More and more people are getting arrested or sued for illegally using bogus fake university degrees to land better paying jobs. Sometimes, this is done with criminal intent and at other times, the victims innocently thought that their college or university degrees were genuine. This is because many of these so called "universities and colleges" offering fake degrees have positioned themselves so well that they are thought to be authentic, especially those bogus degree mills that are offering university degrees online.

Bangladeshi, Abu Syeed Chowdury was jailed for 4 months in Singapore when he was found to have used a fake bogus University of Dahka degree to apply for a job. He was already working in Singapore for 5 years before he was found out and so had committed a serious immigration offence.

Take for instance the case of Laura Callahan, who was the deputy chief information officer in the United States Homeland Security which is a high security department, it was discovered in June 2003 that her university degree was a fake.

It is because of such high profile university degree frauds that employers need to be very vigilant over the qualifications of their potential employees and existing employees.

The following are some signs to look out for in detecting fake university and college degrees:-

1) Dates of the degrees - The dates on the degrees are not in order and therefore are supicious. For instance, the qualification sequence should be obtaining a high school certificate, then a bachelor degree followed by an Mba or Masters and then on to a PhD degree. If someone have a PhD degree without a bachelor or Masters degree or that he have a higher degree before a lower one, then his degrees are certainly suspicious. However, someone may have this inconsistency because he had studied for degrees of different professions.

2) Imitation of branded universities and colleges- Some degree mills actually skimmed off names of famous and accredited universities. For example, Hamilton University is the fake version of the prestigious Hamilton College.

3) Errors on the degree - Check for errors such as spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. The university's seal should be embossed and not merely printed. Real universities and colleges take pride in their degrees and will not tolerate such mistakes.

4) Speedy degrees - Degrees earned in a very short time or several degrees earned at a short time are tell tale signs of fake university and college degrees.

What can an employer do if he discovers that an employee is a bogus fake degree to secure the job? Well, depending on the job scope and seniority of the fraudster, a police report may be necessary since clients of the company may have been deceived into doing something they otherwise may not have done as a result of the employee's misrepresentation of his educational qualifications.

Civil suits can also be taken against the employee if there were damages suffered by the company through misrepresentation of doing a job which he is not qualified to do. So, don't ever be tempted to get a bogus fake degree to mislead because you may be prosecuted in a criminal court and have a civil suit on your head.