Who are the guilty ones?

[ksl]

The guy in this link was a so called expert in his field, although he had never ever studied. He purchased his degrees and papers, but what I find quite amazing is how this guy, for 30 years was able to con, the legal system, and all the legal people he must have come in contact with.

Now I'm wondering, after reading what the judge had to say in the link, who is actually guilty here!

I would have thought even the police, or court system are just as much to blame, in a negligent way.

Like the rest of the civil service in UK, they are not very street wise, for all the education they have, to spot a con.

What makes me really laugh is this "His complete ignorance of his supposed field of expertise quickly became apparent - and he was promptly sacked." HELLO! HE HAD BEEN DOING IT 30 years

5 years, he will be out after 3 and how much money has he swindled. what a joker, Walter Mitty, will no doubt be an instructor at Wandsworth Prison

What did I say about EXPERTS!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/engl ... 386069.stm

[keith425]

A bogus forensic psychologist who supplied evidence in hundreds of court cases has been jailed for five years.

WOW just 5 years for all that?!

Negligence, alright! What a shame. One would think that when you do business as sensitive as that the police would at least do a little background investigation on you.

from another link on that page:

However, the prosecution said that all the qualifications were awarded by Rochville University in America, a fictitious academic institute.

The jury was told that the degrees had in fact been bought from the website 'www.affordabledegrees.com' where customers could also choose the grades for their qualifications.

So is anyone going after websites like this?

And the best part:

During his four-week trial he insisted on being called Dr Morrison

The man is mad..

[huggybear]

the website selling the fake credentials is doing nothing wrong....

i would think it's more of a gag gift kind of thing.

[keith425]

Nothing wrong with selling fake credentials?

Looks like rochville university is more than a gag. I quickly checked the site and nothing indicated that it was a joke.

also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochville_University

Criticism and controversy
"[Degree mills] have been dubbed by John Bear, an ex-FBI consultant, as a 'huge crime wave...and almost no one has noticed.'"[2]

On December 15, 2005, CNN aired a report on diploma mills and terrorism. As part of its coverage, the network purchased a "master's degree" in chemistry from Rochville in the name of Abu Salsabil Hassan Omar:

"Who is Omar? The federal government says he's an explosives and chemical weapons expert for the terrorist group al Qaeda. So how did this alleged terrorist with a five million dollar bounty on his head earn a Masters in Chemistry from this American university?
Well, we earned it for him with $500 and an Internet connection. And the United States district attorney in Spokane, Washington, says there could be thousands of potential terrorists who have done what we just did." [3]
CNN was even able to purchase better grades and honors for "Omar," for an additional $30.

The report stated that all attempts to find a physical presence for Rochville failed, noting that the "diploma" purchased by the network was mailed from the United Arab Emirates.

Shame that law enforcement never checked if any of his credentials were accredited...

[huggybear]

guns don't kill people...people kill people.

it's like america preaching abstinence. dude it's never going to work. teenagers are always going to have sex. if rochville didn't exist, what makes you think that this guy wouldn't just create his own fake diploma? or what if he just created a resume out of thin air?

you would think these people would have a brain to do some basic due diligence. In the states, the CEO of Veritas (when he was CEO of veritas...) lied about his credentials i think by saying he had an MBA degree from Stanford university. Some journalist did some basic due diligence and discovered he never attended. (he was promptly fired.) what makes this even more funny is that "veritas" i believe means "truth" in latin or something.

in the states, most intelligent private companies now look up people's profiles on myspace.com / friendster.com and even google the person's name. so they are seeing "candidates" posing drunk in various college parties and bragging about all the weed they smoke and women they hook up with. not a very attractive way to present yourself if you are seeking a job.

[keith425]

True. But Businesses like this provide easier means for deception. Or actually help one believe that he 'earned' the degree, if hes a total whacko. Never said that he wouldn't make his own diploma or write up a fake resume if he had no other choice. He's criminal after all. The cool thing about being a criminal these days is that you could just drool over the number of options to have to deceive people.

Note that my last line was : Shame that law enforcement never checked if any of his credentials were accredited. Thats the real issue in this case. Terrible that a fraud like that could con trained investigators! But nonetheless it's the interplay of all these factors that make it interesting.

In the states, the CEO of Veritas (when he was CEO of veritas...) lied about his credentials i think by saying he had an MBA degree from Stanford university

Wow. Strong Lie. Haha.

[ksl]

I have several views on this, that i find interesting.

1. just because he does have fake documents, doesn't mean that he knew nothing about the subject.

2. Does crime pay, I believe in many cases it does.
If one compares the punishment, to the income that is swindled.

3. Statistically I would love to see this guys record, against a real expert, to see who are the biggest deceivers. If working for prosecution, one is almost led to believe the expert witness.

4. If he's a criminal, does that mean, that he has mostly been on the side of criminals?

5. Education proves jack shit, all it proves, is that you followed a set syllabus for a set time period, and you attained a set result. (Everyone has good & bad days)

6. What is an expert?

7. So there are good experts & bad experts?

I personally had a most heated argument with a so called government employed medical expert, who still works in UK. He is a retired general
practitioner in his 70's, he says he is an expert in his field and is actually employed has a freelance expert by government.

I called him a quack and a fake, on the principle, that he is not specialised. I said to him, that he was a failed specialist, that is protected by government, He cannot be sued.

The UK have GP's working as experts, mostly all retired, to overide specialist reports, so that compensation is not paid out. The fact is, you can take your complaint to arbitration, it's very time consuming and can take upto a few months to a year.

On the panel is a legal expert, the GP and another to evaluate your complaint. This is quackery at it's best, and the legal guy is there to assess, what kind of threat you are, if he thinks you don't know your subject matter, they will just throw your case out. If you know your stuff, they will cave in and allow the claim.

I won my case, and I'm no expert, but my point is, the governments employ all these quackeries at cheap rates, becuase they cannot afford to employ specialists.

Local GP's to override specialist reports is deceiving the people of their rights, they cannot be sued, and its highly unlikely, they would be struck off the medical registry, and even so, they are retired anyway.

In most cases, they know you don't have the funds to take them to court, although some legal departments will do it at no cost, if they think there's 99% chance of winning, although the struggle for the working class, that get ripped off daily by insurance companies is a real one.

Deception is in the highest of places in institutional organisations, and you don't really need educational documents to back it up.

Just a solid backing or a political party! At most, you would be pensioned off, if found to be doing wrong.

Really to see some experts at work, try the stockmarket forum at www.motleyfool.co.uk there you will meet bankers, investment experts and god knows how many other con artists, I used to love the challenge of winding them up, they know jack crap, about stocks and shares, one could just has well take a pin to chose your stock.

I'm self taught on stockmarket investing and T/A and I can give all of them a run for their money! kicking egos' is not something I enjoy doing, to prove a point that experts don't exist in reality, they are created in the minds of Walter Mitty type ego's. That they are the best!

[huggybear]

stock market is gambling. it doesn't take skill. Just luck.

by definition of basic investing rules, crime must pay well. there's something called risk:reward. the higher the risk the higher the reward. if the risk is going to jail for 30 years, then ur going to be raking in the cash while you're not caught.

i don't agree with your comments on education. I guess you're a bit different from me, but i would rather go to a trained heart surgeon in america then some dude who printed his MD degree from Online University and has practiced on his own in his garage on the board game "Operation."

judging by the state of teeth in britain...i'd say that none of the dentists went to dental school!

[ksl]

i don't agree with your comments on education. I guess you're a bit different from me, but i would rather go to a trained heart surgeon in america then some dude who printed his MD degree from Online University and has practiced on his own in his garage on the board game "Operation."

This is becuase peace of mind is more important! Although I do understand your point, and feel the same. although if we was involved in a very bad accident, we wouldn't really care who, the person was doing the repair work.

Standards have to be maintained, otherwise Countries end up like the UK Bad teeth and all, although when i was in the army, they just pulled them out anyway! Why waste time and money fixing, something your going to lose anyway, is their philosophy.

I don't agree on gambling

stock market is gambling. it doesn't take skill. Just luck

I'm far from a lucky person, and the risk assessment I did on myself, was very mid range, and in 7 years of short term trading, there is only two in my mind, that have been real gambles, Marconi PLC was one of them, and the share called CEVA was the other.

All my other investments are based on my knowledge of the products, and product cycles, and I never do the F/A on high tech companies for a short term investment, although I do monitor exports from the Country of Taiwan, and other outside threats. where i deal in real volatility, it's important to take advantage of the threats of outside influences, where others sell off, I would say common sense in most cases. based on daily data.

The ability to gamble is there, if one wants to gamble, but the odds must be in my favour to do that. I have made a gamble on LCD manufacturers for example, to consolidate even more, and that profitability will not be seen until they are actually stabilise the prices. although 4 out of 5 in Taiwan have started making profit.

One have stopped making 37" and 42" lcd's, because they can outsource cheaper than they can make them, because of the fab generation they are using. It costs billions for the investment in 8 generation fabs, and not all can raise, that money, and I don't believe bankruptcy is in the picture, but takeovers will be.

I never listen to the hype of brokers. So I call it skill, that I can also make a living doing it too...

[lost_canuck]

just a quick note on the original topic, the people who are guilty are the ones who think the 'piece of paper' speaks for the person they are hiring and the person conning them.

in the UK I ran into a lot of hassle because I didn't have the piece of paper they thought I should have but I had over 13 years of experience and a foreign education which they didn't understand. and to top it off I heard stories about how they are so careful when hiring because of the people who had no skills or knowledge of the field. I discovered that most of the population in the UK 'lie' on their CV's and was told by a few locals that lying is totally expected.

And so hey everyone can have an impressive CV, and if you are a good liar you can get almost anything you want, seen 6 degrees of seperation, and Catch Me If You Can? Based on true stories, so really who is to blame? That is a hard one to pin on just one person isn't it?

[ScoobyDoes]

And so hey everyone can have an impressive CV, and if you are a good liar you can get almost anything you want, seen 6 degrees of seperation, and Catch Me If You Can? Based on true stories, so really who is to blame? That is a hard one to pin on just one person isn't it?

The DeCaprio/Hanks movie was just the thing i was going to bring up. Have we really learned anything from the 60's? It is true that employers tend to take qualifications at face value without double checking but when it comes to let's say, important jobs that greatly influence people's lives such as doctors/pilots/lawyers then double checking should be compulsary.

[lost_canuck]

Scoobydoes: you would think they would, a few times there are the doctors that are struck off in one country only to be allowed to practice in another I mean as a law abiding citizen how can I sit and watch as I go through the hoops and get denied? I wanted to open a bank account with HSBC in UK and the crap I had to deal with and then they didn't give me an account. Like hello? I have a job, I have a mobile phone, I already have an account with barclays and credit up to the ying yang but no??? Yet a friend who's flat was robbed, the people managed to do all kinds of things with her info, ddrain bank accounts, open new accounts, her life was a living hell, which is terrible, but me being honest get screwed by the system, and then the system expects me to pay over the top for their mistakes??????

I was told once and I will never forget it, by a total stranger that life would be very hard because I was too nice a person

The meek shall inherit the earth they once said! not anymore there won't be anything worth inheriting

[ksl]

Scoobydoes: you would think they would, a few times there are the doctors that are struck off in one country only to be allowed to practice in another I mean as a law abiding citizen how can I sit and watch as I go through the hoops and get denied? I wanted to open a bank account with HSBC in UK and the crap I had to deal with and then they didn't give me an account. Like hello? I have a job, I have a mobile phone, I already have an account with barclays and credit up to the ying yang but no??? Yet a friend who's flat was robbed, the people managed to do all kinds of things with her info, ddrain bank accounts, open new accounts, her life was a living hell, which is terrible, but me being honest get screwed by the system, and then the system expects me to pay over the top for their mistakes??????

I was told once and I will never forget it, by a total stranger that life would be very hard because I was too nice a person

The meek shall inherit the earth they once said! not anymore there won't be anything worth inheriting

Well I'm so happy you think like me

I'm basically a very honest person, although in UK it's dog eat dog, and I also learnt the hard way, that one can trust no one, these days.

Which is really a sad day in my life, though a am a surviver.

Mind you, I also did a search on my own exam paper from The Export Academy at Ranum in Denmark, only to find, that it is no longer there. It's under new management, and moved to another City in Aalborg, and it is not even called the Export Academy anymore.

This was a government accredited and subsidised exam to increase export consultants, for the intensive export thrust of Denmark. Some Companies had to pay 5,000 pound for a 16 week live in course, that qualified, degree holders. It was a practical hands on education working with live projects, and fairly obviouse, that fees could not be taken.

Although what I see here in Singapore is that the Banks, working with SMU are doing exactly the same, only the University is charging Companies for students that are not qualified, to work on projects.

There is no guarantee these students are even motivated to do a good job or can fullfil the tasks involved, So why should they have to pay?

Obviously someone came up with a money making idea to run hands on projects for companies, which in my eyes is a borderline case of deception of several 000$.

Although the team work on the projects, the calibre of the tasks and completed projects vary from usable to worthless.

All the ones I studied with in Denmark were already qualified degree holders in their own fields, with working experience, Cand Mag, Cand Science, Accountants, and surprisingly many failed pre tests of the course, because they lacked commonsense and/or experience in business.

[Plavt]

just a quick note on the original topic, the people who are guilty are the ones who think the 'piece of paper' speaks for the person they are hiring and the person conning them.

in the UK I ran into a lot of hassle because I didn't have the piece of paper they thought I should have but I had over 13 years of experience and a foreign education which they didn't understand. and to top it off I heard stories about how they are so careful when hiring because of the people who had no skills or knowledge of the field. I discovered that most of the population in the UK 'lie' on their CV's and was told by a few locals that lying is totally expected.

And so hey everyone can have an impressive CV, and if you are a good liar you can get almost anything you want, seen 6 degrees of seperation, and Catch Me If You Can? Based on true stories, so really who is to blame? That is a hard one to pin on just one person isn't it?

The issues you raise above are only too common in the UK and I get sick of the nonsense that goes on but an ordinary person can never do anything about it. As you imply and in my own experience one can be too honest a penalty of which is to be either sneared at or ignored by fellow country men/women. There is much for discussion, I'm sure Ksl knows what I mean.

[ksl]

It can only happen in UK!

57 million pounds paid out to dead people and over 2.5 billion over paid in benefits,,, and errors.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6402703.stm


What did i say about the civil service, they couldn't organise a chimpanzees tea party without a cock up! SACK THEM ALL! and stop benefit payments for a month or more and send them all out with tissue paper, to earn a living.