# Is this illegal? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 22, 2000, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-illegal/10934 "2000-04-22T23:38:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eada6e/32.png) [@aha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aha)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2000, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-illegal/10934/1 "2000-04-22T23:38:00Z")
I got this in my email, is it illegal? If so how do they get away with it? UNIVERSITY DIPLOMAS Obtain a prosperous future, money earning power, and the admiration of all. Diplomas from prestigious non-accredited universities based on your present knowledge and life experience. No required tests, classes, books, or interviews. Bachelors, masters, MBA, and doctorate (PhD) diplomas available in the field of your choice. No one is turned down. Confidentiality assured. CALL NOW to receive your diploma within days!!! 1 - 7 7 0 - 2 3 4 - 5 2 0 4 ## Call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including Sundays and holidays. One of the few to be personally welcomed to this board by Ed Zotti. Yours truly, aha ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2000, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-illegal/10934/2 "2000-04-22T23:41:00Z")
It’s probably legal. How much good is a degree from a non-accredited institution? ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Dave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Happy\_Dave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Dave)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2000, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-illegal/10934/3 "2000-04-22T23:55:00Z")
send me 4 easy payments of just $29.95 and i’ll send you a degree from HappyDaves Bible Seminary and School of Screen Door Hanging. * * * HaVe a GreaTFuL DaY… ---
**Author:** ![aha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eada6e/32.png) [@aha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aha)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2000, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-illegal/10934/4 "2000-04-22T23:57:00Z")
In the right hands these could be dangerous. At least to my way of thinking. The movie “The Great Imposter” comes to my mind. Not the new one the old one with Tony Curtis. People, and especially institutions are easily fooled sometimes. * * * One of the few to be personally welcomed to this board by Ed Zotti. Yours truly, aha ---
**Author:** ![Fyodor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/958977/32.png) [@Fyodor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fyodor)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2000, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-illegal/10934/5 "2000-04-22T23:57:00Z")
Is that good old “Pacific Coast University” or something like that? I think 60 Minutes checked these guys out a few years back and found a ratty little second floor office. I don’t think it’s illegal, it’s a novelty item. Supposedly you provide information on your life experience and are issued an appropriate degree. As long as they stay away from medicine or engineering and issue arts or business degrees they are pretty harmless. A few years ago in British Columbia, Canada, the provincial Finance Minister resigned when it was discovered that his long list of accounting and financial professional accreditations had been acquired on a foundation of one of these mail order degrees. I think this mail order degree business’s bread and butter originally was Americans who wanted to work overseas in countries like Saudi Arabia that require foreign professionals to have a university degree to qualify for a work visa. I hope the world is becoming a little more sophisticated. Can you imagine putting one of these degrees on your resume and trying to deceive a potential employer? A pretty desperate act. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2000, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-illegal/10934/6 "2000-04-22T23:57:00Z")
It **is** illegal. It is immoral, too. In fact, you are going STRAIGHT TO HELL, just for reading it. Have a hap-hap-happy day! 🙂 * * * “There is no slander in an allowed fool, though he do nothing but rail; nor no railing in a known discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove.” Countess Olivia to Malvolio; William Shakespeare’s _Twelfth Night_, Act 1, Scene 5. ---
**Author:** ![aha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eada6e/32.png) [@aha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aha)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2000, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-illegal/10934/7 "2000-04-23T01:07:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Supposedly you provide information on your life experience and are issued an appropriate degree. I can see it now…A Phd in Straightdope messageboarding. * * * One of the few to be personally welcomed to this board by Ed Zotti. Yours truly, aha ---
**Author:** ![lswote](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lswote/32/5737_2.png) [@lswote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lswote)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2000, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-illegal/10934/8 "2000-04-23T01:15:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by aha: > Diplomas from prestigious non-accredited > universities based on your present knowledge > and life experience. I think it represents mail fraud because it says **prestigious** non-accredited universities. There is no such animal. Accredidation is a requirement of prestige. ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2000, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-illegal/10934/9 "2000-04-23T01:21:00Z")
I’m guessing that “prestigious” may be sufficiently fuzzy to allow the proprietors of said institutions to wiggle of the hook. ---
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2000, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-illegal/10934/10 "2000-04-23T02:23:00Z")
- - - It _isn’t_ illegal. They say in their advertising that the school is non-accredited, which means that quite simply, they are selling you a piece of paper. If you don’t know what a degree from a non-accredited institution is worth, that’s your fault, especially if you applied for the Phd. in economics. When you get a job that requires a degree from an accredited institution, the employer has to verify your education, they just don’t look at the paper you show them and say “Looks okay to me”. - This is much like a couple other types of businesses such as: - The place that will “register” a star in your name, for a small fee. You get a piece of paper, saying it’s named after you. I hope it’s nice paper. - There’s at least one place that makes novelty license plate kits for cars: you buy a blank plate for your state and lettering to put whatever you want on it. They don’t say it’s a substitute for a legitimate registered plate, because even if it bears the same letters and numbers as the real plate, it ain’t. - And also kinda like the places where you can “adopt” a wild animal for a fee. Of course, with these places, you assume that they are actually helping the animals somehow, and not just living large on your quarter. They put my bullshit detector on yellow alert: my hunch for human nature tells me that they’d rather not have you know. - MC ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2000, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-illegal/10934/11 "2000-04-23T05:46:00Z")
I had a friend who paid seventeen dollars for one of these in computer science. The scary thing is that he probably knows quite abit about computers. He got a $40 an hour job working for a local firm to make a C++ app that simulated the movement of light. All of the science and equations were already there, he just had to plug it in and make it user friendly for optomotrists, all it would do was spit out instructions for grinding lenses for stigmatisms, etc. * * * You know, doing what is right is easy. The problem is knowing what is right. –Lyndon B. Johnson ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2000, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-illegal/10934/12 "2000-04-23T06:05:00Z")
I recently took a high profile position with a large publicly traded company and I am pretty sure nobody even read my resume, nor checked out my university work (all quite legitimately reported and done at reputable institutions). If you show up with a B.S. in Information Technology from Columbia Pacific Northwest (which, as far as I can tell, is the made-up name I meant for it to be) _with_ some work history and referrals, etc., you might fly on one of these tissue paper degrees. If you do well there may never be an occasion that calls for anybody to investigate the degree. Yeah, yeah, yeah,…do you want to live with having your career evaporate when your 11 years into it? And the whole subject causes me to think of the new age folk who show up around town with an alphabet train of thoroughly unrecognized “degrees” trailing their name. ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2000, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-illegal/10934/13 "2000-04-23T06:08:00Z")
And, upon rereading the thread, I find cause to query: what is a diploma v. a degree? ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2000, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-illegal/10934/14 "2000-04-23T06:20:00Z")
In the UK a diploma is usually a full time course taken over two years. The work is to degree standard but there are fewer components.The the emphasis on research is normally much reduced and they usually relate to professions such as engineering , nursing etc. A diploma can be upgraded to degree status, by carrying out the extra units, normally this would take at least another year. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2000, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-illegal/10934/15 "2000-04-23T15:27:00Z")
You mean at the most 3 years? Wow, in the US it takes 4 years for a BS/BA or 8 for a PHD, & 6 for a Masters. ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2000, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-illegal/10934/16 "2000-04-23T16:16:00Z")
In the UK degree lengths depend on the course, institution and teaching methods. Generally, most degrees at English universities are 3 years (to get a BA/BSc), unless they’re sandwich courses with work placements. Medical and veterinary courses are not surprisingly longer; I had a friend who was on a 7-year vet course. In Scotland the system is different. I spent 4 years at Edinburgh, because Scottish secondary education is one year shorter than in England, so they do an extra year at university. I also managed to come out with an MA (Honours), which was never explained; my friends came out with BSc degrees in marketing and I got an MA in politics. Looks purty on a CV, though. * * * [Crusoe Takes A Trip](http://www.fervent.co.uk/) ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2000, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-illegal/10934/17 "2000-04-23T22:14:00Z")
Mailorder degrees aren’t legal for much. Especially if someone calls. Easier to get a copy of someone’s Harvard Degree paper & put your own name on it. fun. ---
**Author:** ![aha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eada6e/32.png) [@aha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aha)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2000, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-illegal/10934/18 "2000-04-24T00:20:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by handy: > **Mailorder degrees aren’t legal for much. Especially if someone calls. Easier to get a copy of someone’s Harvard Degree paper & put your own name on it. fun.** ## Alright handy, up against the wall and spread em. (Theme from cops playing in the background) One of the few to be personally welcomed to this board by Ed Zotti. Yours truly, aha