Ann: “Cutting Edge, this is Ann.”
Customer: “I’ve enjoyed tripping down the ivy halls with you this past month.”
Ann (thinks fondly back on her salad days): “Thanks! I hope you start doing education verifications.”
Customer: “We will. . .I can’t believe I mighta gotten took. Tell me I’m not alone.”
Ann (tilts head like the RCA Victor dog): “You want to hear a couple stories?”
Customer: “I got hot coffee, one cream, two sugars. Let’s do this.”
We have a large archive of Education Claims Gone Wrong. Here are a few:
- My favorite fake diploma (I know—who has a favorite fraudulent diploma, right?) came from an Albuquerque student. The top of the document claimed the diploma was from Albuquerque High School. The text in the center claimed our student completed the graduation requirement of the Rio Rancho School District. Which is not the District in which Albuquerque High School belongs.
- A couple years ago we had an applicant that got an MBA from a diploma mill. My assistant was so enchanted by that, she got a bachelor’s degree. . .for her cat.
- Weekly we have applicants that claim to have high school diplomas—when they received a GED. Of course, we find out after going to the applicant and saying, “you didn’t graduate from high school.” No shame—tell us you got the GED, which are issued on the state level and a completely different verification process from the high school diploma. It will speed up the time it takes us to perform your background check and save money for your prospective employer.
And think about this, as we wrap up our Education verification blog for August:
It is only a matter of time before publicly-traded firms are the subject of shareholder lawsuits for loss of value as a result of negligent hiring—oftentimes the results of fraudulent education claims. A California-based software firm failed to perform a simple background check on its CFO. When it was revealed that the CFO did not, in fact, have an MBA as he claimed, the stock’s value plummeted fifteen percent and a major analyst lowered their rating on the firm’s stock from “out-perform” to “neutral.” How can a publicly traded company not justify spending a few minutes and a few dollars in order to make sure there was a qualified, truthful person running their finances?
