Sheila Danzig now a foreign credential evaluator?!

Plantation University?

From the "About Us" section;

The founders and board of trustee members have memberships, education, and/or participation in the following organizations:

Association for Conflict Resolution
Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School
The University of Windsor Law School
Wharton School of Finance

Emir Mohammed is an assistant professor at....drum roll please....University of Windsor Law School.

Things that make you go hmmmmmm......

 

Plantation University

April 22, 1997, alt.education.distance

Steve Levicoff
View profile
More options Apr 22 1997, 12:00 am
Soooooo . . . , here I was, experimenting with the computer and - with
both concern about the ramifications combined with glee for the
potential fun, I discovered that one *can* counterfeit User I.D.
addresses, names, etc. in e-mail and newsgroup messages.
In order to try it out, I came up with . . . Peter Benjamin! (If you
don't believe it, check out Peter's messages - they were all routed
through Netcom.)
Now really, campers, I know that the newsgroup has been a bit short on
scandal these days, but the responses to Plantation University and its
"Executive M.B.A. Program" have gone beyond my wildest imagination.
Yet at the same time, they have been predictable. Calls made to
Directory Assistance in two - count 'em, *two* - Kentucky area codes,
more calls made to the Southern Association (SACS), attempted e-mail
communications with Plantation University (there is, of course, no such
domain as "plantation.edu"), and even calls to the Kentucky Council on
Higher Education . . . The creation of a veritable team of
investigators more loosely affiliated than the New Age Movement, yet
commonly bound by a single goal: exposing this horrendous new endeavor
as a degree mill. (Yea, according to the NIFI criteria, even a
*diploma* mill!)
Well, gang, I know that I've been spending less time with y'all here
(and am delighted to see that Steve Dowd has returned to help pick up
the slack in controversy). But I feel that I have, indeed, left the
newsgroup in great hands - John, Emir, and even a few new faces (like
Wes Grady and John McAuley) to expose obvious shams (and, hopefully, a
few that are not so obvious).
So, in case it wasn't clear, *I* am Peter Benjamin, and the only reason
that Plantation University is not a degree or diploma mill is that it
is *totally* bogus - it doesn't exist at all.
By the way, here's a trivia note . . . I don't know where I got the
name Plantation; I probably read the word somewhere over the past few
days. However, when I did a focused search in the newsgroup on the
word "Plantation" in <dejanews>, one of the old posts that popped up
was one titled "Loofah!" that dealt with our old friend Sheila Danzig.
If you missed that one from last year, you should really read it - it's
a classic.
Finally, under all the hoopla, there is the usual consumer interest
message to new readers of this newsgroup: Don't trust any of the new
so-called "online universities" that are popping up on the Internet. I
intentionally created Plantation University using the bogus domain of
<plantation.edu> so any e-mail send to the alleged Dr. Benjamin would
bounce back as undeliverable. However, with the advent of services
such as <juno> and <hotmail>, on which people can establish actual
e-mail accounts under *any* name, the potential for real fraud is
greater than ever. You all know my position already: at the very
least, if a school doesn't have regional accreditation, then the red
flags should be flyin' high.
Gleefully laughing my gay buns off over the hoax . . .
,-~~-.___.
/ | ' \
( ) 0
\_/-, ,----'
==== //
/ \-'~; /~~~(O)
/ __/~| / |
=( _____| (_________|
----------------------------
Steve Levicoff, Ph.D.

 

Before my time. Looks like it was fun.

 

Those were the days.....exposing these new fake schools isn't nearly as much fun, without the "owners" alternately rationalizing their legitimacy, or sending you hate mail/death threats.

 

Well, I see that Les has learned a few things since his Monticello days.

He is now using a privacy service for his domain registration so you can't see who owns the domain, has absolutely no location at all listed on his site, and he's using either an answering service or a VOIP phone with a DC area code, and he's completely avoiding any mention of accreditation.

But some things are exactly the same... a bogus, longwinded explanation about why going to his program is a good investment, and why "real lawyers" are unnecessary and so forth...

And like every good diploma mill, he's put plenty of effort into ensuring that people have a *high quality* worthless piece of paper on their wall:

The more things change, the more they stay the same

 

AHHH! The famous signature line of Steve Levicoff, snoopy with a typewriter.

 

You have no idea. It was the time where you grow a rubber skin.

 

You're one of the old timers Vinipink? Must have been under a different name, I don't recognize that one from those days.

On a side note, I can't believe that Plantation University's short-lived tenure was almost 12 years ago. I feel old.

 

Yes, I have always posted under Vinipink, I guess other old timers had a better impression than others, and I do feel old as well.

 

As noted, we're all getting older....must be my bad memory.

 

Vinipink: "Yes, I have always posted under Vinipink, I guess other old timers had a better impression than others..."

Yes, he/she does go way back. Joined a.e.d. in 1995; posted 26 times over the next six years; then started posting here in the first year of DegreeInfo, 2001.

 

Wow! that is record keeping, and I am He or Mister or Sir or a Man for the record

 

Why is it that when you hit "Find all posts by ... ," it only goes back 500 posts?

 

I know where Snell is living. This man has been living in Texas several years. Who can I report this person to for bilking millions out of people.

 

You might start with the Hawaii Attorney General's office, and maybe Kansas authorities. I believe there are still judgements and/or warrants in both places associated with Monticello University.

There was also a second Snell operation after Monticello, don't remember the name of it now, that was based briefly in one of the Dakotas.

 

DFW area? I've got contacts round them parts...

 

I have been looking into this for awhile because Snell is up to no good as usual. Maybe not in fake diplomas but in other questionable ventures. What do you know about his degrees? Is he a lawyer?

 

This is in the realm of ancient history. Some of the info is in the degreeinfo archives, some will be found in the Google Groups history for the alt.education.distance newsgroup.

If I remember correctly, Snell attended and may have graduated from law school (a real one, not Monticello.) I do not think that he is currently admitted to the bar of any US state, but I'm not sure about that.

 

The relevant person in Hawaii who might be glad to know is Attorney Jeffrey Brunton, with the Office of Consumer Protection, [email protected]

 

I honestly have no idea. However, I can make a guess that something is busted in the author indexing. The message database has been through about five data conversions through major version changes of VBulletin, and at least a couple versions of Ultimate BB before that, and I am pretty sure, other than one index rebuild (which improved on not being able to search hardly at all) , we've never really gone deep into the inner workings of the database to do any major maintenance on the the indexes.

Something else to put on the maintenance list