[imagesource:gencraftai]

If you obtained your degree the old-fashioned way – by studying for it – the thought of a fake degree probably irks you as much as it does our tertiary institutions.

Yet there are folks out there who seem to think that buying a degree is a shortcut to success, and unless you plan a career in politics, your ruse will likely catch up soon enough. But just in case, Mybroadband recently posted an article where the cost of degrees was explored a little.

The University of Fort Hare seemed to have been the place to purchase your fake doctorate last year after a forensic investigation confirmed that Professor Edwin Ijeoma had operated a ‘degree conferring scam’ out of the institution. Ijeoma also received a PhD from the University of Pretoria after reportedly falsely claiming to have an MBA from the defunct Kensington University in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Aside from Kensington University becoming discredited in 2003, Ijeoma was allegedly caught off guard because the degree stated he earned his MBA in 1995, a year before the famed university was transferred to Hawaii.

The Fort Hare-based degree mill scheme allegedly furnished hundreds of ANC leaders and state personnel with fraudulent credentials. As we said, you might be able to get away with knowing f***-all about a particular industry in government, but it’s not so easy to fake being a doctor when you have to perform life-saving surgery.

With not much effort, MyBroadband discovered at least 10 websites selling bogus degrees at varied costs. This was before even poking around on the dark web. While half of the sites were clearly scams, several claimed to be legitimate businesses that would ship the items – One unscrupulous website only requested an ID card scan for a “verifiable” degree.

The consensus seems to be that ‘buying a fake degree online is relatively easy and can cost anywhere from $189 (R3,570) to $800 (R15,125), depending on the forger you use.’

Is it really worth it to fake your degree to get a job that you clearly are not qualified for? At some point, the chickens will come home to roost, and being paranoid about your scam must be a terrible burden to bear.

[source:mybroadband]