Phony degrees registration#
"Psychotherapist" and "social worker" are protected titles, requiring a certain level of education and registration provincially with the appropriate professional bodies. "Counsellor" is not a protected title in Ontario - meaning anyone can call themselves a counsellor, regardless of their credentials. There is no campus, just a website where customers can trade "life experience" and money for a degree. Almeda University is affiliated with Axact's international diploma mill scheme, and is not an accredited post-secondary institution. His LinkedIn profile says he finished with a 4.0 GPA.īut the PhD and Correces's alma mater are both fake. "I went to the to work and study at the same time," he said of his time working on his dissertation at Almeda University in Boise, Idaho. According to his A1 profile, he's a counsellor, social worker and psychotherapist who specializes in helping people cope with substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder and the trauma of child abuse. Does it look official? (CBC )Ĭorreces was working as an independent contractor at A1 Counselling. "Those are my certificates up there," Correces said, pointing to a framed PhD in biblical counselling from Almeda University.Ī picture of counsellor Gilbert Correces's doctorate in biblical counselling. Gilbert Correces didn't need any prompting before showing off his credentials to two undercover Marketplace journalists posing as a couple seeking counselling at his Toronto office. One can often qualify for high school diplomas, bachelor's degrees, master's degrees or PhDs based on "life experience" and can purchase them for as little as a few hundred dollars.Īs Marketplace discovered, Axact customers aren't shy about touting their degrees on their LinkedIn profiles, or displaying them proudly on their office walls.
Phony degrees verification#
Some schools even have a degree verification department for any third-party requesting transcripts or proof of attendance.īut none of the schools has a physical address, faculty photos are often stock images, and even the accreditation bodies the websites cite are fake. There are hundreds of Axact-linked schools that offer a range of educational opportunities with faculty ready to assist 24/7. GO PUBLIC | Toronto lawyer out $100K after hiring fraudster with fake law degreeĪxact's school websites are slick, and names like Harvey University, Barkley University and Nixon University give the supposed U.S.-based schools an air of Ivy League authenticity."We can be harmed across the board, every day."
Phony degrees full#
"All of us can be harmed by any professional that … does not have the full extent of training that his credentials purport that he has," Ezell said. More importantly, professionals like engineers and health-care workers who lack the proper skills and expertise can put the public at risk. They devalue legitimate degrees that people spend years and thousands of dollars earning. The impact of fake degrees is twofold, he said. are fake.įormer FBI agent Allen Ezell estimates half of new PhDs issued every year in the U.S. "This does not give you totality of how many are being sold throughout Canada by all schools that are operating."Įzell, who co-wrote the book Degree Mills: The Billion-Dollar Industry That Has Sold Over a Million Fake Diplomas, estimates half of new PhDs issued every year in the U.S. "Keep in mind this is just the one operation," said Allen Ezell, a former FBI agent who investigated diploma mills for decades. The investigation revealed more than 800 Canadians could have purchased a fake degree. The team spent months combing through thousands of degree transactions, cross referencing personal information with customers' social media profiles. Marketplace has verified that more than 30 per cent of this essay was plagiarized.Ī Marketplace investigation of the world's largest diploma mill has discovered many Canadians could be putting their health and well-being in the hands of nurses, engineers, counsellors and other professionals with phoney credentials.įake diplomas are a billion-dollar industry, according to experts, and Marketplace obtained business records of its biggest player, a Pakistan-based IT firm called Axact. Marketplace also received a copy of a 25-page dissertation Correces alleges to have submitted for his PhD from Almeda University. He also said he understood his work was received and approved by Almeda. UPDATE: After this story was published, Gilbert Correces's lawyer contacted Marketplace and shared Correces's master's degree in social work from the University of the Philippines.
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