Spot the Fake: 75% of Admissions Staff Can’t Spot Forged Qualifications
Whilst most people with recruitment responsibilities will examine a candidate’s credentials, spotting fake qualifications is no easy task. The majority of us aren’t appropriately trained to be able to spot good forgeries. If 75% of university admissions staff can’t spot forged qualifications when they work for an organisation that awards them, what hope do the rest of us have? Even with the best intentions, someone could unwittingly employ a fraud.
Qualification fraud is a highly specialised criminal enterprise. An investigation by the BBC in 2018 revealed the extent of the ‘staggering’ network providing fake qualifications in the UK. It was reported that qualifications, including PhD’s, were sold to NHS nurses and consultants and even a large defence contractor. Considering the effort that goes into these operations it can be incredibly difficult for employers to know whether what they’re looking at is real. What most people don’t realise is the range of resources available to them to verify their candidates' credentials.
For degree-level qualifications, Prospects, part of Jisc, the UK's technology solutions organisation for education, have their own verification platform. Prospects HEDD, short for Higher Education Degree Datacheck, allows you to look up and authenticate a candidate's credentials on the UK’s official hub. Considering the diverse nature of higher and further education in the UK, this is a useful tool to have. Historic qualifications may have been issued by institutions unheard of today while still being valid today due to name changes.
They have also published guidance outlining what to look for when physically checking qualification documents. The six key areas to be aware of are:
Certificate design: Fraudulent qualifications often feature typography representative of calligraphy. Modern institutions generally use contemporary typeface.
Certificate Language: Recent UK qualification should not feature Latin, as this has not been common practice for at least ten years. If there is lots of superfluous language this can be a warning sign as well.
Certificate Components: Modern qualifications, like banknotes, usually have some kind of seal, hologram, watermark or crest that identifies to document as genuine. This is why you should always view the actual document and not a copy.
University Location: Fraudsters generally construct websites that look legitimate to help substantiate their qualification. This usually includes contact details, like an address. A quick Google search can reveal whether this institution actually exists.
Domain: Genuine UK degree-awarding institutions have ac.uk domains that are restricted. If the website is different to this is should ring alarm bells. Ascension Island is a popular domain with fraudsters as its .ac suffix is almost identical to ac.uk
Order of words: When people discuss where they studied you can expect to hear some sort of colloquialism, such as ‘Leeds Met’ rather than ‘Leeds Becket University’. Qualifications always have the awarding institutions full name printed. You can check this again using a quick Google search. If you find the names don’t match, it’s probably fake!
Personnel Checks can also support employers with background checks that can confirm a candidates qualification history. Incorporating these checks into your recruitment process can provide extra peace of mind that the candidates you’re hiring have the qualifications you need to succeed as a business. For more information about how Personnel Checks background screening solutions can aid your organisation, get in touch! You can give us a call on 01254 355688 or drop us an email at letstalk@personnelchecks.co.uk