's no library, there's no registrars office,
Speaker 3: no counselors, no labs, and then the address for the
Speaker 3: most part is like a postbox and a male forwarding
Speaker 3: service or like a suite number.
Speaker 2: So well great, though if they had like a swim team,
Speaker 2: like they have nothing to go down to the pool,
Speaker 2: they actually have people there.
Speaker 3: Swing sweatshirts made for these fake these fake colleges.
Speaker 2: Tell you, Sandwood State College, I can get your merch.
Speaker 2: We have the whole We already got the thing going.
Speaker 2: I should have told you about this early.
Speaker 3: So like when someone writes a doctoral thesis or a
Speaker 3: dissertation at a legitimate university, it's available from University Microfilms International,
Speaker 3: which is a national repository, or the institution's own library.
Speaker 3: That's not true for the mills. At most colleges, the
Speaker 3: motto for faculty is publisher parish, so you have to
Speaker 3: be writing scholarly articles, conducting research, or for the arts
Speaker 3: creating works in order to keep your job. At diploma mills,
Speaker 3: there's either none of them or it's faked. And a
Speaker 3: red flag is that tuition and fees are charged by
Speaker 3: the degree, so students don't pay by units per semester.
Speaker 3: You just do a flat fee for the whole thing.
Speaker 2: That's a problem. Okay, remember that that's a red flag.
Speaker 3: They don't market themselves at college fairs or like in
Speaker 3: regular areas. It's generally like spam emails, and the emails
Speaker 3: often like urge students and role now before tuition or
Speaker 3: feesing are increased. That's not how it works.
Speaker 2: It's like University of Phoenix. Part of this. Would you
Speaker 2: say that they.
Speaker 3: A touchy subject. They're not technically there are they're not
Speaker 3: technically we'll put it that way. So they but they
Speaker 3: urge you to get the early bird special, you know,
Speaker 3: and roll now. The marketing materials, the college catalog, the
Speaker 3: website usually have all sorts of like spelling and grammar errors.
Speaker 3: And they love putting stuff in Latin.
Speaker 2: Of course, my.
Speaker 3: Diplomas in Latin. By the way, did I get scammed?
Speaker 3: But so that's it makes it look fancy, it puts
Speaker 3: an edge on it.
Speaker 2: So's the patina you want exactly put it in Latin.
Speaker 3: So we know about like what a diploma or degree
Speaker 3: mill looks like. Take a break, we come back. I'm
Speaker 3: going to tell you about some of the biggest defenders
Speaker 3: and how the law came a call in welcome. Hey, hey,
Speaker 3: diploma mills.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's Alma maters.
Speaker 3: We've been around forever. In two thousand and four, FBI
Speaker 3: Special Agent Autho Alan Eazel.
Speaker 2: White, what yeah, is he also think ezel? Okay, I
Speaker 2: love see.
Speaker 3: My neck on my back testify to the House Subcommittee
Speaker 3: on twenty first Century Competitiveness. Quote. Degree mills are not
Speaker 3: just a recent problem, He's all told the committee. We
Speaker 3: have had them in the United States since about eighteen
Speaker 3: thirty five. As long as we have a credential conscious
Speaker 3: society where the degree you possess gets you the promotion
Speaker 3: or salary increase, then we will have degree mills. This
Speaker 3: is education fraud and no different from any other fraud.
Speaker 2: Eighteen the camera, Yeah, we had agree mills longer than
Speaker 2: we've had cameras.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. In nineteen seventy eight, Mike Wallace reported for
Speaker 3: sixty minutes.
Speaker 2: Yes, oh yeah, love. Yeah.
Speaker 3: He did an expose where he interviewed the owner of
Speaker 3: California pacifica University and a suspected diploma mill, and the
Speaker 3: guy was arrested mid interview, and he like wound up
Speaker 3: pleading guilty to multiple cuts of mail fraud. He did time,
Speaker 3: did Mike time that he did then find them?
Speaker 2: Yeah, basically, I'll tell you this is when we're recording,
Speaker 2: show up. An hour after I get set up.
Speaker 3: Authorities shut down Dallas State College in Texas in nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy five. The owners turned around and almost immediately opened
Speaker 3: up as Jackson State University in California in California. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I like Jackson up in the Golden I don't know,
Speaker 3: I think so. Then the post office shut down their
Speaker 3: mail there and they disappeared, but they popped up again
Speaker 3: as John Quincy Adams University in Oregon.
Speaker 2: One of this wacked bowl.
Speaker 3: That is the best remscription of this total whackable. It
Speaker 3: took twelve more years before the Dallas State perps were
Speaker 3: finally brought to justice. It was the FBI and their
Speaker 3: joint task force with the IRS and the US Postal
Speaker 3: Service SEA. They done did it because all this stuff
Speaker 3: is through the mail. Yeah, there's this little something that
Speaker 3: they all got together and called Operation Diploma Scam, otherwise
Speaker 3: known as dip Scam, Operation dip Scam. So for eleven
Speaker 3: years they cracked down on these sixteen federal search warrants,
Speaker 3: nineteen federal grand jury indictments and twenty one convictions. Wow,
Speaker 3: pretty good. Along the way, the head of operations for
Speaker 3: Operation dip Scam, Special Agent Easel, he he bought. He
Speaker 3: bought personally ten bachelor's degrees, nineteen master's degrees, four PhDs,
Speaker 3: and two mds. He's so ed, I mean he really is.
Speaker 3: He's a scholar, anagezic. His wall is filled according to Ezel.
Speaker 2: Frame Business, I'm coming. They're like, oh, we're getting to both.
Speaker 3: There were more than two thousand diploma mills at the
Speaker 3: time and more than two hundred unrecognized A creditors, and
Speaker 3: some of them were operated by the same person.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm getting you for your birthday, giving you
Speaker 2: a hand came suitable for free.
Speaker 3: I need a PhD. So and then I can just
Speaker 3: be doctor Dutton and let use that for everything.
Speaker 2: Your last name you pronounced.
Speaker 3: It like of the tuna. So it all. It all
Speaker 3: started in nineteen eighty the dip scan too, when the
Speaker 3: Charlotte Field Office of the FBI started looking into Southeastern
Speaker 3: University in Greenville, South Carolina. This sounds like an established,
Speaker 3: lauded university, Southeastern University green Law for four yards. It's
Speaker 3: actually a degree mill. Run out of a small two
Speaker 3: bedroom house. And so the man who owned and ran
Speaker 3: the place actually invited Ezell and another agent who posed
Speaker 3: as a student to tour the operation.
Speaker 2: Come over to the student union living room.
Speaker 3: So he's like, come into my little two bedroom house.
Speaker 3: He shows them the student records.
Speaker 2: Here's creek row.
Speaker 3: He shows them the fake diplomas, the seals, the ribbons.
Speaker 3: All of this is later going to get seized by
Speaker 3: the FBI, and so he's just laying it out here. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so like pickup color of the ribbon. And seventy one
Speaker 3: of Southeastern's six hundred and twenty quote graduates were eloy
Speaker 3: by federal, state, or local governments.
Speaker 2: Wowe wait a minute.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so like almost we're getting close to a third. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so much for a vetting process, right, So some of
Speaker 3: the students they're in on the con they wanted to
Speaker 3: use the diploma to get a raised secure a specific
Speaker 3: yet others were a little naivete There was a security
Speaker 3: guard in Texas. He said he bought a BA in
Speaker 3: law enforcement from Southwestern University in Tucson for five hundred
Speaker 3: bucks in nineteen eighty two because he quote wanted something
Speaker 3: to hang on my wall. And feel proud about.
Speaker 2: Have just bought a star. I mean, that's a similar scam.
Speaker 3: So what clued him off that the diploma wasn't legit
Speaker 3: was that his transcripts showed that he got good grades
Speaker 3: and courses like trigonometry, but he didn't take any trig
Speaker 3: or most of the other courses listed on the transcript
Speaker 3: with his name on it. So he took some like
Speaker 3: he filled out tests like correspondence education, and they were
Speaker 3: just like whatever, they have one transcript they send out
Speaker 3: to people. So that's the thing, though, you aren't just
Speaker 3: really buying the diploma, you're buying the transcripts. Yes, you know,
Speaker 3: that's what you really need to get the job.
Speaker 2: That's going to be something they need proof.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you're a if you're in an industry where
Speaker 3: they want to know, like you know, your degrees, generally
Speaker 3: they want to see the transcripts.
Speaker 2: Like civil engineering.
Speaker 3: Like civil engineering, they're not going to say, just take
Speaker 3: a picture of your diploma. Yeah, they want the transcripts,
Speaker 3: and so dip scam. They shut down twenty of diploma mills.
Speaker 3: Nineteen eighty three, a seventy nine year old Arkansas man
Speaker 3: named George Lyon. He got sentenced to a year in
Speaker 3: prison and find two thousand dollars after he sold Agent
Speaker 3: Eazl five phony degrees. He's all said, quote, I complained
Speaker 3: to him because a diploma I'd gotten in the mail
Speaker 3: was damaged. He sat there and forged another one for me,
Speaker 3: right on the spot. He's like, yeah, it's fine, give me.
Speaker 2: I got a good pen.
Speaker 3: So nineteen eighty four, John Blazer pleaded guilty to mail
Speaker 3: fraud for sending out degrees from his bogus to universities
Speaker 3: of East Georgia and the Bahama Islands.
Speaker 2: But wait, his name is real John Blazer.
Speaker 3: John Blazer, Wow Blaze.
Speaker 2: And so next time my freestyle, that's what I'm going
Speaker 2: to be rhymes of Blazer. Oh go on.
Speaker 3: So he got two years in prison. The investigations they're
Speaker 3: slow going because it can take a couple of years
Speaker 3: years with those Yeah, it can take a couple of
Speaker 3: years to prove up mail and wire fraud. And then
Speaker 3: by that time these collegiate con artists they've moved on.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they set up the new location, whack them
Speaker 3: all and they get things rolling. Charles Durham of Seneca,
Speaker 3: South Carolina, he got charged with mail fraud in connection
Speaker 3: with three diploma.
Speaker 2: Mills, am I noticing a trend that in the South trend. Okay,
Speaker 2: I just wanted in South Carolina, South Carolina specifically, but
Speaker 2: I did notice a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's questionable. He had this interesting defense of his
Speaker 3: diploma mills. He said that his diplomas, which cost one
Speaker 3: thousand dollars for a doctorate, were only quote expensive novelties.
Speaker 3: It's like something you get from Spencer's.
Speaker 2: Gifts when you go to the pennies stamped and it
Speaker 2: says like, oh, you're at the you know whatever, Seattle. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like the skylines his life, that Alma.
Speaker 3: But at diploma. His lawyer said, quote people who bought
Speaker 3: these diplomas knew exactly what they were getting, and I
Speaker 3: don't think the FBI can show otherwise. Well, yeah, but
Speaker 3: you're still selling them. Operation dip Scam's first targets were
Speaker 3: actually fake medical schools. So when you buy a fake
Speaker 3: degree in like numerology or criminal justice, you know you're
Speaker 3: duping an employer or a customer, But at the end
Speaker 3: of the day, there's like no physical harm. That's not
Speaker 3: true with fake medical schools at all. That's dangerous.
Speaker 2: That's a big oh yeah.
Speaker 3: And like once the operation was underway, the FBI they're
Speaker 3: able to quickly shut down the two worst medical schools,
Speaker 3: Johann Kepler School of Medicine and United American Medical College.
Speaker 2: There I know, wait a minute, you're telling me about
Speaker 2: medical your patients.
Speaker 3: But so Dipscam, though their largest case, came to its
Speaker 3: climax in October of nineteen eighty seven. Zarenes close you out.
Speaker 3: I want you to picture it. You are a bailiff
Speaker 3: at the Federal courthouse in Charlotte, North Carolina. It's a
Speaker 3: beautiful October day. The leaves are changing and the air
Speaker 3: is crisp in the Queen City. You are assigned to
Speaker 3: Courtroom three. It's day twelve of the trial of seven
Speaker 3: defendants charged with mail fraud, aiding at a betting and conspiracy.
Speaker 3: They ran a bunch of fake colleges Roosevelt University, Loyola University,
Speaker 3: Cromwell University, University of England at Oxford, Lafayette University, DePaul University,
Speaker 3: and Southern California University, as well as several fake accrediting agencies.
Speaker 3: They all sounded like legit places to you, but what
Speaker 3: you know, whatever.
Speaker 2: Northern California University.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. You've been told that the prosecution plans to
Speaker 3: call a bunch of witnesses and all told more than
Speaker 3: one hundred people will testify during the trial. They got
Speaker 3: witnesses from Europe testifying England, France, Belgium, German, Holland. It's
Speaker 3: a bigin, is what I'm trying to say. So today
Speaker 3: hire ed expert John Bear, the Doctor Dante guy and
Speaker 3: the conspiracy website. He's appearing as an expert witness and observer.
Speaker 3: You're stationed at the back of the courtroom waiting for
Speaker 3: the judge to enter in a trial to begin again
Speaker 3: for the day. As a smattering of folks settle into
Speaker 3: the gallery and attorneys on both sides shuffle papers at
Speaker 3: their desks before the bench, you hear a loud commotion out.
Speaker 2: In the hall. Should I be telling people to take
Speaker 2: their seats?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well your nosy. So you step out into the hall.
Speaker 3: Of course, you and the other court staff knew this
Speaker 3: was coming. But in person of works cameras clicking, reporters
Speaker 3: shouting questions, supporters singing hymn's, detractors shouting insults, that's all
Speaker 3: going on outside the courthouse doors, but you can hear
Speaker 3: it from where you are inside. You watch if the
Speaker 3: main courthouse doors open, the commotion is thunders. A small
Speaker 3: group of people, flanked by deputies push into the courthouse,
Speaker 3: leaving the melee behind. You see two heads in the
Speaker 3: middle of the group, both hairsprayed to beat forty one
Speaker 3: face plastered with makeup. You can see the eyelashes a
Speaker 3: mile away. The group smooths themselves out and then slips
Speaker 3: into courtroom two right next to yours. A woman standing
Speaker 3: next to you asks you who that is, Lady. You say,
Speaker 3: we just watched Jim and Tammy fay Baker enter the building.
Speaker 3: Ooh who? She asked? Has she been living under a rock?
Speaker 3: You tell her that Jim Baker is a televangelist who
Speaker 3: builked his flock out of the funds that he used
Speaker 3: them to pay off affairs and live a lavish lifestyle.
Speaker 3: He's in court for embezzlement and fraud an affair. The
Speaker 3: woman asks, and right on time, there's another commotion outside
Speaker 3: the courtroom. This time, the figure that pushes through the
Speaker 3: boisterous crowd and into the silence of the courthouse hallway
Speaker 3: is a brunette who looks more like an eighties video
Speaker 3: vixen than a church secretary. That's Jessica Hahn. You tell
Speaker 3: the woman next to you the va boom, She replies,
Speaker 3: that's who that little torpee guy had an affair, not
Speaker 3: an affair. You tell the woman Jessica Han is an
Speaker 3: assault victim. You tell her, plain and simple, but you're
Speaker 3: pretty sure she'll get crucified in the press. You tell
Speaker 3: the woman that Han got a quarter million dollar payoff
Speaker 3: for her silence, and the Charlotte Observer newspaper got winto
Speaker 3: the story. Their investigation revealed two sets of books and
Speaker 3: a ton of accounting irregularities, and that's what brought them here.
Speaker 3: And what's your case, she asks in courtroom three. You
Speaker 3: tell her it's a bunch of fake colleges on trial. Interesting,
Speaker 3: she says, totally, But not as interesting as those bozos,
Speaker 3: you say, gesturing toward courtroom two. Which is why, Aaron,
Speaker 3: there's not a whole lot of press coverage of the
Speaker 3: college fraud case.
Speaker 2: Of course, they got overshadowered huge time.
Speaker 3: It is wall to wall Jim and Tammy Fay, both
Speaker 3: locally to Charlotte and nationally as well. So there are
Speaker 3: little pieces leading up to her.
Speaker 2: Those are the jat and.
Speaker 3: You get the sense that this was the college thing,
Speaker 3: was going to be a big story, and then boom
Speaker 3: blows up. So two of the minor players at the
Speaker 3: college trial, they had their cases dismissed due to lack
Speaker 3: of definitive evidence. The other five main defendants found guilty
Speaker 3: by the jury on all twenty seven counts of mail fraud,
Speaker 3: aiding at a betting conspiracy. They were sentenced to prison
Speaker 3: terms ranging from two to seven years. But again, like
Speaker 3: the press was like chugging along, Jim and Tammy fay happen,
Speaker 3: everything kind of derails and then it's really only in
Speaker 3: like higher education press that you're finding. So remember in
Speaker 3: the very top UDP, the University Degree Program, the granddaddy
Speaker 3: of all diploma operational of course, UDP was owned by
Speaker 3: Jason and Carolyn Abraham of Brooklyn, New York. They were
Speaker 3: also known by their Hebrew names Yakov and Shia Rochelle.
Speaker 3: They started their operation in the nineties nineteen nineties, and
Speaker 3: they recruited quote students over the phone from call centers
Speaker 3: in Romania in Israel Wow. And they also they didn't
Speaker 3: just sell diplomas, they sold fake international driver's licenses.
Speaker 2: What.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the telemarket were paid on commission and they
Speaker 3: got performance based bonuses, and they had a lot of power,
Speaker 3: like they could offer degrees on whatever program a study
Speaker 3: you wanted.
Speaker 2: They're cutting prices. I'll give you a physics degree and
Speaker 2: a math degree.
Speaker 3: Programs right there. Yeah. So the Abrahams they made sure
Speaker 3: that there was background cover for their fake colleges. So
Speaker 3: they had all these websites for the institutions.
Speaker 5: LA.
Speaker 3: Yes, if you bought a degree, you didn't know which
Speaker 3: of these quote universities was going to issue the degree.
Speaker 3: You just knew I'm getting a PhD in physics.
Speaker 2: It's like buying a flight with Delta.
Speaker 3: Who knows what plane is going to be at the gate. Well,
Speaker 3: that's just like you wait and then when the diploma arrives. Oh,
Speaker 3: I guess I went to the Sheffield Yeah, so it's
Speaker 3: probably my guess is it's like what whichever one they
Speaker 3: have the most blanks left over for? They just the
Speaker 3: top of the pile and UDP. They sent letters to
Speaker 3: customers that said, quote, the policy of not disclosing the
Speaker 3: name of the university protects you against unscrupulous individuals who
Speaker 3: do not approve of self study and lifestyle improvement.
Speaker 2: You want plausible deniability, that's what you're looking at. They said.
Speaker 3: They also did it to avoid quote bad publicity. So
Speaker 3: over the years, UDP sold more than thirty thousand degrees
Speaker 3: President of Liberia. That one.
Speaker 2: Wait, that was the guy at the top. Okay, I
Speaker 2: didn't think it was the real President of Liberia.
Speaker 3: Yeah, George Way, President of Liberia.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I thought that was a scam. Like he
Speaker 2: was like, Hi, I'm George Way, President of Liberia. But
Speaker 2: the real president.
Speaker 3: President has one of these degrees. The couple made more
Speaker 3: than one hundred million dollars.
Speaker 2: One hundred million dollars.
Speaker 3: Thirty thousand of these degrees.
Speaker 2: One hundred million dollars.
Speaker 3: In two thousand and three, all for scam degrees, just
Speaker 3: for paper, just paper and the illusion. And look where
Speaker 3: I got a lot of these people. So the US
Speaker 3: Federal Trade Commission.
Speaker 2: Have really reduced the value of education.
Speaker 3: Completely. They got together with British government authorities, they went
Speaker 3: after UDP for both the degrees as well as those
Speaker 3: fake international driver's licenses. Oh, got to get them on
Speaker 3: that too. And then the FTC and the Israeli government
Speaker 3: authorities they shut down the call center operation in Jerusalem.
Speaker 3: The FTC complaints cited quote, deceptive acts or practices in
Speaker 3: or affecting commerce, and the Abrahams. They turned over one
Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars in profits, and then they promised, we're
Speaker 3: going to stop selling degrees, so.
Speaker 2: They got to keep ninety nine million.
Speaker 3: Ninety yes, I promised, we're not going to do it again.
Speaker 3: Two thousand and four, the Chronicle of Higher Education, they
Speaker 3: pointed something out. There was email advertising that looked a
Speaker 3: lot like UDPS, and the phone banking was pretty much
Speaker 3: identical to their script. And this is after they agreed
Speaker 3: to close up shop. And so the Oregon Office of
Speaker 3: Degree Authorization, which I don't know exists, they chimed in
Speaker 3: that some of the websites that appeared to be UDP
Speaker 3: programs products or clones remained in operation.
Speaker 2: Now is the Oregon Office of Degree Authentication? They legitimate? Apparently,
Speaker 2: How will I know who authenticate the authenticators the creditors.
Speaker 3: So it looks like this was all reported, but I'm
Speaker 3: not really sure what came of it. I couldn't find
Speaker 3: anything about them beyond twenty ten, but I'm gonna guess
Speaker 3: that they're still out there doing this.
Speaker 2: I'm betting that this mole has whacked again. Yes, their way,
Speaker 2: however that plays there.
Speaker 3: Let's take a break.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: When we come back, I'll have more examples of fake
Speaker 3: diplomas for you, but these are way more fun.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, hello, hello, Hi, hi Hi.
Speaker 3: I've had some smart dogs and cats in my lifetime.
Speaker 2: Are you talking to me?
Speaker 3: Yeah? No, just talking to myself.
Speaker 2: It's just bragging. You're just like, hey, you know what
Speaker 2: I like about us?
Speaker 3: Some some weren't so smart, like my dog Casey. It
Speaker 3: was just empty behind the eyes, like a big old rocks,
Speaker 3: nothing but a cool breeze.
Speaker 2: I don't see people like that. Yeah, cool breeze between
Speaker 2: the years totally.
Speaker 3: Most of my dogs have been pretty clever, some more
Speaker 3: than others. I had a dog named Wallace who was
Speaker 3: a total genius. Yeah, like a shaggy sky terrier mutt.
Speaker 3: He'd stand on his hind legs and uses front paws
Speaker 3: to open doors with like the turning doorknob.
Speaker 2: Oh, turn the doorknob, not just push the door open.
Speaker 3: He would like twist the knob in between his paws
Speaker 3: and then like waltz in a room. It was really
Speaker 3: or back it up into him and then walking. It
Speaker 3: was really freaky to watch. I love that guy live
Speaker 3: to be seventeen years old. Anyway, one of the ways
Speaker 3: that investigators caught diploma mills was by having them issued
Speaker 3: degrees to pets, because there's no way the fake college
Speaker 3: can dispute that.
Speaker 2: Why would they ever be.
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 3: Well, okay, let's start with the basics. Kitty O'Malley a cat.
Speaker 3: It sounds like a nice girl. Kitty O'Malley was really
Speaker 3: a cat named Spanky.
Speaker 2: So in nineteen was a cat named Skanky.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because you can't put Spanky on the application. His
Speaker 3: name Spanky So nineteen seventy three, the Lakeland, Florida newspaper
Speaker 3: The Ledger. Oh yeah, they went to Washington High Academy
Speaker 3: to get Kitty a high school diploma. Okay, and the
Speaker 3: newspaper tried to use the diploma to get Kitty into
Speaker 3: like area colleges, but that did That didn't work. They
Speaker 3: needed full transcripts and test scores and like an essay
Speaker 3: or whatever. But the fact that a cat got a
Speaker 3: high school diploma was enough for the state Attorney General's
Speaker 3: office to launch an investigation.
Speaker 2: From this one news story.
Speaker 3: Yeah wow, Another high school grad by dubious means was
Speaker 3: Oreo Collins born in two thousand and seven, or was
Speaker 3: or is? I don't I probably was a tuxedo cat,
Speaker 3: and those are so cute. I know a tuxedo cat
Speaker 3: named Penny. Oreo, which is not a particularly original name
Speaker 3: for a tuxedo cat, got a diploma from Jefferson High
Speaker 3: School online in two thousand and nine. And obviously they
Speaker 3: lied about our age. Who got this cat a diploma?
Speaker 3: As a two year old gets a high school diploma?
Speaker 3: What is that?
Speaker 2: Intelligent?
Speaker 3: This guy, Kelvin Collins, he worked for the Better Business
Speaker 3: Bureau of Central Georgia and he was conducting a sting.
Speaker 3: Busted got him because of old Oreo Collins. Another high
Speaker 3: school grad, Mollie last name redacted. February of twenty twelve.
Speaker 3: Reporters from Houston television station KHO. You they got.
Speaker 2: A investigative news team.
Speaker 3: Uh huh. They got a high school diploma and official
Speaker 3: transcript from Lincoln Academy for their photographer's bassett hound. Mollie
Speaker 3: and basket hounds are cute, but they're also potentially really stinky.
Speaker 2: I just editorial market.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the action news team, they paid three hundred
Speaker 3: dollars after filling out what they called a quote laughable
Speaker 3: easy take home test. The news team was tipped off
Speaker 3: to Lincoln Academy by a homeschooling advocacy group that was
Speaker 3: trying to like root out phony operations that makes homeschooling
Speaker 3: look bad. Next up Wally Brancato. Wally got an associates
Speaker 3: degree that was in two thousand and four. A man
Speaker 3: named Peter Broncado with the Albany, New York television.
Speaker 2: Oilation Wally and Peter Broncato.
Speaker 3: Oh you'll find out WRGB. Peter, he worked for this
Speaker 3: television station. He applied to and received an associate's degree
Speaker 3: from Almeida University. See Peter didn't, but his dog Wally did.
Speaker 2: I got you. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So here's what Broncado put on Wally's application. Quote plays
Speaker 3: with the kids every day, teaches them to interact better
Speaker 3: with each other, teaches them responsibilities like feeding the dog.
Speaker 3: And so Almeida University granted Wally a quote life experience
Speaker 3: associate degree in childhood development.
Speaker 2: Yes, early childhood development, I imagine.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The investigation aired and it was a hit. Almeida University,
Speaker 3: though was not pleased, no, no. They said that Broncato
Speaker 3: perjured himself by creating a false identity using a fabricated
Speaker 3: name and date of birth. They're like sue me, sue
Speaker 3: you Oka and Almeida University representative said quote, he completed
Speaker 3: an application that included a background of the following eight
Speaker 3: years tutoring pre K children, curriculum design and development, teaching,
Speaker 3: coping skills, and volunteer coaching. I say dogs can do
Speaker 3: all of those things totally.
Speaker 2: And I also I think that you can get a
Speaker 2: degree for this.
Speaker 3: You totally can't. Wally, Though it popped up again in
Speaker 3: March two thousand and eight, he didn't transfer and get
Speaker 3: a bachelor. So he was featured in a Lake Geneva,
Speaker 3: Wisconsin mayoral campaign political cartoon. It was a picture of
Speaker 3: him and a dialogue bubble that said, I grat sduated
Speaker 3: with Bill Chessen because mayoral candidate Bill Chessen listed a
Speaker 3: bachelor's degree from Almeda University among his accomplishments. And I'm
Speaker 3: also curious was Bill Chesson ak C registered Bill?
Speaker 2: So whoever was the political operation so caught that one
Speaker 2: news and that you need that person in your.
Speaker 3: Operation and that's a great college. Yeah, the Zara and
Speaker 3: I'd like you to meet Zoe dkatz Zoe Certified Hypnotherapists
Speaker 3: Zoe dcats Zoe the cat in German was owned by
Speaker 3: psychologist Steve Eichel, and Michael got a psychotherapy certification for
Speaker 3: his cat from the American Psychotherapy Association, as well as
Speaker 3: a bunch of hypnotherapy credentials from other organizations. Zoe has
Speaker 3: become a cited case study for those researching credential scams,
Speaker 3: and she's even appeared in textbooks.
Speaker 2: Wow Zoe, look what she can do.
Speaker 3: Another hypno cat, George Jackson, registered hypnotherapist. George is also
Speaker 3: a cat. In two thousand and nine, Chris Jackson, host
Speaker 3: of the BBC show Inside Out Northeast and Cumbria, registered
Speaker 3: his cat, George, as a hypnotherapist. Chris created a fake
Speaker 3: certificate from a non existing institution and used it to
Speaker 3: register with three professional organizations, the British Board of Neurolinguistic Programming,
Speaker 3: the United Fellowship of Hypnotherapists and the Professional Hypnotherapy Practitioner Association.
Speaker 3: None of them checked the transcripts or the records. They
Speaker 3: just certified the cat are you kidding me? And this
Speaker 3: was part of a BBC investigation who consulted on the
Speaker 3: show Steve Eichel, owner of Fellow Cat hypnotherapist Zoe Dcats,
Speaker 3: which a whole network.
Speaker 2: At this point, they have each other to lean on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. So moving up the achievement ladder, we meet
Speaker 3: Lulu Howard. B SKYB Limited versus HP Enterprise Services UK
Speaker 3: Limited was a twenty ten case in the England and
Speaker 3: Wales High Court. So B sky B British Sky Broadcast.
Speaker 3: They provided satellite broadcasting and you know, related services. The defendants,
Speaker 3: HP Enterprise Services UK Limited they provided IT services in
Speaker 3: their technology, information technologies, all the IT guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the whole thing centered around the procurement of a
Speaker 3: new customer relationship management system so that B sky B
Speaker 3: could provide improved service to its customers, focused on telephone
Speaker 3: contact between customers and the customer advisors at Sky call centers.
Speaker 3: So B sky B selected HP Enterprise to build out
Speaker 3: the system, and like, things didn't go so well. Okay,
Speaker 3: it's very dry and you're asking Elizabeth, where are the
Speaker 3: qut pups?
Speaker 2: Elizabeth, I'm noticing no qt pups. Where are they there?
Speaker 3: Bring me.
Speaker 2: The qt pups, I like top shelf qut pops.
Speaker 3: The ones in the caps in the gown was holding diplomas.
Speaker 3: Those qute pops, I want you to hold tight. The
Speaker 3: defendant's key witness had an MBA from Concordia College in
Speaker 3: the US Virgin Islands.
Speaker 2: Though so but that was.
Speaker 3: Not impressive to Mark Howard, a member of the legal
Speaker 3: team for be sky B.
Speaker 2: I'm with Mark Howard.
Speaker 3: He smelled a fake, so he went out and got
Speaker 3: a degree from Concordia for his dog, Lulu. Lulu got
Speaker 3: better grades than the key witness, so I'm thinking Mark
Speaker 3: paid more for that. The judge found that the witness
Speaker 3: had lied. All hell broke loose, and the story is
Speaker 3: now a thing of legend in the British legal Oh
Speaker 3: really yeah, Because here he's like, oh, so you're an
Speaker 3: expert witness, this is your credentials. How about my dog
Speaker 3: has better degree?
Speaker 2: Yet, do you imagine being a lawyer? And then, like
Speaker 2: the rock, You've said it all up, you got the
Speaker 2: thing already. The guy sets into your he steps right
Speaker 2: into your trap and you're.
Speaker 3: Like, oh yeah, Barbara with shaking practically exactly Barbara. Another
Speaker 3: one to complete a degree on the road to gainful
Speaker 3: employment was Maxwell Sniffingwell, sniffing so doctor Ben Mays, a
Speaker 3: veterinarian in Clinton, Arkansas. He got a degree in theeogeneology
Speaker 3: from Belford University on behalf of an English bulldog named
Speaker 3: Maxwell sniffing well.
Speaker 2: Oh of course, yes.
Speaker 3: What is theeogenology, Elizabeth? What is basically veterinary reproductive medicine
Speaker 3: and surgery.
Speaker 2: Oh so it's like kynecology for dogs, I suppose.
Speaker 3: So yeah, so the almost husbandry I would imagine, like
Speaker 3: husband but like the surgery part of it.
Speaker 2: That's what I was thinking.
Speaker 3: The application included his work as a reproductive specialist, noting
Speaker 3: his quote natural ability in theeogeneology and quote experimental work
Speaker 3: with felions.
Speaker 2: Was this one of those I got credit for my
Speaker 2: life experiences? Yes, where he's like, I've been birth and
Speaker 2: babies for a while.
Speaker 3: This was yeah, and but this is for the dog.
Speaker 2: This is the dog, and dog baby.
Speaker 3: Has experimental work with felions. His understanding of the merits
Speaker 3: of specialization despite a desire to quote do them all.
Speaker 3: He got a diploma transcript letter of recommendation after the
Speaker 3: vet paid five and forty nine dollars to the university.
Speaker 3: He declined the offer to be made an honor student
Speaker 3: for another seventy five bucks. Well know MBAs are popular
Speaker 3: degrees among pets. Take Pete for Pete's sake. Pete was
Speaker 3: a four year old male, short haired half greyhound half terrier.
Speaker 3: I was going to ask and he lived in the
Speaker 3: Battersea Dogs and Cats Home in London. He was a
Speaker 3: shelter pup and Pete was on his way up in
Speaker 3: the world though right the BBC investigative program Newsnight was
Speaker 3: looking into the American University of London AUOL. They got
Speaker 3: a tip that AUOL was not on the up and up,
Speaker 3: so Newsnight found hundreds of senior executives that said that
Speaker 3: they had degrees from AUOL. The program drew up a
Speaker 3: one page fake resume for a management consultant named Peter
Speaker 3: Smith known as Pete, living in South London, which included
Speaker 3: fifteen years a fake work experience, a fictitious undergrad degree
Speaker 3: from a UK university, and then Newsnight sent Pete's CV
Speaker 3: to AUOL, along with a completed application for a Master's
Speaker 3: in Business an MBA and the fifty pound application fee.
Speaker 3: And so this is going to be like credit for
Speaker 3: prior learning like that. Yeah, So AUOL asks for applicants
Speaker 3: to provide photocopies of previous qualifications and a photograph of themselves.
Speaker 3: Newsnight was unable to provide either since the qualifications didn't
Speaker 3: exist and the applicant was a dog. They didn't send
Speaker 3: it and they still four days after they send in
Speaker 3: what they have the application. AUOL sent Pete an email
Speaker 3: saying that his application for a degree based on previous
Speaker 3: experience had been successful and once the university had received
Speaker 3: his forty five hundred dollars pounds fee, he would be
Speaker 3: registered as an MBA graduate within about two weeks for
Speaker 3: hundred Yeah. So the Newsnight reporter called back to check
Speaker 3: whether Pete would be required to submit any work, and
Speaker 3: the university representative said, quote, no, no. Apparently the a
Speaker 3: p e L, which is the accreditation of Previous Experiential
Speaker 3: Learning Board, awarded him the full degree immediately based on
Speaker 3: his qualification and his professional experience, so he doesn't have
Speaker 3: to do any courses.
Speaker 2: Very very impressed, he said. He was a good boy, boy.
Speaker 3: Very good boy, good job Petie. As for the hundreds
Speaker 3: of senior executives with a UOL.
Speaker 2: Was across London across.
Speaker 3: Newsnight named names and a bunch of them were blacklisted.
Speaker 3: It was nice.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 3: I did love that. Another high achieving MBA was Colby Nolan.
Speaker 3: Colby Nolan was a house cat, but not just any
Speaker 3: house cat. He belonged to a Deputy Attorney General. And
Speaker 3: thanks to Deputy Attorney General, Colby got an MBA in
Speaker 3: two thousand and four from Trinity Southern University, a Dallas
Speaker 3: based diploma mill. So first, the agent's got the then
Speaker 3: six year old FELI and a bachelor's degree in business
Speaker 3: administration for like three hundred bucks. Six years old cat
Speaker 3: prodigy saren Colby's application.
Speaker 2: And see some of his pitches, I mean, his business
Speaker 2: plans were.
Speaker 3: On acumen, off the charts. The application that Colby turned
Speaker 3: in said he had taken courses at a community college,
Speaker 3: that he worked at a fast food restaurant, babysat, and
Speaker 3: had a newspaper route.
Speaker 2: I heard also included scratching, sniff stickers.
Speaker 3: Yes, and a three point five GPA.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, So the.
Speaker 3: Institution tells Colby that due to the job experience listed
Speaker 3: on his application, don't forget. So it's a community college,
Speaker 3: a paper route, fast like McDonald's and babysitting. He's eligible
Speaker 3: for an executive MBA that he could obtain for another
Speaker 3: hundred bucks. Wow, you look at that moves so far
Speaker 3: that right, So they recognized town you can.
Speaker 2: Babysit, you could run a fortun one hundred company, I
Speaker 2: think is what they're saying.
Speaker 3: So once Colby had his degree, Pennsylvania Attorney General Jerry
Speaker 3: Pappert filed a lawsuit against Trinity Southern University. December two
Speaker 3: thousand and four, the Texas Attorney General obtained a temporary
Speaker 3: restraining order under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act against
Speaker 3: Trinity Southern and its owners, and then the court also
Speaker 3: froze the assets of the school.
Speaker 2: Good for them.
Speaker 3: The owners had to pay one hundred thousand dollars in fines,
Speaker 3: were ordered not to market or promote fraudulent, substandard degree
Speaker 3: programs or represent their university as being accredited or affiliated
Speaker 3: with legitimate universities.
Speaker 2: So they make all these millions and then they had
Speaker 2: to pay one hundred thousand dollars and every.
Speaker 3: Time they're like, okay, pay us like one hundred grand
Speaker 3: and then say you're not going to do it again.
Speaker 2: Promise me you're totally incentivize that by making you pay
Speaker 2: us the amount for stamps.
Speaker 3: Well and okay, so we talked about high school diploma's,
Speaker 3: associate's degrees, nbas, that's bad enough, but as we said,
Speaker 3: the terrifying fake degrees, medical fake medical school degrees. And
Speaker 3: I have a pet one for that too, do you.
Speaker 3: In two thousand and seven, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation comedy
Speaker 3: show The Chasers Wore On everything went after diploma.
Speaker 2: I like, it is just a bit everywhere everywhere? What
Speaker 2: if we do Thursday? Go look into diploma? But do
Speaker 2: you have a cat?
Speaker 3: The host got a medical degree online for his dog's
Speaker 3: Sonny Doctor.
Speaker 2: Sonny Doctor said, of course, the degree came.
Speaker 3: From a notorious diploma mill Ashwood University, and the application
Speaker 3: cited Sonny's supposed like work experience, which included quote significant
Speaker 3: proctology experience sniffing other dogs bones. Like they just wrote
Speaker 3: it out bits and even with that in the application,
Speaker 3: he still got the degree and they only care about
Speaker 3: the money on it. So Ashwood University has since been
Speaker 3: listed as a non accredited degree supplier in the states
Speaker 3: of Michigan, Oregon and Texas.
Speaker 2: You think a dog could get an archaeology degree for
Speaker 2: all that digg in bone into copper lights. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's just well.
Speaker 3: And if you go to the doctor and the diploma
Speaker 3: on their walls from Ashwood University, yes, run. First thing
Speaker 3: you do is make sure that they write you scripts
Speaker 3: for whatever it is you want.
Speaker 2: No, I got the window.
Speaker 3: Then you book it out the window, then you run
Speaker 3: for it.
Speaker 2: I don't want to be involved with that doctor on
Speaker 2: paper at all.
Speaker 3: Just get the scripts and run.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think they really were. You know, you
Speaker 2: didn't know. Do you think I can fake plausible deniability?
Speaker 2: Look at me, I've got degrees from Ashwood University.
Speaker 3: Sarah was your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 2: You know this is not to be too serious, but
Speaker 2: it's really sad to hear that we have reduced a
Speaker 2: degree to just something you flash, so people think they
Speaker 2: can go and buy one, and nobody's like I'm gonna
Speaker 2: look into that. It's like, oh, there it is, let's
Speaker 2: check that box. So they get thirty five hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: They get the box checked, and then now they're like,
Speaker 2: you know, the head account and whatever some telecom or whatever.
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3: Well, it means less and less.
Speaker 2: I guess, not an accountant, because accounts actually do have
Speaker 2: to get certified.
Speaker 3: But an NBA or NBA.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm saying some of the business somebody on the
Speaker 2: C suite.
Speaker 3: I don't geah, right, I feel like it means less
Speaker 3: and less all the time. That especially if you're dropping
Speaker 3: than it really is, like on legitimate colleges, but like, yeah,
Speaker 3: it means think.
Speaker 2: How much your college experience meant to you in terms
Speaker 2: of like forming who you are how you are, and
Speaker 2: the imprimature means something. And then now we reduce it
Speaker 2: to do you have a stamp and do you have
Speaker 2: some paper? Come up with something that has a lot
Speaker 2: of syllables. People will believe that.
Speaker 3: I want to get a piece.
Speaker 2: It's your ridiculous takeaway, PhD. That's I told you the
Speaker 2: you're getting that for your birthday. That's it's gonna be
Speaker 2: suitable for framing. You're gonna love it. It'd be great perfect.
Speaker 3: Hey Captain D. Can you give me a talk back?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I love you.
Speaker 5: Hey, this is Kelly, longtime listener. Enjoy the show. So,
Speaker 5: on the subject of doing math on air, there's a
Speaker 5: great local show here in Little Rock, Arkansas, Corey and
Speaker 5: Patrick sadly just ended. But one of their number one
Speaker 5: rules was you never do math on the air because
Speaker 5: for some reason you can never math when put on
Speaker 5: the spot or on the air.
Speaker 3: So I say, it's not just never math on the air,
Speaker 3: just never math.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 2: But Corey and Patrick are one hundred percent right. I
Speaker 2: failed earlier in the show. I mean, look, boom, there
Speaker 2: you go. I can't do mad. I'm with you. I
Speaker 2: can't do math ever. But I don't want to say
Speaker 2: that for the kids.
Speaker 3: You know, but deal math kids, But.
Speaker 2: You're gonna put pressure yourself into youll math.
Speaker 3: And get a legitimate degree in it. How about that.
Speaker 3: That's it. That's all we have.
Speaker 2: You can tag that.
Speaker 3: You can fuck this online at ridiculous crime dot com.
Speaker 3: We're also a ridiculous crime on both Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker 3: Email Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Leave us a
Speaker 3: talk back on the iHeart app. Don't talk about math,
Speaker 3: but thank you for Kelly. I do appreciate that reach out.
Speaker 3: Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett,
Speaker 3: produced and edited by Dave Cousten, Chancellor of Rude Dude University.
Speaker 3: Research is by Dean of Mysteries, Marissa Brown and Professor
Speaker 3: of Anthropology the Store Andrea Song Sharpened Tear. The theme
Speaker 3: song is by Registrar of Bogusville State University College University,
Speaker 3: Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton, pH D, M D J
Speaker 3: D O d I D l mn OP post wardrobe
Speaker 3: is provided by Botany five Hundred. Executive producers are Feli
Speaker 3: and MBA, Ben Bolan and Canine M. D. Noel Brown.
Speaker 5: Redicus Crime Say It One More Times.
Speaker 1: Crime Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Four More Podcasts.
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