Education Scams: Diploma Mills and Fraud Degrees

Quick degree scams – “Get your degree in 30 days!” “No studying required”, “Turn your experience into a degree”. They say they are accredited and the degree is legal and meaningful. That’s part of the scam.

The existence of unaccredited, substandard, and/or fraudulent postsecondary education (college, university, graduate schools) providers is a global phenomenon, as is the existence of unrecognized and/or fraudulent accreditors. The credits and degrees awarded by these unaccredited or sham diploma millsare not going to be recognized by legitimately accredited institutions, official professional licensing authorities, recognition authorities or reputable employers.

And when the sham is exposed that you purchased your degree; you’ll be out on the street and no one will hire you.  You may make the cover of a newspaper, exposed as the worthless hack you are for attempting to buy your degree. You may make a list of people who have purchased scam degrees, that we’re working on right now.

So how do you avoid being sucked into an education scam?
What to watch for to recognize a diploma scam

Unaccredited schools share a number of fairly easy to verify characteristics.  See this page for a checklist to check out a school or degree program that you are considering.

Then check this master list of scam schools and this list of unaccredited schools
Legality

U.S. Laws on fake degrees are inconsistent in the United States. Even where it is explicitly illegal, both in some states and abroad, enforcement is erratic. The U.S. federal government puts the responsibility on the states, and since it is a white collar crime, no large scale enforcement has taken place.
Types of Fake Degrees

There are two types of fake degrees:

Diploma mills – they offer to convert “life experiences” into coursework (complete with grades) based on your own self-assessment. Often these schools claim to be accredited. Diploma mills claim to be institutions of higher education, but they operate without supervision of a state or professional agency. The diplomas are scams because the “institution” lacks the proper standards.
Fake degrees for sale – there’s little mistaking the fraud here: they simply offer to produce a “real” degree for you for a price: no course, no studying, no exams, no review, no “life experiences”, nothing.  Give them money; they send you a diploma.

Source : consumer