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A strikingly ugly diploma mill in Rawalpindi
From the NYT:
Behind Fake Degrees From Pakistan, a Maze of Deceit and a Case in Peril
By DECLAN WALSH APRIL 10, 2016… But Mr. Shaikh could not prevent the seizure of a vast trove of data, some recovered from computer disks as they were being deleted, that led investigators to conclude that Axact’s main business was providing fake degrees.
The police found more than one million blank educational certificates and evidence of 300 fictitious educational websites, many with American-sounding names like Columbiana and Brooklyn Park, that sold fake degrees to hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Some knowingly bought effortless degrees to pad résumés or to help in immigration, and a handful have been publicly embarrassed.
Last month, Myanmar’s new finance and planning minister, U Kyaw Win, admitted that his doctorate came from Axact’s Brooklyn Park University. “Now I am ashamed to call myself a Ph.D.,” he said.
Many other customers, investigators quickly realized, had fallen victim to an elaborate and aggressive fraud, going to Axact-run websites for a legitimate online education only to be intimidated into making ever larger payments.
Hundreds of hours of taped phone conversations, extracted from Axact servers and cited by prosecutors, showed sales agents impersonating American lawyers or State Department officials in an effort to collect more money from customers, mostly in the Middle East.
In one recording from 2014, Riaz Ahmed Shaikh, a Pakistani living in Abu Dhabi, pleaded for respite from “Jacob” — a man who he believed was calling from the legal office of a university in California but was in fact an Axact sales agent in Karachi, according to police records.
“Please, please, Mr. Jacob,” said Mr. Shaikh, who said he had already paid $150,000 to Axact. “I have sold all of my assets to pay this last amount. I am not eating well. I am not sleeping well.”
“Look, you’re not paying that much,” the sales agent cajoled, before holding out a threat of possible police action. “Just another $10,000.”
Axact executives took extraordinary measures to disguise their links to fraud. In a lawsuit in the United States, in which former customers of the online Belford High School were seeking damages, Axact officials persuaded an attendant in the company’s cafeteria to pose as the founder of the school, a police report said.
The worker, Salem Kureshi, conducted a webcam video deposition in 2011 for the American court. In it, he merely moved his lips while, off camera, an Axact official voiced a set of evasive answers for the American lawyers, Mr. Kureshi told the police.
After the police raided Axact last year, Mr. Kureshi added, executives paid him $250 to go into hiding in his hometown, 700 miles from Karachi.
English
Arabic
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I don’t get how a Pakistani in Abu Dhabi could feel intimidated by threats of “police action” by a university official in California asking for more money. Did the victim not think “why am I paying all this money witjout learning anything”
Dark satanic diploma mills.
Statistics say this is just a minor blip. Noise. There's no problem.
“A strikingly ugly diploma mill in Rawalpindi”
Most 3rd world countries create extremely ugly buildings and skyscrapers.
“Dark satanic diploma mills.”
Statistics say this is just a minor blip. Noise. There’s no problem.
Just think: he paid 150 grand and learned nothing, but if he’d paid the same amount and gone to a real American college in 2016, he might have learned less than nothing.
He got a good deal!
He got a good deal!"
For 150 grand he could become a social justice warrior here in the States.
He got a good deal!Replies: @Jefferson, @AndrewR, @Ivy
“Just think: he paid 150 grand and learned nothing, but if he’d paid the same amount and gone to a real American college in 2016, he might have learned less than nothing.
He got a good deal!”
For 150 grand he could become a social justice warrior here in the States.
They also run companies like this for work experience/references.
Do the diploma sellers and the diploma buyers share the same subcontinental accent? Did Riad Ahmed Shaikh, the Pakistani living in Abu Dhabi, not realize that Jacob from the legal office of a university in California was not speaking with a California accent? A simple quiz about California geography would have served to verify Jacob’s place of residence.
I recently received a sales call from “Kevin”, who spoke with a subcontinental accent, and when I asked him where he was calling from, he named a town in Florida. When I asked him what the capital of Florida is, he answered “Orlando”, which is probably the only town in Florida that most residents of Bangalore know. Congratulations to the Disney Corporation for making Orlando so world-famous.
There are proposals in the U.K to import 5,000 more doctors, some of which may have foreign medical degrees. How many are from arrangements like this? A fake PhD. in philosophy is one thing but a fake MD could be fatal.
I would like to access my company’s internal resume database to flush out fraudsters. If any of you can point me to a list of fake school names (preferably addresses, too) I would appreciate it. The Compliance group could have lots of fun.
From time to time the GAO investigates the education credentials claimed by mid and higher level federal bureaucrats; they always uncover dozens of fraudulent degrees. The same thing goes on at some of the nation's larger police departments.
He got a good deal!Replies: @Jefferson, @AndrewR, @Ivy
As Steve has said, internalizing the anti-knowledge and self-censorship that people learn in school today is necessary (if insufficient) for entry into and good standing among the upper classes.
LOL. Well done, sir.
I’ve spent much of this century in India, and the fake degree industry is alive and well there too. I can tell dozens of stories about their “schools”. My first experience was in late 2003. A colleague and I were hiring workers for a support and development site. We were given a local city guide at our hotel. It was kind of a cross between a yellow pages book and a penny saver-type newspaper. It had pages and pages of ads for business and computer schools. There must have been over 100 that called themselves “colleges”.
The local company we had a contract with was only sending us applicants with Masters Degrees. Most of them were claiming to have Masters in Computer Science or MBA’s, but when we got them into the post-hire training we were having to teach really basic stuff. Things like how to drag-and-drop, how to search for a file, etc..
One of the schools was just a couple of blocks from our site, so we decided to walk over and pay it a visit. It was one room that looked like a converted garage – maybe 10 x 20 feet. At the back of the room was a table with 3 computers. There was a large white board with markers on one wall and maybe a dozen of the plastic chair/desk combos like you see in American high schools. By the front door was a small desk where a clerk would sit with the only other computer in the place. It was a “college”. It looked like they were closed for lunch.
I went back a few days later when the clerk was there. He was pretty friendly and open about the place, and explained the curriculum. Students came for a couple of hours a couple of days a week and they would drill them using the white board on some IT area to pass certification tests. Mostly they were interested in A+, Microsoft or Cisco certifications. The computers at the back were only used for doing practice exams. He said that the certifications were more important to most students than degrees, but they would offer degrees to the students who needed them and asked about them. After that, if an applicant didn’t have a degree from either IIT or one of the big Indian state schools then we just ignored their degree completely.
I spent a month in India going round the Higher/Tertiary Education conference circuit. I also called on the special slime ball category known as the Education Consultant. My experience was very similar to yours.
I really thought I was going to to well by doing good. I was such a sucker. I, as the White American, was just a show pony for the crappy under capitalized company.
The MBA degree was awarded through a licensing agreement with a real UK university. It was nothing more than a profit center for that school. They didn't much care about how crappy the students were either.
Don't even get me started on the cheating...
He got a good deal!Replies: @Jefferson, @AndrewR, @Ivy
Congress needs to investigate how someone got a degree without passing through the mandatory indoctrination sessions. The prospect of desensitized scholars loosed upon an innocent, Incorrect world boggles the mind.
Clearly Europe can use more of these “engineers”
Something in this story sounds fishy.
What kind of Pakistani or any third-worlder is smart enough to have 150K in assets (far more than most Americans have) yet dumb enough to send it all to a university he has never seen or been to.
That building looks like a giant, sinister filing cabinet. Straight out of a batman cartoon.
That’s hilarious. “Gee, the lip sync on Skype is just awful.”
What was this “online Belford High School”? Doesn’t America have free public high schools and all sorts of free GED programs? I suspect that the people getting “scammed” by this were themselves looking for some kind of short cut to a degree. Maybe they didn’t realize that it was an outright diploma mill but they didn’t want to put in the usual amount of work to get a degree either.
This link seems to confirm that their customer base was (not very bright) people looking for a fast/cheap shortcut to a high school diploma to list on job applications. https://www.consumeraffairs.com/education/belfordhighschool.html
“Last month, Myanmar’s new finance and planning minister, U Kyaw Win, admitted that his doctorate came from Axact’s Brooklyn Park University. “Now I am ashamed to call myself a Ph.D.,” he said.”
Actually, he’s only ashamed that he got caught. He must have known that his degree was bogus.
“Please, please, Mr. Jacob,” said Mr. Shaikh, who said he had already paid $150,000 to Axact. “I have sold all of my assets to pay this last amount. I am not eating well. I am not sleeping well.”
“Look, you’re not paying that much,” the sales agent cajoled, before holding out a threat of possible police action. “Just another $10,000.”
If yous knows whats good for ya’, you’ll take this here MBA, capiche?
U Kyaw Win (planning and finance)
Much of U Kyaw Win’s resume, and especially his academic profile, is in dispute. Born in Laputta in 1948, his CV suggests he graduated from Yangon University with a bachelor’s in economics and attained a master’s in business consulting and a PhD from Brooklyn Park University, which he admitted is not real. His CV also lists a degree from the Global Academy of Finance Management, which claims to offer specialised certifications, some for a fee. U Kyaw Win served in the Planning Department and then the Revenue Department until 1997, when he became the NLD’s economic adviser. In the 2015 election he won a Pyithu Hluttaw seat in Dagon Seikkan township.
Further evidence of one my bon mot axioms:
I rue the day the first English speaking white man set foot on the Indian subcontinent for colonial purposes.
This whole notion of trade: we trade almost nothing, people wise. They send people here; we send no one over there. If it was real trade, for every 10 they send here, we would send 10 to colonize that part of their world.
I worked in Saudi Arabia for a decade. The place was awash with people from Pakistan and Bangladesh with academic degrees and, for those in food service, health certificates. It was also a well-known fact that most of these were fraudulent; it was reasonable to assume that all of them were fraudulent.
This is another testament to the fact that the Third World lives in the shadow of Western Civilization (primarily the cultures of northern Europe) where such things as academic degrees and health certificates were designed to actually mean something. For the rest of the world, they are pale imitations of the original.
In the last dozen years or so, there has been an explosion of bogus open-access journals which, in exchange for money, will publish just about any piece of trash. They claim they are peer-reviewed, although publication decisions sometimes only take a day or two – i.e. peer-review consists of verifying that your credit-card was accepted. They have editorial boards often consisting of graduate students at obscure and/or low tier research institutions. Here’s a good example:
American Journal of Applied Sciences
This so-called “Science Publishing Group” has a whole bunch of journals with titles like “American Journal of Physical Chemistry of America” – I exaggerate, but only a little. Try to find an actual American who is in any way associated with any of these “American Journals of ______”. They are kind of like the fake brand names you see on the chinese products at Harbor Freight (like “Chicago Tools”), which is to say everything at Harbor Freight, which ought to be called “Straight off the Container Ship from Shangai”
Apparently these “Journals” satisfy a burgeoning demand for bogus CV-inflating publications.
That’s good.
*Everything* in Pakistan is corrupt.
This story serves as a warning shot to westerners still naive to the threat from Pakistan. Apart from the UK, and astonishingly Norway, Pakistani immigration to the west hasn’t really started in earnest, but, by Jove, it soon will, and, by Jove, it will be a force of nature, a veritable avalanche tsunami engulfing all before it.
Basically, what you’ve got is a horrific Malthusian scenario of 200 million odd paupers crammed into a parched hell-hole with no electricity, running water,food, work or indeed hope. 200 million of the world’s most adept fraudsters, liars and corrupters.
All about to hit the big, fat, dumb, soppy pink bollocks, Economist-believing to fools who run the west.
It won’t be pretty.
Lay your cash 100 -to-1 that the Pakis will win , the crafty, fleet of foot and glib tongued little bastards. Also lay your cash that the big fat dumb sweaty shirted Economist reading wanker will be effortlessly outwitted and out maneouvred by the cunning little skinny, who in the end will get all his loot – and keep it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Pakistan_Economic_CorridorReplies: @Anonymous
I rue the day the first English speaking white man set foot on the Indian subcontinent for colonial purposes.Replies: @Anonymous, @bomag
You can add the entire continent of Africa too, to that little saw.
too bad osama didn’t run this biz while in pakstan.
ps: still more transparent than obama’s school records
Most 3rd world countries create extremely ugly buildings and skyscrapers.Replies: @Peterike
Indeed there are quite a lot of awful, ugly 3rd world buildings being put up in the 3rd world town of Queens, NY. And existing fine houses ruined with tacky accoutrements line shiny chrome fences.
I was in Queens 3 times this past summer and I noticed those fences all over the place. The slightest pressure on them and they fall in and collapse. They look like crap and can't even fulfill the merest function of a yard fence.
Another thing about Pakistani immigrants in Queens: even if their house doesn't have a driveway or garage, they will break the curb and pave over the little plot of garden in front of the house to create a parking space in the front yard (is this legal?), making the house look like crap and depriving the rest of the neighborhood one more precious, public parking space.
I rue the day the first English speaking white man set foot on the Indian subcontinent for colonial purposes.Replies: @Anonymous, @bomag
There’s a lot of “rueing” in this world of ours.
This whole notion of trade: we trade almost nothing, people wise. They send people here; we send no one over there. If it was real trade, for every 10 they send here, we would send 10 to colonize that part of their world.
This story serves as a warning shot to westerners still naive to the threat from Pakistan. Apart from the UK, and astonishingly Norway, Pakistani immigration to the west hasn't really started in earnest, but, by Jove, it soon will, and, by Jove, it will be a force of nature, a veritable avalanche tsunami engulfing all before it.
Basically, what you've got is a horrific Malthusian scenario of 200 million odd paupers crammed into a parched hell-hole with no electricity, running water,food, work or indeed hope. 200 million of the world's most adept fraudsters, liars and corrupters.
All about to hit the big, fat, dumb, soppy pink bollocks, Economist-believing to fools who run the west.
It won't be pretty.
Lay your cash 100 -to-1 that the Pakis will win , the crafty, fleet of foot and glib tongued little bastards. Also lay your cash that the big fat dumb sweaty shirted Economist reading wanker will be effortlessly outwitted and out maneouvred by the cunning little skinny, who in the end will get all his loot - and keep it.Replies: @Anonymous, @Erik Sieven
China launched last year a huge initiative to turn Pakistan around. It’s called the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Basically 50 billion dollars from Chinese banks and tens of thousands of Chinese engineers sent all around Pakistan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Pakistan_Economic_Corridor
They are not stupid.
Actually, he's only ashamed that he got caught. He must have known that his degree was bogus.
“Please, please, Mr. Jacob,” said Mr. Shaikh, who said he had already paid $150,000 to Axact. “I have sold all of my assets to pay this last amount. I am not eating well. I am not sleeping well.”
“Look, you’re not paying that much,” the sales agent cajoled, before holding out a threat of possible police action. “Just another $10,000.”
If yous knows whats good for ya', you'll take this here MBA, capiche?Replies: @Buffalo Joe, @5371, @Bill B.
Mr. Anon, I am not going to miss out on this bonanza opportunity. I am building a website for my new enterprise.. The P.T. Barnum Diploma Mill. Our motto: “One Every Minute.”
Actually, he's only ashamed that he got caught. He must have known that his degree was bogus.
“Please, please, Mr. Jacob,” said Mr. Shaikh, who said he had already paid $150,000 to Axact. “I have sold all of my assets to pay this last amount. I am not eating well. I am not sleeping well.”
“Look, you’re not paying that much,” the sales agent cajoled, before holding out a threat of possible police action. “Just another $10,000.”
If yous knows whats good for ya', you'll take this here MBA, capiche?Replies: @Buffalo Joe, @5371, @Bill B.
It should have been Brooklyn Bridge University.
There are online for-profit high schools in the U.S. that cater, at least in part, to those who cannot pass the GED exam. Once one has a diploma from one of these places, he or she is as eligible for federal student aid as a grad from a regular high school.
The inability/reluctance of the developed world to recognise that much of the developing world’s tertiary education is crap or somewhat crap causes great confusion – all those Syrian engineers and doctors! – and hurts the genuine heroes of the developing world trying to lift education quality.
This is clearly a scam but rampant credentialism across much of Asia puts tremendous pressure on ordinary folk to waste years of their lives chasing pieces of paper that mean very little.
Remember that the average Asian degree = a high school diploma from a good European school.
(East Asia is different and there are bright spots elsewhere of course. Hard science and medical training is more difficult to fake; although note that it was recently discovered that a majority of foreign doctors working in the UK would not be able to pass British medical exams.)
Many universities are so poor they might as well be diploma mills – like Webster University’s Thailand branch which is allegedly run by an ‘Indian mafia’:
https://collegetimes.co/webster-university-thailand-corruption-fraud/
I had a little dealing with Webster when I was trying to get a business school off the ground in Mauritius.
My problem was that I wanted to get a school off the ground. The owners wanted a diploma mill.
Actually, he's only ashamed that he got caught. He must have known that his degree was bogus.
“Please, please, Mr. Jacob,” said Mr. Shaikh, who said he had already paid $150,000 to Axact. “I have sold all of my assets to pay this last amount. I am not eating well. I am not sleeping well.”
“Look, you’re not paying that much,” the sales agent cajoled, before holding out a threat of possible police action. “Just another $10,000.”
If yous knows whats good for ya', you'll take this here MBA, capiche?Replies: @Buffalo Joe, @5371, @Bill B.
Myanmar Times’s guide to the new cabinet:
U Kyaw Win (planning and finance)
Much of U Kyaw Win’s resume, and especially his academic profile, is in dispute. Born in Laputta in 1948, his CV suggests he graduated from Yangon University with a bachelor’s in economics and attained a master’s in business consulting and a PhD from Brooklyn Park University, which he admitted is not real. His CV also lists a degree from the Global Academy of Finance Management, which claims to offer specialised certifications, some for a fee. U Kyaw Win served in the Planning Department and then the Revenue Department until 1997, when he became the NLD’s economic adviser. In the 2015 election he won a Pyithu Hluttaw seat in Dagon Seikkan township.
>>And existing fine houses ruined with tacky accoutrements line shiny chrome fences.
I was in Queens 3 times this past summer and I noticed those fences all over the place. The slightest pressure on them and they fall in and collapse. They look like crap and can’t even fulfill the merest function of a yard fence.
Another thing about Pakistani immigrants in Queens: even if their house doesn’t have a driveway or garage, they will break the curb and pave over the little plot of garden in front of the house to create a parking space in the front yard (is this legal?), making the house look like crap and depriving the rest of the neighborhood one more precious, public parking space.
Myanmar’s new finance and planning minister, U Kyaw Win…
Another instance of fraud. A name like U Kyaw Win can only come from an Isaac Asimov story.
This story serves as a warning shot to westerners still naive to the threat from Pakistan. Apart from the UK, and astonishingly Norway, Pakistani immigration to the west hasn't really started in earnest, but, by Jove, it soon will, and, by Jove, it will be a force of nature, a veritable avalanche tsunami engulfing all before it.
Basically, what you've got is a horrific Malthusian scenario of 200 million odd paupers crammed into a parched hell-hole with no electricity, running water,food, work or indeed hope. 200 million of the world's most adept fraudsters, liars and corrupters.
All about to hit the big, fat, dumb, soppy pink bollocks, Economist-believing to fools who run the west.
It won't be pretty.
Lay your cash 100 -to-1 that the Pakis will win , the crafty, fleet of foot and glib tongued little bastards. Also lay your cash that the big fat dumb sweaty shirted Economist reading wanker will be effortlessly outwitted and out maneouvred by the cunning little skinny, who in the end will get all his loot - and keep it.Replies: @Anonymous, @Erik Sieven
still immigration from Pakistan will be both in quantity aswell as in quality much better than immigration from subsaharan Africa. Pakistan by now has a TFR of around 3, while Nigeria still has a TFR of around 6
Or the country that issued the passport he used to travel to Pakistan. My money is on Indonesia.
His job in Abu Dhabi presumably pays him much, much more than he could ever do in Pakistan.
I recently received a sales call from "Kevin", who spoke with a subcontinental accent, and when I asked him where he was calling from, he named a town in Florida. When I asked him what the capital of Florida is, he answered "Orlando", which is probably the only town in Florida that most residents of Bangalore know. Congratulations to the Disney Corporation for making Orlando so world-famous.Replies: @Jefferson
“I recently received a sales call from “Kevin”, who spoke with a subcontinental accent, and when I asked him where he was calling from, he named a town in Florida. When I asked him what the capital of Florida is, he answered “Orlando”, which is probably the only town in Florida that most residents of Bangalore know. Congratulations to the Disney Corporation for making Orlando so world-famous.”
Comcast also mostly employees people with an Apu accent to work in their customer service department.
Since they prefer to hire foreigners for their customer service department, they should employ Swedes who speak way better English than Pakistanis and Indians.
Check out the superior English speaking skills of Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgard from True Blood, ABBA, and Swedish actress Alicia Vikander from Ex Machina.
I would not bet long term on Pakistanis. Fraud is not a long-term winning solution, or otherwise Pakistan not America would have landed men on the moon. Gresham’s Law suggests that counterfeit degrees/diplomas/certification will drive out valid ones, and create a demand for alternative people.
Knowing what you know now, would you hire a Pakistani no matter how well vetted, for anything of any importance to you and your job and career? I thought not. Fraud works well short-term, until even the marks wise up and abandon the game of guessing the pea under the shell.
As enough of this filters through, a defacto ban on Pakistani, Indian, and likely Chinese applicants is going to happen. It will be excused and explained as maybe a preference for “top Ten American Universities” and hiring from say the schools right below Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Stanford, instead of cheap foreigners who can screw up a critical project due to incompetence and ruin one’s career.
Indeed Companies that employ significant amounts of Pakistani/South Asians/Chinese are likely to be viewed as frauds themselves and incompetent. We are quickly moving away from a high-trust Lutheran German cuck world into a fighting Scots-Irish world.
If the 20th Century belonged to the Cuck-Progressives, the 21st belongs to those who will fight every day.
Another instance of fraud. A name like U Kyaw Win can only come from an Isaac Asimov story.Replies: @Steve Sailer, @5371
His boss is U Kahn Win.
Pakistan is so BS.
Thank Todd that we live in the US where truth prevails.
Look at all the Wall Street crooks who went to prison after the 2008 debacle.
If this were Pakistan, they would still be running WS and be richer than ever.
In the US, only the best, like Michelle Obama, make it thru Harvard law school.
America has plenty of its own diploma mills…
tbo.com, 04/10/16 – Everest student loans from 2010 to 2014 forgiven
http://www.tbo.com/news/education/everest-student-loans-forgiven-20160410/
Students who racked up thousands of dollars in loans at Everest and WyoTech for-profit colleges can now have those debts cleared. Students at 91 schools in 20 states who attended the schools from 2010 to 2014 can apply for debt relief by filling out a form on the U.S. Department of Education website. The schools’ former owner, Corinthian Colleges, marketed false job placement rates to students enrolling at more than 100 campuses nationwide, according to a department investigation. Already, the Education Department has discharged more than $130 million in loans from more than 8,800 former Corinthian students…
The diploma mills got the federal student loan money and no one has to pay it back!
I was grasping at straws in the late 90's and was taken in by a similar school here in Canada. In fact, Everest bought them out in Ontario after they closed shop after a few lawsuits. They went under here a few years back. Lots of students crying and whining about how they spent all that money and now would not even get a diploma. I had to chuckle, as they would have been useless anyway. Most were going through on the government dime anyway, welfare moms, unemployment insurance retraining, worker's comp. I was one of the few saps paying out of pocket. Very expensive lesson, at a time when I could least afford it. It put me in a very tight spot for a few years. I naiively assumed any school must have been vetted by the proper provincial authorities, but they were all in on the scam. Lots of retraining stats for pie charts in some government bureau to show what a swell job they were doing. Hundreds of millions down the crapper, right into investors pockets (...voted one of the top 50 best managed companies in Canada....) ....retch.....It was at the height of the tech boom, and everyone, I mean EVERYONE was getting IT certifications like it was the road to riches. Unfortunately, lots of people were taking shortcuts, going to websites to get all the exam answers and rhyming them off by rote once in the test lab. Kind of made a mockery of the whole thing. Being a slow learner, and loathe to write of my "investment" I decided to study and write my exams myself after I left the school. Only after blowing another grand on Microsoft certifications did the true meaning of the term "Paper MCSE" become evident. I bet there was a pile of books 6 ft high in the corner, and I studied them cover to cover at least 3 times. Idiot.
And no one paid off my damn loans! So I guess, I did get an education in a way.
I would like to access my company’s internal resume database to flush out fraudsters.
From time to time the GAO investigates the education credentials claimed by mid and higher level federal bureaucrats; they always uncover dozens of fraudulent degrees. The same thing goes on at some of the nation’s larger police departments.
I am not sure about the UK, but in the U.S., foreign medical graduates have to undergo residency training (again, even if they were practicing physicians in their home countries). So there is some quality control.
I'd like you to meet "Dr Death" Jayant Patel who killed about 100 Queenslanders directly or indirectly. Passed through your country first- thanks for nothing- then to us suckers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayant_PatelReplies: @Twinkie
There is so much less than meets the eye with these supposedly dynamic Asian cultures. I knew an Asian engineer at a former job who claimed to have not one but two Ph.D.’s, both from obvious diploma mills.
Someone could make a very funny movie about these diploma mills. The lip-synched deposition would be one of those scenes where people would say, “You know, that really happened!”
I don't know if I can say the same for the Europe, it doesn't look like they vet as hard.
tbo.com, 04/10/16 - Everest student loans from 2010 to 2014 forgiven
http://www.tbo.com/news/education/everest-student-loans-forgiven-20160410/
Students who racked up thousands of dollars in loans at Everest and WyoTech for-profit colleges can now have those debts cleared. Students at 91 schools in 20 states who attended the schools from 2010 to 2014 can apply for debt relief by filling out a form on the U.S. Department of Education website. The schools’ former owner, Corinthian Colleges, marketed false job placement rates to students enrolling at more than 100 campuses nationwide, according to a department investigation. Already, the Education Department has discharged more than $130 million in loans from more than 8,800 former Corinthian students...
The diploma mills got the federal student loan money and no one has to pay it back!Replies: @Pontius
Yup.
I was grasping at straws in the late 90’s and was taken in by a similar school here in Canada. In fact, Everest bought them out in Ontario after they closed shop after a few lawsuits. They went under here a few years back. Lots of students crying and whining about how they spent all that money and now would not even get a diploma. I had to chuckle, as they would have been useless anyway. Most were going through on the government dime anyway, welfare moms, unemployment insurance retraining, worker’s comp. I was one of the few saps paying out of pocket. Very expensive lesson, at a time when I could least afford it. It put me in a very tight spot for a few years. I naiively assumed any school must have been vetted by the proper provincial authorities, but they were all in on the scam. Lots of retraining stats for pie charts in some government bureau to show what a swell job they were doing. Hundreds of millions down the crapper, right into investors pockets (…voted one of the top 50 best managed companies in Canada….) ….retch…..It was at the height of the tech boom, and everyone, I mean EVERYONE was getting IT certifications like it was the road to riches. Unfortunately, lots of people were taking shortcuts, going to websites to get all the exam answers and rhyming them off by rote once in the test lab. Kind of made a mockery of the whole thing. Being a slow learner, and loathe to write of my “investment” I decided to study and write my exams myself after I left the school. Only after blowing another grand on Microsoft certifications did the true meaning of the term “Paper MCSE” become evident. I bet there was a pile of books 6 ft high in the corner, and I studied them cover to cover at least 3 times. Idiot.
And no one paid off my damn loans! So I guess, I did get an education in a way.
This is clearly a scam but rampant credentialism across much of Asia puts tremendous pressure on ordinary folk to waste years of their lives chasing pieces of paper that mean very little.
Remember that the average Asian degree = a high school diploma from a good European school.
(East Asia is different and there are bright spots elsewhere of course. Hard science and medical training is more difficult to fake; although note that it was recently discovered that a majority of foreign doctors working in the UK would not be able to pass British medical exams.)
Many universities are so poor they might as well be diploma mills - like Webster University's Thailand branch which is allegedly run by an 'Indian mafia':
https://collegetimes.co/webster-university-thailand-corruption-fraud/Replies: @Mike
Hmm…
I had a little dealing with Webster when I was trying to get a business school off the ground in Mauritius.
My problem was that I wanted to get a school off the ground. The owners wanted a diploma mill.
All the more reason to use only white physicians. In Britain’s socialized medical system, do patients even have a choice in which doctors they see?
The local company we had a contract with was only sending us applicants with Masters Degrees. Most of them were claiming to have Masters in Computer Science or MBA's, but when we got them into the post-hire training we were having to teach really basic stuff. Things like how to drag-and-drop, how to search for a file, etc..
One of the schools was just a couple of blocks from our site, so we decided to walk over and pay it a visit. It was one room that looked like a converted garage - maybe 10 x 20 feet. At the back of the room was a table with 3 computers. There was a large white board with markers on one wall and maybe a dozen of the plastic chair/desk combos like you see in American high schools. By the front door was a small desk where a clerk would sit with the only other computer in the place. It was a "college". It looked like they were closed for lunch.
I went back a few days later when the clerk was there. He was pretty friendly and open about the place, and explained the curriculum. Students came for a couple of hours a couple of days a week and they would drill them using the white board on some IT area to pass certification tests. Mostly they were interested in A+, Microsoft or Cisco certifications. The computers at the back were only used for doing practice exams. He said that the certifications were more important to most students than degrees, but they would offer degrees to the students who needed them and asked about them. After that, if an applicant didn't have a degree from either IIT or one of the big Indian state schools then we just ignored their degree completely.Replies: @Mike
This dovetails nicely with my experience recruiting Indian students for an MBA program in Mauritius.
I spent a month in India going round the Higher/Tertiary Education conference circuit. I also called on the special slime ball category known as the Education Consultant. My experience was very similar to yours.
I really thought I was going to to well by doing good. I was such a sucker. I, as the White American, was just a show pony for the crappy under capitalized company.
The MBA degree was awarded through a licensing agreement with a real UK university. It was nothing more than a profit center for that school. They didn’t much care about how crappy the students were either.
Don’t even get me started on the cheating…
Another instance of fraud. A name like U Kyaw Win can only come from an Isaac Asimov story.Replies: @Steve Sailer, @5371
Is it so much worse than U Ne Win?
No, Pakistan’s TFR is about 6 too, whatever you read in official sources.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Pakistan_Economic_CorridorReplies: @Anonymous
Sooner or later the Chinese will pull out.
They are not stupid.
Someone could make a very funny movie about these diploma mills. The lip-synched deposition would be one of those scenes where people would say, "You know, that really happened!"Replies: @Kaz
Eh many Asians do very well in America in American universities. It’s not as big of an issue as American corporations do a good job of weeding out Indians/Pakistanis with fake degrees. It’s like telling the difference between Devry and X State University. Trivial with minor background checks.
I don’t know if I can say the same for the Europe, it doesn’t look like they vet as hard.
Nigeria has Igbos who are known for involvement in scams. But overall I find people from English-speaking Africa to be pleasant. While Pakistanis are the most difficult to deal with immigrants in the entire Western world.
> Knowing what you know now, would you hire a Pakistani no matter how well vetted, for anything of any importance to you and your job and career? I thought not. Fraud works well short-term, until even the marks wise up and abandon the game of guessing the pea under the shell.
It’s already happening in the world of online work. Mechanical Turk only accepts US citizens, and maybe some other 1st World countries. The rumor is that it is due to low quality work from India. They just don’t have the same standards we do.
Now, MT is work that most Americans wouldn’t touch. But the dynamic is already in place, and it will spread to other areas.
Although I don’t know all the nuances of the system, if you can afford private medical insurance, you can select your own physician, although for the insurance to reimburse, the physician must be approved by that insurance company. If you go NHS it’s luck of the draw, although perhaps if you’re willing to wait (NHS wait times are legendary) you may be able to see a specific doctor.
I live in London, but travel to France for elective medical care, both for the expense and the relative certainty of getting European doctors. But that situation is changing even in France.
Here in Australia, foreign doctors are supposed to requalify – resit exams and redo residency. Some of the lamentable high trust Lutheran Germans take others at their word about qualifications or fast track requirements because it’s just paperwork right and they are really just like us.
I’d like you to meet “Dr Death” Jayant Patel who killed about 100 Queenslanders directly or indirectly. Passed through your country first- thanks for nothing- then to us suckers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayant_Patel
And even worse, local jurisdiction drug court judges use enrollment in these places as evidence the offending party is ‘getting their act together.’ So, druggies (or ex druggies) have an incentive to enroll with all the other deluded losers attending these places. Meet a graduate of one of these places sometime and you will never use the term ‘college graduate’ again the way you once would have.
Heck, 80% of US law schools are churn out very expensive, worthless law degrees!
Jewamongyou, hey buddy, do you know what they call the person who finishes last in their class at Medical School………Doctor.
My parents generation doesn’t understand the Turkish culture of deciet. I understand the culture of deciet because I’ve experienced diversity in my 24 years. It isn’t unique to the country turkey, but is anywhere that ethic turks have settled, from china, russia, through central asia, to the middle east, and south eastern europe. Lie about everything. Deny everything. Every sentance begins with “no no, no no no, my friend.” It’s completely foreign to my Midwestern mother, who works for a giant corporation, and pays all of her income tax from her one income. It’s not foreign to my father, an Irish boy from an east coast city, although he doesn’t dwell it. The culture of deciet took over the east coast 130 years ago. Anyone who has experienced diversity is unphazed, rather they are hardened by the culture of deceit.
I am not shocked at all, rather I expect, that elements in Pakistani culture practice orgsnized and systematic deciet.
80% of state universities churn out liberal arts degrees.
E.Rek, The University of Buffalo has cut back on the number of applicants that they are accepting into Law School….no jobs.
What kind of Pakistani or any third-worlder is smart enough to have 150K in assets (far more than most Americans have) yet dumb enough to send it all to a university he has never seen or been to.Replies: @notsaying
Great question.
I think there’s a lot more rotten in this story that went unexposed in the article.
I would think that somehow people signed repayment contracts that they could not get out of, even though everything about the company was fraudulent and illegal and fake.
Reading it made my blood boil. I was very disgusted the Times offered no ability to comment on this story.
I'd like you to meet "Dr Death" Jayant Patel who killed about 100 Queenslanders directly or indirectly. Passed through your country first- thanks for nothing- then to us suckers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayant_PatelReplies: @Twinkie
Apparently he didn’t do well in my country.
I am not pro-foreign medical graduates. I merely wished to clarify the fact that FMGs have to undergo residency training in the U.S. to practice. As much as there might a fraud or two who slip through the process, the worse problems in the U.S., in my view, are the native affirmative action cases, mostly black doctors.
I am well-acquainted with a large local medical practice nearby. Every single black doctor on staff at that practice failed the Boards! Their credentialing at the hospitals where they work had to be retracted (the hospitals require Board certification or Board-eligibility).
Most FMGs passed (there is a written portion and a scenario-based oral portion).
Some of the top practitioners in medicine are East Asian in the United States.