According to a New York Times exposé, the company – purported to be the world’s largest diploma mill – operated at least 370 websites dressed to appear as American or British high schools and universities, adorned with false news reports and stock photography to peddle fake degrees ranging in price from $350 for a high school diploma to $4,000 for a doctoral degree. Axact’s fabricated schools – such as Barkley and Columbiana – often mimicked the names of other well-known higher education institutions.
While some “students” knowingly participated in the ruse in an effort to obtain a degree by shelling out thousands of dollars without completing any actual coursework, the company also preyed upon other unknowing individuals who sought to obtain a legitimate education. Sales personnel from Axact would deploy a bevy of techniques to swindle the unaware parties out of money, including posing as corporate recruiters while cold-calling prospective students with the promise of a lucrative job offer as long as the students enrolled certain online courses. Other tactics went so far as to require customers to purchase doctored State Department authentication certificates emblazoned with a forged signature of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
The story highlights other ongoing issues surrounding the real-life possibility of individuals looking to falsely embellish their resumes or qualifications by exploiting the rapidly growing online education industry. Referenced in the story is a 2008 federal prosecution that revealed 350 federal employees, including officials from the State and Justice departments, held qualifications from a Washington state-based diploma mill (one that bore no relation to Axact).
Axact, whose revenue the Times estimates at several million dollars per month, responded to request for comments on the issue with a letter from the company’s lawyers that vehemently denied the verity of the report.
Since the publishing of the initial article outing the company’s dubious business practices, Axact’s chief executive, Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh, along with four other executives were arrested and charged with a litany of offenses, including fraud, forgery and illegal electronic money transfers, following a sweep of a company storage room that uncovered a trove of blank fake degrees.
Source: New York Times, 5/17/2015 & 5/27/2015
Posted: June 2, 2015