International

Fake degrees and some hand-wringing

LONDON, JULY 6. Those who thought such scams happened only in India are wrong. A British website is now offering fake degrees, GCSEs and A-levels that appear to be from genuine academic institutions. The forged qualifications range from medical and law degrees to masters' degrees in English, all for £165 (about Rs. 14,000). Universities and employers say the forgeries are worryingly authentic. Members of the British Parliament will this week ask the Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, to investigate.

The Guardian newspaper obtained a medical degree from Oxford University, a bachelor of arts (B.A.) from the University of Strathclyde and a full set of GCSEs, all at A pass in the name of a student who is still awaiting his real results. The certificates — which took just a few days to order and be delivered — come complete with forged signatures, watermarks and stamps copied from the originals. Examination transcripts can also be obtained for £245 more (that is about Rs. 20,800).

The alleged forger, a Liverpool-based man who affects the title the Magician but is called Peter Leon Quinn, has been the subject of injunctions and has been questioned by the police but released without charge. The production of false school examination results is apparently not illegal in the U.K. Although the forgery of degrees is against the law, the process of bringing Quinn to justice has proved prohibitively lengthy and expensive for the universities. The authorities are frustrated that the forger can continue unimpeded, sending fake degrees all over the world to people who have no right to claim such qualifications.

The Labour Party MP Barry Sheerman, who is the chairman of the House of Commons Education Committee, said the scam was ``terrifying.'' He will raise the matter with the Education Secretary. ``There's no doubt this is becoming more of an industry. People do use and can use fake qualifications. I suspect we are going to have to put a system in place, like a database, where we can check people's qualifications,'' Mr. Sheerman said.

An official who investigated the scam, said: ``We have no idea how many people do buy these things and use them but it must be significant because people don't put money into these businesses if they aren't going to earn any money. And £165 is a lot of money for a degree. You don't do that for fun or if you are going to put it on your wall.''

The U.K.'s Department for Education said it was illegal for any unrecognised organisation to pretend to be a university or to offer a qualification that could be taken for a U.K. degree.

But Dr. Peter West, secretary of Strathclyde University, was surprised by how ``real'' the degree looked, even though he was able to find nine ``small errors'' in the B.A. that the newspaper obtained. He said: ``It does look quite authentic. It is deeply offensive to us and all graduates who have worked for their degrees.''

A spokesman for the University of Oxford said: ``The integrity of academic awards is a matter of concern not just to those universities that are specifically named, but to all higher education institutions.''

In response to a request for a comment, Quinn sent an e-mail saying: ``Strange are the ways of Man, in each, we do what we do!''

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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