Ways to Identify a Fake Degree Certificate
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Written by: Eagle Eye Screening
Key Takeaways
- Too many employers don’t adequately validate degree certificates.
- There are fake diplomas that appear to be from legitimate schools, and there are certificates from unaccredited institutions that act as diploma mills.
- Sometimes you can spot a fake physical certificate from its appearance, but forgers are becoming increasingly skilled at imitating the real thing.
- Client-facing CRAs should work with wholesale screeners who have the expertise and resources to validate degree certificates.
How to Spot a Fake Degree Certificate
Fake diplomas are a big business, largely because they are so often effective. Many if not most employers are lax in validating an applicant’s educational qualifications. Even a casual internet search will turn up diploma mills that boast about how accurately their products resemble genuine degree certificates.
These vendors are doing nothing illegal. There’s no law against creating, selling, or possessing a fake diploma. However, when a person uses a phony certificate in applying for a job, that generally crosses the line and makes it a crime.
There are essentially two types of degree fake certificates. One is a forged diploma from a recognized and reputable institute of higher learning. The other is a diploma from a school that is non-existent or from a shell school that was set up specifically for the purpose of granting a fake certificate degree. In addition to other background checks, employers must take care not to be fooled by a fake degree certificate.
There are several ways to spot an ersatz degree certificate. For starters, if you have a physical diploma, its appearance will sometimes give it away. A genuine diploma will be printed on high-quality paper that has some texture. There will often be an embossed seal and/or a holographic watermark that is visible when you hold it to the light. The signature will be in actual ink rather than being printed. There will not be any spelling errors.
If the diploma purports to be from a well-known college or university, you can compare the insignia on the certificate with the school's website.
If the institution is one you’ve never heard of, and you suspect it’s a sham, you can start by locating the school’s address online. If it’s a diploma mill, the address may be a warehouse, an empty building, or a storefront in a strip mall. You can also check out the college or university website. Sometimes the URL is a giveaway: it just doesn’t sound like a university site. Also, it’s difficult and time-consuming to create a website that has everything you’d find with a valid college. If it doesn’t look like a higher education site, it probably isn’t.
One obvious way to validate a degree certificate is to call the institution and ask. However, that’s not as easy as it sounds. If it’s a degree mill as opposed to a legitimate school, there may be someone who answers the phone and can “validate” the information on any diploma that the company has sold.
If it’s a legit college or university, often the registrar won’t give out the details you’re looking for. Many colleges hire a third party to handle such inquiries, and often that party charges a fee. Another option is to subscribe to a professional degree verification service that has the wherewithal to go through all the time-consuming validation procedures.
The interview process gives employers another opportunity to verify educational credentials. An employer can ask to see the original diploma, but the applicant may not still have it, or may be taken aback at the request and
consider it invasive. A less direct way is to ask questions about the candidate’s experiences at the campus and to be suspicious if the person has trouble coming up with believable answers.
What Does a Fake Degree Certificate Look Like?
Unfortunately, a fake degree certificate too often looks just like a real one. However, there might be some giveaways that reveal a diploma as false:
- Low-quality paper. Valid diplomas are printed on archive-grade paper that is designed to last for a long time.
- Lack of a seal. Legitimate certificates usually have a seal that is embossed and is the actual seal of the institution as it appears on the website.
- Printed signatures rather than signatures in ink.
- Lack of a watermark that appears when the paper is held to light.
- Awkward, pretentious language or spelling errors.
- Missing information such as the name of the institution, the graduate’s name, and the date.
- Inconsistent fonts.
- A college or university that you haven’t heard of or that has a name similar to a legitimate one. For example, the University of Indiana instead of the real name of that state’s college, Indiana University.
However, some vendors of phony diplomas successfully meet all the criteria of a valid certificate so that it’s indistinguishable from a real one.
What CRAs Need To Know About Fake Degree Certificates
Most of the time, CRAs will not have the original diploma but will have to rely on their background-checking procedures. If the candidate falsely claims to have a degree from a bona fide college, the school and dates will not turn up in a background check. A degree from a diploma mill may show up, and it’s up to the CRA to know that a degree from that school is worthless.
Many client-facing CRAs will not have the resources to validate the educational credentials of every candidate they vet, particularly when the diploma comes from a non-accredited institution. If they
partner with a screening service wholesaler, they should verify that their partner has the bandwidth to identify fake certificates, whether they do it themselves or outsource to a degree verification service.
Bottom Line
Many job applicants claim to have valid degrees and produce certificates that say so. However, some degree certificates are fake, and employers don’t do an adequate job of validating them. Some fake certificates appear to be from reputable institutions, while others are from unaccredited diploma mills that exist solely to sell unearned degrees.
Sometimes fake certificates can be spotted, but forgers are constantly getting better at imitating the real thing. Validating a degree is a time-consuming process that’s beyond the means of many employer-facing CRAs. These CRAs will do well to work with a wholesaler like Eagle Eye Screening Solutions. We have the resources to do full and accurate background checks, including education verification.
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