The Art of The Scam ?

Now for something completely different.....

While we all scorn the feebleminded Degree Mills that lack intellegent foresight some of you must have encountered some well-crafted deceptions that were a credit to "The Con". Anyone have a memorable tale? What is the best "dog & pony" you've seen? What is the best that's currently out there?
Rolling Chuck

"The value of an incomplete education..."

 

I have a few thoughts related to the Democratic Presidential primaries...

Jack

 

MIGS was probably one of the best from the perspective of putting up an apparent facade of legitamacy. They were also the best from the perspective of providing the most amusement to and perhaps personal interest in for this community. Also, amusingly they apparently never bestowed one single diploma.

 

I always liked the mail-order scams.

At the height of the craze for Cabbage Patch Dolls, an ad appeared saying "Send us $50 and we will send you a CABBAGE PATCH." Purchasers got a packet of cabbage seeds.

Then there was the "surefire roach killer": two blocks of wood, with instructions to place the roach on one block and crush it with the other.

The "Last chance to send $10 to (PO box number)" thing may be an urban legend.

 

My favorite scams are all those exercise and weight loss gimmicks that you see on the infomercials.
Ab-toners, buns toners, add 12'' of muscle to your bicep in two weeks, lose 50 lbs by next month, and the list goes on and on...

Doesn't anybody tell these suckers......er rather customers....that the only safe way to lose weight and gain muscle is to eat sensibly and work out in a gym?

My colleagues at the office think that the next fad will be "brain pills" - increase your IQ by 150 before next Christmas. Money back guaranteed if you haven't had an aneurysm by your next promotion.

 

Patient: Doctor, I want you to give me something to make me smarter.
Doctor: Take these pills and report back to me in a week.
Patient (a week later): I've been taking those pills like you said, doc, but I don't feel any smarter.
Doctor: Take them for another week and report back to me.
Patient (a week later): I've been taking those pills, doc, but I still don't feel any different. You haven't been giving me a placebo, have you?
Doctor: You're getting smarter.

 

The best cons are the ones that succeed.

So in our particular context, I'd say that the best degree mills are the ones that none of us can recognize, the ones that most of us consider legitimate in some way.

It's impossible to name them or to even prove that they exist, because if non-participants ever become aware that they are cons, then they have failed.

I'd say that accreditation or its equivalents makes that kind of successful educational con very difficult. (That's certainly its intention.)

Recently, the most blatant scramble towards that con-job holy grail has probably been use of the flag-of-convenience foreign accreditation scam as a backdoor into "GAAP".

 

Thats ok, my wife saw an infomercial recently where Ron Jeremy was pimping pills to increase the size of your member....

 

Ron Jeremy? He couldn't sell a bottle of spanish fly to Monica Lewinsky!

 

Are you aware he has a Masters degree in Special Education? The things you learn from watching Fox....

 

I've just seen the original 'packet' sent to customers by the huge phony degree operation based in Romania and Israel. A Canadian reporter paid for his degree from them -- they were using "Ravenhurst University" as the name-du-jour. It is a pretty impressive bundle: the diploma, the transcript (with raised seal), the well-written confirmation letter from the university

"--- graduated from our University with departmental honors. As an honors student, --- was responsible for supervising undergraduates through our distance laerning tutorial program. Within a short time, he proved to be such a bright, astute, and accomplished student that we utilized his talents in many aspects of our academic program" (etc. etc. etc.).

And testimonial letters from "faculty" -- "--- was enrolled in several of my correspondence classes in fulfillment of the core requirements of his major. As proven by his work, --- was diligent, well prepared, and absorbed new material quickly..." (etc.)

 

The American Geographic Society

For my talks on mail order marketing, I have long used the example of the above-named organization, which ran big ads offering Full Color World Atlas, $1. The ads referred to the comprehensive atlas -- page after page of 'eye-popping' full color maps showing every country on earth, all the major cities, lakes rivers . . . " on and on, with wild enthusiasm, and as a promotional deal, only one dollar, including postage.

What was sent was a 8-page booklet, roughly 1 1/2 x 2 inches in size (i.e., two tiny pieces of paper and one staple), which did in fact have tiny little maps, page after page, in color.

I read later that it was a Moneysworth Magazine promotion, and that they sold over a million of them. Actual cost, including bulk rate postage, about 15 cents. And at one dollar, almost no one bothers to ask for a refund or to complain. And it built a large and saleable mailing list of suckers.

 

To John Bear

Any Chance on Buying that Mail list - I've got one hell of a tax shelter I'm working on

 

They're lack of degrees issued is actually a point in their favor. They had a sincere--but woefully incapable--effort to establish a school. There was an angle, but everyone's missed it. It wasn't to sell degrees without a sufficient process--I think they were sincere about that. But what they were up to had more to do with Federal monies than anything else.

They were hoping for at least 50% of their students to be Spanish-speaking, which would have freed up some federal monies. The titular president of MIGS said as much over breakfast with me one day. He hoped (but, sadly, didn't control) they'd establish a legitimate operation to conduct degree programs and award degrees from the CEU. This simply didn't happen. The questions about the CEU's authority to award degrees earned through MIGS remain unanswered--which largely led to MIGS' downfall. Suing Steve didn't help, especially when it led to the state of Texas getting involved.

The bottom line to MIGS: Owned by unscrupulous people hoping to own a legitimate school which "side-doored" the recognition process by awarding degrees through the CEU. Utterly under-staffed and bereft of even the most basic understanding of running such a progam.