How does obtaining a degree in medicine without attending class sound? More than 4Â 000 sites can be found on the internet that offer everything from “legal fake degrees” to verifying a degree or warning against the perils of a fake degree.
One site offers “Fake degree packages by mail” — choose from a doctor of medicine to a master’s in business administration. It guarantees that orders will be sent within 24 hours from “any major, any fake institution” complete with “state-of-the-art colour printing”.
The small print warns that “by clicking on the purchase button you agree to limit the use of this product to activities solely related to entertainment”. For $9 (R57), you can design your own degree using a template, as long as you make up the institution’s name.
Fakedegrees.com says that it is “now the only site that provides you with an online certificate creator. With our exclusive tools and the partnership with one of the best online degree and diploma merchants, we can provide our members with the largest range”.
For a $75 (R478) membership fee you have access to everything from university degrees to high school diplomas. Though the site refers to “novelty” qualifications, the samples shown are complete with the name of the institution, a logo, a seal and the wording “the trustees by virtue of the authority vested in them and on the recommendation of the faculty and staff”.
With fake degrees this easily obtained, a noticeable increase in the number of fraudulent professionals is not surprising.
The trend in qualifications fraud across all industries has increased over the past few years, says Leon Smith, chief information officer of Kroll Mie.
“Over the last two-and-a-half years it’s picked up from 6% to 15% of all qualifications tendered.”
Kroll Mie verifies credentials including qualifications, identity documents and criminal record status for clients including the banking, insurance and recruitment industries. Annually it verifies about 100Â 000 degrees: 15Â 000 of those are fraudulent.
Fraud varies from symbols changed on matric results to fraudulently created degrees, says Smith.
“People start embellishing and end up lying.”
Smith says examples of fraud include job applicants claiming that they have completed degrees when they have only registered for them, saying that they have honours when they don’t or claiming that a degree is complete when several modules are incomplete.
Qualifications can broadly be divided into two sectors; secondary, such as matric, and tertiary, which includes certificates, diplomas and degrees, he says.
“The highest fraud is in diplomas and the lowest is in matric certificates.”
While only 3% of qualifications checked are internationally obtained, Mie finds that most fraudulent degrees are internationally obtained.
Smith says that it is exceptionally easy to obtain a degree from the internet.
“I bought one the other day for $30.”
He did this when a client became suspicious when presented with an undergraduate degree, a master’s and a doctorate that had been acquired in the space of one month.
“Degree mills that offer degrees on the internet are the next biggest problem,” Smith says. This is a grey area as the document itself is legal; however, the degree is not valid.
The process of verifying the degree becomes more problematic as many institutions on the internet are accredited. The accreditation process has to be investigated and this often involves discussions with state departments, says Smith.
The internet is not the only method used to obtain a fraudulent degree. Smith says degrees can be designed on a computer, printed out, copied and then verified as a true copy of the printed original by the South African Police Service.
Recently, the Assets and Forfeiture Unit seized property worth millions of rand from Siphiwe Hadebe (38), who is alleged to have practised as a traditional healer and doctor without the necessary qualifications.
Raids on Hadebe’s five houses around the country resulted in the seizure of furniture and a number of vehicles, says National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi.
The unit attached houses in Fourways, Douglasdale, East London and two houses in Durban. Nkosi says other properties belonging to the accused are being traced.
The nursing profession seems to be a prime target. Recently the KwaZulu-Natal department of health vowed to clamp down on bogus colleges and lecturers who contributed to the large numbers of unqualified workers entering the health sector.
Director general Ronald Green-Thompson called for drastic action fraud following the arrest of a course coordinator at a fake college, the Zamimpilo Training Trust, apparently operating from the premises of the University of South Africa in Durban.
About 70 nursing students had enrolled at the college and paid at least R2Â 000 each in fees for three-month courses. Students were told of the deception by police who raided the college just as they were about to “graduate”.
The raid came after the firing by the health department of six nurses who had false matric certificates. The six, who were based at Edendale hospital in Pietermaritzburg, may face criminal charges.