What student hasn’t wished he could spruce up his resume with a transcript or a diploma from Harvard or Yale? Thanks to several websites and a few technological advances, it is suddenly much easier to prove your “graduation” from a highly prestigious institution. BackAlleyPress.com, a company headquartered in China, produces college documents, specifically transcripts and diplomas, from more than 1,000 universities around the world.
According to the website, the diplomas are designed to look 100 percent authentic, with each document customized and printed individually to one’s specifications, including degree, major and school.
However, this website is not the only one of its kind. Sites offering fake college documents are surfacing rapidly all over the Internet and are causing some universities to worry.
BoxFreeConcepts.com takes a different approach by giving shoppers the opportunity to “choose from a wide variety of the finest fake colleges, fake institutes and fake universities.” One can also create a free transcript and recommendation letter in addition to their newly acquired college diploma.
Cooldegree.com offers rush delivery for degrees and claims to have been in business for the longest, thus making it “superior to other sites.”
“We can create a fake diploma and fake degree of the highest quality. These fake diplomas are created from the same high-quality parchment paper that the major universities use,” reads the site. “Impress your friends and colleagues, and put a college diploma on your wall.”
However, some sites say their fake documents are merely “gag gifts” and are to be solely intended for humor purposes.
Before completing a transaction through BackAlleyPress.com one must read a legal disclaimer that automatically presents itself on the screen. The disclaimer says the documents “are meant as gag gifts and intended exclusively for personal enjoyment, amusement and entertainment.” In addition, the site says the documents are not to be used for job or academic applications.
Even with the disclaimers, legal experts say there is little that victimized institutions can do to stop these businesses from counterfeiting the documents.
Some states, including Illinois and North Dakota, are attempting to pass legislation to make it a misdemeanor to present fake academic credentials when applying for a job or for admission to an educational program.
The Illinois Board of Higher Education voted unanimously last April in support of this legislation and is currently waiting for lawmakers to consider the legislation. The North Dakota House of Representatives approved a similar bill last month.
Admissions officers nationwide have seen an increase in international students presenting fake transcripts in an attempt to enter highly selective graduate-school programs but are not viewing the issue as a major problem.
Indiana University and Purdue University officials believe approximately 1 percent of all received applications have either phony or doctored academic records or have omitted records showing poor grades.
In order to help combat this problem, university registrars are encouraged to ask a number of questions while evaluating the authenticity of a transcript and to make sure the university exists and is accredited by a group recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. Registrars are also told to be skeptical of transcripts that aren’t sent directly from the Office of the Registrar at the university.
In addition, the postage used should be noted, as well as whether the document bears an authentic registrar’s signature as well as an embossed university seal. Lastly, registrars are encouraged to make sure the transcript is consistent with others that have been received in past years from the same institution in order to prevent an individual from successfully using their web-bought document.
