A new phony, seemingly part of the University Degree Program. The reporter I spoke to got the "usual" Email, and when got her phone call, it was from someone with an Australian accent. The website is registered to Jeremy Pulman at 56 Somerset Road, London, and has a nice picture of the "campus" which is, in fact, the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, California. http://www.oaklandsuniversity.net
Wow John - so it is! What gall. (and what an obvious landmark for anyone who travels the I880 corridor.
And utterly not to be confused with the reputable Oakland University in Michigan or the reputable Oakland City University in Indiana.
And here's the thing -- and this is important: The kind of unmitigated stupidity that allowed this obviously not-smart diploma mill operator to do a thing like that; and which convinced him/her that the of what s/he is doing is somehow not apparent, is the very same sub-par process of thought and mind that's at work when those diploma-mill-tolerant in other fora attack us mercilessly. Nothing could more beautifully illustrate the old adage "consider the source."
The "Register" button takes one straight to the payment state (using PayPal no less). The name listed to send money to is "Sam B. Seidner,UDP". What would UDP stand for in this case?
Re: Downunderisms Damn Aussies - like the French they have different word for everything! Hey - I should enroll - where else could I go to college in my home city of O-Town! (well, besides the local UoP, Merritt, Laney or my personal fav - Merritt Hospital School of Nursing -- humm Nursing babes -- yippie) Did you notice that you could basically get a degree in almost everything - humm..
JamesK: "What would UDP stand for in this case?" John: "University Degree Program," the name of the huge (over $400 million so far) US-owned Romanian-based phony. Described in detail in Chapter 1 of our Degree Mills book.
Mr. Engineer: "IQ 140, Shoe Size 9 1/2, Waist: 33 inseam 32. Now you can buy me clothes!" John: Before I head for Ross Dress for Less, tell me how IQ correlates with size. (Based on visual observations from the few Mensa events I've attended, I believe a hypothesis is already formed, but I wonder if there are actual data.)
why would you have a register link -- with MC/Visa/AX -- if you didn't have any pricing listed for your little old degrees. There is a fill in the blank on the payment page, but no payment info anywhere on the site that I could see. Maybe you can get the degree you want for any payment?? This page alone should send people running.
Absolutely! It's one of PayPal's hot buttons; and PayPal's hyper-sensitivity to it; and its willingness to shut down an account and freeze its funds at the mere hint of it being used for fraudulent purposes has become legendary. In fact, PayPal has gone overboard many, many, many times, freezing people's accounts and holding-on to their money "pending investigation for potential fraud" even when it's painfully clear that no fraud occurred; and even when the PayPal account holder is able to prove that nothing bad was going on. Entire web sites have been built to document PayPal's abuses. Articles have been written about how PayPal has literally driven small online businesses out of business by freezing all their revenues sitting in their PayPal account for months at a time while the possibility of fraud was investigated. Lawsuits have been filed -- and won -- against PayPal over it. Hundreds -- ne, thousands -- of threads in web hosting industry forums have been created warning of PayPal's "freeze first, and ask questions later... much later" policies; and better than 60% of the web hosting industry, by my estimation, will not use PayPal because of its aggressive -- to the point of ridiculousness -- anti-fraud policies and procedures. Any money sitting in a PayPal account is more at risk of being seized by PayPal's arrogant security department than it is being lost by just about any other means. Oh, yeah. Trust me. PayPal's EULA has a clause about their services being used for fraud, alright. Just drop 'em a line about this place and watch how quickly that Oaklands University PayPal account becomes dysfunctional!
