Fake Diplomas, Real Cash: Pakistani Company Axact Reaps Millions | Hacker News Reader

Fake Diplomas, Real Cash: Pakistani Company Axact Reaps Millions

nytimes.com

184 pointstysone77 comments

I always knew that they were doing something shady. Also their employees have to sign NDA's to work. I know quite a few people who worked at Axact. And no one is willing to tell me what kind of work he/she did there.

I naturally assumed that it had the backing of the pakistani intelligence agencies guess i was wrong.

There is also another thing that i would like to add here, there is an answer on quora which those interested should read[1].

They do give really good benefits, things like free lunch, return tickets to foreign countries for vacation and they give a car to each of their employees.

There was also a rumour going around that axact made its money by making and managing one of the largest pornographic websites on the internet. Don't know how much truth is in that. But everyone i mean everyone talked about that at one time in the industry here.

[1] http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-services-does-Axact-Pakist...

In the US at least, an NDA is generally a standard part of an employment contract.

It's common in some industries, yes, but in California at least, many of them aren't actually enforceable. A company can write an enforceable NDA, but it can't be a blanket agreement. It has to clearly delineate which information is confidential vs. nonconfidential, and establish credible policies for handling confidential information.

(Since employment is at-will, a company could still fire an employee for talking about anything the company doesn't like, confidential or not. But that's a different matter from having an enforceable confidentiality agreement.)

I believe you might be thinking about a non-compete vs. a non-disclosure agreement?

I believe he very precisely described a non-disclosure agreement.

Backing of some intelligence service, most likely. Or possibly a terrorist organisation. It's certainly an ideal setup for money laundering - paying large sums of money for worthless paper.

Interesting - a quick search of reviews on Glassdoor for Axact found multiple employees complaining about the company's unethical business: http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Axact-Reviews-E333658.htm

July 27, 2013: “Great benefits, great learning but ethically wrong! ”

"Also the company deals in fake online university degrees and also providing research papers to students. The research paper part would not be so bad if the quality was good enough for students to not fail."

Jun 28, 2013: “Kills your market worth as a professional”

"Unethical businesses"

>“Kills your market worth as a professional”

That is the most brutal review on an educational programme I've ever read

I find the idea (that having particular job experience could kill my market worth) intriguing, given that I could always just leave the job off my resume.

In some places gaps in your CV are a big problem, as they want to know exactly what you were doing and why you were not employable. The idea that you might have chosen to take time out is pretty new in some areas.

Could you really? I presume most employers will ask you what did you do in that omitted period. At least listening to Career Tools podcast gave me that impression.

In the Indian subcontinent having what is called a "reliving letter" from your previous employers is very important.

Have a look at the workplace stack overflow to see the sort of problems Asian developers face "horrific" is how it was describe to me.

Oddly, I find the employee whose effusive praise of the company included phrases like "business is truly LEGAL I LOVE AXACT" to be a more damning indictment...

This corrupt river runs deep...

There is sustained speculation that this company is a front for money laundering connected to the Pakistani ISI. Their use of lawyers & NDA's is also well known in the subcontinent.

For a very similar degree mill of Indian Incarnation check out IIPM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institute_of_Planning_an... run by the Slick shyster Arindam Chaudhury

I don't think it has anything to do with ISI but i believe they do alot of shady stuff, not just novelty degrees. I have heard about this in particular from ex employees of this company.

How would anyone know the extent of shady dealings?

I think he's referring to the rumors that they're involved in low budget blue movies as well.

This company is very well renowned in Pakistan for its perks and many engineers rush to apply here. I had absolutely no clue this is what was going on behind the scenes. There is no talk about Axact operating shady universities back in Pakistan, and a scam of this scale is astonishing. Eye-opening article.

Eh? Everyone knows they have a shady business. People have known that for years in Pakistan. The Pakistan Software Houses Association condemned Axact to be a diploma Mill long ago.

I had absolutely no clue. But in my defense I have not been in the local job market for some time. If it is such common knowledge, why has not anything been done so far?

As the article says, "All the while, Axact’s role as the owner of this fake education empire remains obscured by proxy Internet services, combative legal tactics and a chronic lack of regulation in Pakistan."

>One Saudi man spent over $400,000 on fake degrees and associated certificates, said Mr. Jamshaid, the former employee.

What on earth is the point of buying that many credentials? At that rate you might as well spend the time getting a real one.

They were probably just trophies. He may have had no intention of actually learning anything.

Lots of different reasons, including but not limited to:

1. Immigration

2. Hiding wealth ("Where did you get that money from?")

3. Hiding time ("What have you been doing for the last 5 years")

4. Releasing inheritance ("Clause 24: [x] can only get his share once he earns a Masters degree in [y]")

5. Fraud

6. Money laundering

7. Reputation and Respect. We all love those letters after our name.

I live in a Middle Eastern country, and as I understand in East Asia it is pretty much the same:

People here very much discriminate against candidates based upon race and where they were educated. I would go so far as saying a Western candidate, fresh from completing their course from a Western university would be chosen over an Indian candidate with a similar level degree from an Indian university and 5 years experience.

There isn't much you can do to change your race, so a lot of people opt to get fake degrees from 'Western sounding' universities. The show they have setup is pretty tight, you can even phone up to 'verify' that they were in-fact a student.

(Just to clarify I'm a Westerner with a Western degree so this isn't jealously or anything like that)

I see Saudi students daily who drive Ferraris and Bentleys. That is to say $400,000 is not meaningful at all to some, which is exactly the point. Why go to America and spend $100,000 a year on education (as in one degree) for 4 years when I can buy 10 with a couple of wire transfers.

Edit: I should say Middle Eastern and not Saudi since many are from the UAE.

What's worse than scamming people? Scamming the most desperate people, trying to better themselves, and then continuing to hit their card from multiple fake companies.

Very true, although I suppose most scams prey on vulnerable people. Be nice to think there's a special circle of Hell for people that'd do this to other people. Are there no laws in Pakistan that prevent this kind of thing from operating? It sounds like its a fairly well known thing... I guess money is greasing the corrupt wheels.

Was kind of surprised to find that this company had no Wikipedia article. Just started one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axact

How in the world do you fit a scam this big so far under the radar?

oh the CNN ireport links are nice touch.

http://barkleyuniversity.com/about/newsroom/

the links still work too.

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1070836

i guess there's zero editorial oversight in the iReport section.

> i guess there's zero editorial oversight in the iReport section.

That's explicitly stated. "The stories here are not edited fact-checked or screened before they post." http://ireport.cnn.com/about.jspa

Yet they are under the CNN.com domain name, not cnnusercontent.com . therefore CNN.com 's reputation should suffer for it. (hello, Google PageRank team!)

Yeah, because a) otherwise CNN is known for its good editing, b) people care about those things...

Google penalizing a site for inaccurate user-generated content would be a pretty awful precedent. Stuff on iReport is flagged as "not verified by CNN" fairly clearly, as far as I can tell, and if CNN wants to sink its brand this is hardly the first salvo in that attempt.

Because CNN is awful news company.

Axact's response (lol): http://www.axact.com/defamation-response/

Check out the legal notice sent to the NYT http://www.axact.com/defamation-response/pdf/ln-NYT.PDF (lol)

There seems to be a proliferation of dubious Masters degrees that, although not as fake as this Pakistani diploma mill still seem more like money-making schemes than worthwhile credentials.

I know a number of people who were in high school with me, who, although academically quite average, and lacking Batchelors degrees are getting "fluffy" masters degrees from overseas universities, including MBAs.

It looks like we are moving from the era of grade inflation to the era of degree inflation.

This is common knowledge for everyone in Pakistan. But they serve legal notice to anyone who says something about it. Famously, Jehan Ara (president of PASHA) was sued for exactly that. Today an acquaintance got takedown notice just for posting link to this article on his FB/Twitter.

Did your acquaintance post it on his/her personal account? I find it alarming that corporations can censor what you share on your own private space online.

yes but with public privacy setting.

Eh, something doesn't add up. The article says they were earning $4000 daily, and it's now over 30x that. While that's a nice amount, it's only about 50M a year. With lavish perks, media companies, salaries, etc., it's not a huge amount, is it?

It is for a Pakistani company.

The average living cost there is about 1/8th of that in the US. Those free cars that every employees get? Probably like $5000 each.

Many people say there is absolutely zero aggregate difference amongst various countries in terms of both governance and culture. Could something like this, on such a scale, actually fly in a western country?

While they are certainly not "degree mills" the for-profit university sector in the US has a very scammy flavor to it. (scammy in that they make lots of false promises about employment prospects of graduates, and encourage students to take out massive loans)

Many online gambling and adult entertainment companies operate and are based on very scammy business models. They deliberately seek to identify and target "whales" who have behavioral addiction problems that can be exploited for money. (although I would argue that internet porn is a legitamate and useful service) In the opinion of many, Zinga was (and is?) a very sleazy and unethical company.

More broadly, there have been many many massive financial frauds in western countries. Dietary supplements, sub-prime housing, madoff investments, the list goes on and on. If anything, the "non developed" world might be more honest than the developed world.

This Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diploma_mills_in_the_United_St... gives a number of examples of US authorities shutting down diploma mills.

Let me also make note of my fav Wikipedia article: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_with_fraudule...

Yes, fake diplomas, work references, receipts, IDs, online presence, etc has always been a lucrative business. There's just more competition and they seem to hide better (not doing everything under one company is a good start, lol).

Here's one of their sites: Columbiana University.[1] The name is similar to the Columbiana campus of Kent State University, but the two are unrelated.

CNN's IReport site, which publishes press releases without checking them, has one of their bogus PR announcements.[2]

Our SiteTruth system is not happy with their site.[3] "No street address found on site ... Secure certificate: No valid certificate. ... Rating: Site ownership unknown or questionable (No Location)" When a site that's trying to sell you something comes up like that, it's not good.

[1] http://www.columbianauniversity.com/ [2] http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-982469 [3] http://www.sitetruth.com/fcgi/ratingdetails.fcgi?url=www.col...

>>Here's one of their sites: Columbiana University.[1] The name is similar to the Columbiana campus of Kent State University, but the two are unrelated.

Actually, they were probably trying to sound similar to Columbia University, which is an Ivy League school.

The guy(John Grey) who wrote Guys are from Mars, and Women from Venus got his Phd form Columbia University, San Rafael Ca.

Personally, I think too many schools are essentially diploma mills. I waiting for good Ivy League Internet school that has low tuition, or free. I believe it will come one day? I understand a student wanting a Master's, but the little extra knowledge gained with a Phd seems pointless?

Personally, if I was hiring a candidate and he told me he stuck around the university 2-3 extra years working on a non-original thesis; I would hire the guy with the masters.

I wish the U.S. Government did away with all degree requirements in hiring for federal jobs, unless the job requires a license(medicine, engineering, law, etc.) and only hired applicants on test scores.

I sometimes feel if a person can pass a series of tests designed to test whether a person can do a job; they shouldn't be penalized for not going to college? (The tests would have to be of high caliper like the California Bar exam.)

>>I understand a student wanting a Master's, but the little extra knowledge gained with a Phd seems pointless?

I think you might be a misinformed. A Ph.D. does not give you "a little extra knowledge" over a Master's. It allows you to deeply specialize in a small part of a given field. By the time you get your Ph.D., you're one of the world's foremost experts on that narrow topic. The value of that might be arguable based on what you studied (e.g. linguistic history of languages in Tanzania might be too obscure), but a Ph.D. is far more knowledgeable than someone with Master's.

The primary difference between a Master's and a Ph.D. is that the former is industry-oriented whereas the latter is research-oriented. That the latter is a continuation of the former is a a common misconception.

Axact has given an official response. Read it here http://www.techjuice.pk/axacts-official-response-to-new-york...

According to the response this article is baseless and Axact has threatened to pursue this case through court.

Website timed out for me.

More hilarious is the claim that the NYT did this attack report because they want to keep Pakistan down and feel threatened by BOL, a pro Pakistan media outlet.

I always find it funny when organizations respond so vehemently and start coming up with outlandish explanations. You rarely see big companies that are on top of their stuff respond in such ways.

If you want an idea of the milieu they're operating in, this might provide some context (the former was published a couple of day before the NYT article).

http://www.dawn.com/news/1182200/more-lethal-than-raw

http://www.dawn.com/news/1182401/war-to-mould-minds

(the authors were colleagues at QAU)

Nothing is going to change until the people at the top realize power doesn't flow from a big stick, 20 kanals of land in Lahore DHA and Okara and a bunch of off the shelf American, French and Chinese military purchases without a defense research establishment to speak of.

Question, if their employees signed NDA's so does that prevent them from testifying in court against Axact? Impersonating a US govt official is a federal offense. Does the NDA prevent them from reporting that as well?

In USA, a contract about illegal activity is not enforceable.

And judges can compel secret information and seal the info in private court documents.

I wonder why they hire so much engineers then instead of Call Centre agents?

It's a lot of work to maintain hundreds of fake university websites.

they DO hire more call center agents than engineers

Traceroutes of Axact and fake university websites leads to the same servers! This can't be a mere coincidence!

You can check this out at: http://pastebin.com/J3tDerkE http://pastebin.com/uhTFpJSM

I cannot help but wonder at the timing of this revelation, coming almost on the heels of Seymour Hersh's essay last week. It was shocking for me to read about the alleged scandal, but for many, it's hardly news.

Hmm. Are you suggesting that this is a hit back at ISI who may have fingers in Axact for the revelation about ISI agent's role in Bin Laden killing? Very interesting!

It's likely. I feel there's much more to it than meets the eye.

I don't understand how technology didn't fix those kind of scams, yet. Seem like a no brainer to me, to prevent fake documents add more securities on them !

I mean, when's the last time you saw a fake bitcoin around ?

I wonder if Google could put up fraud alerts as they do for malware.

Why do NYT headline writers write like a dumb college freshman with a thesaurus?

What word needed a thesaurus?

Also not sure if this headline is a good example but I thoroughly agree with your sentiment. NYT headlines are often florid, pretentious and inappropriately "literary", even when dealing with serious and sad topics.

Broadsheets ie proper news papers do tend to use slightly more adult language when compared to tabloids.

And the NYT is a very old fashioned newspaper.

If the Department of Education just gave everyone a college diploma for free when they turned 18, that would probably do more to improve the quality of the education system than any actual reform over the last fifty years. As it stands, it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that the government is trying to shut them down.

Hmm...I don't think I follow. Care to elaborate?

No. All that would do is make a diploma worthless. Employers would find some other way of determining where you went to school and how well you performed there.

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