Federal officials caution that some people are buying phony credentials from “diploma mills” — companies that sell “degrees” or certificates on the Internet without requiring the buyer to do anything more than pay a fee. Most diploma mills charge a flat fee, require little course work, if any, and award a degree based solely on “work or life experience.”

According to officials from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Department of Education, and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) bogus credentials can compromise your credibility — and your organization’s. You could place an unqualified person in a position of responsibility, leaving your organization liable if the employee’s actions harm someone. You could hire a person who is dishonest in other ways, exposing your organization and colleagues to potential damage. And if the bogus degrees are brought to light, you risk embarrassment.

The agencies have teamed up, putting new tools in place to help you weed out bogus academic credentials and insure the integrity of your hiring process.
Tell-tale Signs of a Bogus Degree

Although it’s not always easy to tell if academic credentials are from an accredited institution, the federal officials say there are clues to help you spot questionable credentials on a resume or application. Look for:
Out of Sequence Degrees. When you review education claims, you expect to see degrees earned in a traditional progression — high school, followed by bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral or other advanced degrees. If an applicant claims a master’s or doctoral degree, but no bachelor’s degree — or if the applicant claims a college degree, but no high school diploma or General Educational Development (GED) diploma, consider it a red flag, and a likely sign of a diploma mill.

Quickie Degrees. It generally takes time to earn a college or advanced degree — three to four years for an undergraduate degree, one or two years for a master’s degree, and even longer to earn a doctorate. A degree earned in a very short time, or several degrees listed for the same year, are warning signs for the hiring official or the person doing the preliminary screening.

Degrees From Schools in Locations Different From the Applicant’s Job or Home. If the applicant worked full-time while attending school, check the locations of the job and the educational institution. If the applicant didn’t live where he went to school, check to see if the degree is from an accredited distance learning institution, using the steps described under ‘Checking Out Academic Credentials.’ If the degree is not from a legitimate, accredited distance learning institution, it may be from a diploma mill.

Sound-Alike Names. Some diploma mills use names that sound or look like those of well-known colleges or universities. If the institution has a name similar to a well-known school, but is located in a different state, check on it. Should you come across a degree from an institution with a prestigious-sounding foreign name, that calls for some homework, too. Researching the legitimacy of foreign schools can be a challenge, but consider it a warning sign if an applicant claims a degree from a country where she never lived.
Checking Out Academic Credentials

Federal officials recommend that you always check academic credentials, even when the school they’re from is well-known. Some applicants may falsify information about their academic backgrounds rather than about their work history, possibly because employers are less likely to check with schools for verification or to require academic transcripts.

Here’s how to verify academic credentials:
Contact the school. Most college registrars will confirm dates of attendance and graduation, as well as degrees awarded and majors, upon request. If the applicant gives permission, they may provide a certified academic transcript. If you aren’t familiar with the school, don’t stop your research just because someone answers your questions on the phone or responds with a letter. Some diploma mills offer a “verification service” that will send a phony transcript to a prospective employer who calls.
Research the school on the Internet. Check to see if the school is accredited by a recognized agency. Colleges and universities accredited by legitimate agencies generally undergo a rigorous review of the quality of their educational programs. If a school has been accredited by a nationally recognized accrediting agency, it’s probably legitimate. Many diploma mills claim to be “accredited,” but the accreditation is from a bogus, but official-sounding, agency they invented.

You can use the Internet to check if a school is accredited by a legitimate organization at a new database of accredited academic institutions, posted by the U.S. Department of Education at www.ope.ed.gov/accreditation. (There are a few legitimate institutions that have not pursued accreditation.)

To find out if an accrediting agency is legitimate, check the list of recognized national and regional accrediting agencies maintained by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation at www.chea.org.

Look at the school’s website. Although it is prudent to check out the school on the Internet, it’s not always easy to pick out a diploma mill based on a quick scan of its site. Some diploma mills have slick websites, and a “dot-edu” Web address doesn’t guarantee legitimacy. Nevertheless, the website can be a source of information. Indeed, federal officials say it’s probably a diploma mill if:

Check other resources. There is no comprehensive list of diploma mills on the Web because new phony credentialing sources arise all the time. However, the Oregon Student Assistance Commission’s Office of Degree Authorization maintains a list of organizations it has identified as diploma mills at www.osac.state.or.us/oda. Another way to check up on a school is to call the registrar of a local college or university and ask if it would accept transfer credits from the school you are researching.
Ask the applicant for proof of the degree and the school’s accreditation. If you don’t get satisfactory answers from the school itself and the accreditation sites on the Web, ask the applicant for proof of the degree, including a certified transcipt, and the school’s accreditation. Ultimately, it’s up to the applicant to show that he earned his credentials from a legitimate institution.

OPM oversees the federal work force and provides the American public with up-to-date employment information. OPM also supports U.S. agencies with personnel services and policy leadership including staffing tools, guidance on labor-management relations and programs to improve work force performance.

The U S. Department of Education establishes federal policy and administers and coordinates most federal assistance to education. It assists the president in executing his education policies for the nation and in implementing laws enacted by Congress. The Department’s mission is to serve America’s students—to ensure that all have equal access to education and to promote excellence in our nation’s schools.

For More Information

The FTC works for the consumer to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair practices in the marketplace and to provide information to businesses to help them comply with the law. To file a complaint or to get free information on consumer issues, visit ftc.gov or call toll-free, 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357); TTY: 1-866-653-4261. The FTC enters Internet, telemarketing, identity theft, and other fraud-related complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a secure online database available to hundreds of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad.

Your Opportunity to Comment

The National Small Business Ombudsman and 10 Regional Fairness Boards collect comments from small businesses about federal compliance and enforcement activities. Each year, the Ombudsman evaluates the conduct of these activities and rates each agency’s responsiveness to small businesses. Small businesses can comment to the Ombudsman without fear of reprisal. To comment, call toll-free 1-888-REGFAIR (1-888-734-3247) or go to www.sba.gov/ombudsman.

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Who I Recommend

When you go to Belize you will discover that a golf cart rental is a fun way to go about your trip there. Having a golf cart is in no way necessary but it will make the trip a little more convenient. We actually walked everywhere for most of the trip but eventually resorted to renting a golf cart from a place near the airport. We rented golf carts from Captain Morgan’s and Cholo’s. I recommend both of these companies as we had absolutely no issues with either company and I never felt like I was being swindled and I got a great deal on the carts. One way to get a good deal on rentals is to get a promotional referral from a hotel or resort near by. You can usually get the cart for much cheaper by going through a referral.

Who I Don’t Recommend

I don’t recommend Island Tour Rentals. This company is next to the large pink grocery store and is owned by the same family. They have been written about extensively on Belize message boards by multiple people claiming to have been scammed or overcharged by them either with their golf cart rental or when buying groceries. A recent incident from this year is the most disturbing of all. The golf cart rental company had a little knowledge of how the courts work in Belize and held an American couple hostage in Belize through a court order. With the couples young kids at home they had to stay in Belize until the government allowed them to leave.

The story goes like this: An American couple who loves San Pedro Belize and vacation here often rented a golf cart from Island Tour Rentals for 1 week. One of the days a dog was chasing the cart and growling and appeared like it was trying to bite their feet so they swerved to get a way from the dog and tipped the cart. Some locals came and helped tip the cart back upright and they were on their way again. They noticed it had caused some superficial damage to the cart and went immediately to the cart rental company to report the damage.

Island Tours immediately estimated the damage to be $12,000 in Belize dollars. They said the chassis was damaged and so the entire cart would need to be sold for parts and scrapped. There was mud on the chassis which made it to where you could not even see the chassis so there would have been no way to detect if the chassis was in fact damaged or not. The estimate of damages seemed to have been pulled right out of their exteriors. The police came by and estimated the damages to be $1,000 and two other mechanics estimated the damages to be $900 and $560. Not one of the mechanics or the police mechanic found any sign of chassis damage. The police took the credit card slip from the golf cart rental company and told them to not charge them for any damages until it has been investigated. The cart company went ahead and charged their card for $6,000 anyway.

As the story moves on, the cart company sues them for damages and the Belize government forces them to stay in Belize until the court case has been settled. If this were to go to the Supreme Court in Belize the couple could stand to have to stay in Belize for 1 -3 years until the case is decided. Fortunately the San Pedro business community rallied behind Sandra and Norman Warren and wrote the Belize Tourism Board requesting they make a decision on the matter expeditiously so that the Warrens can go back home with their children. Amazingly the San Pedro Business Association and community, realizing the golf cart company was trying to scam some tourists, put up the needed $8,000 security deposit showing that the couple was in good faith to pay if the cart really was in need of this amount of repairs.

Having the money secured in good faith in a bank account allowed the government to give the go ahead for the couple to go home and await the trial whenever that may actually happen. The trial has not yet been held but we believe that the couple will more then likely only need to pay around $1,000 rather then the amount of money Island Tours tried to extort from them.

Tell Us Your Story

If you would like to give us your own story of how your good or bad experience went with a particular Golf Cart rental in San Pedro then please send us your comment. We would like to know.

You can write Island Tour Rentals showing your support for the couple and your unwillingness to ever shop at their grocery store or rent a golf cart from them again by emailing them at this address:

Store:  Island Tour Rentals
Manager: Karol Maldonado
Email: ilandtourrental@btl.net

You can read more about this story here: Ambergris Caye, San Pedro Daily, and San Pedro Sun

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Fun Without The Danger

Belize has an amazing amount of variety and natural things to explore. If you are used to taking a vacation and then walking around in store after store not really trying anything new then I would definitely recommend you give Belize a try. The country of Belize is a British Colony but has since been made independent. They still have the queen on their currency and pride themselves on being America’s friends. This means safety for you and your family. The country is very compatible for families who need an exotic location to go for vacation without all the danger.

Where To Go In Belize

If you want an idea of where to stop off to begin with I would go to Belize City and take a ferry over to San Pedro island. Keep in mind that you will hear from people that San Pedro is the expensive island. When tourists and the locals say this they are meaning the accommodations are expensive. One thing you can do to offset the expense of a hotel room is to stay about 5 minutes (walking distance) offshore by walking over to Pedro’s Inn. You can sleep there and then in the morning walk right up to one of the best spots on the beach everyday and it only takes about 5 minutes. The stroll to the beach is quite nice and you will pass several shops and delicatessens on the way to your swim in the crystal blue water. When you jump into the ocean don’t be surprised to see all kinds of marine life swimming around you. Don’t worry as there is nothing dangerous, you will just see a variety of beautiful colored fish.

While you stay on San Pedro I would recommend taking some snorkeling tours a couple times. You will have so much fun and see a variety of water life and coral reefs. Belize has the 2nd largest coral reef in the world so you will not be disappointed. If you can find a kayak rental you can canoe yourself right on out to the reef and anchor it. You can then get out and swim at your leisure while you come back for a packed lunch when you get tired enough for a snack.

This is only the beginning to a fun vacation in Belize as you will have other opportunities as well. You can go caving and look at ancient Mayan ruins and skulls, or you could go check out the Mayan pyramids in the jungles of Belize. Stop by a tour guide shop and you will see enough expeditions to last you a few months. Pick a couple of the popular ones by asking several tourists as well as locals which ones they prefer. There is nothing better then getting the advice from someone who has actually done what is being advertised. My wife would recommend the butterfly garden in San Ignacio. If you are a fan of butterflies then you will not want to miss this place. They have a museum of the Mayan culture and history as well as an outdoor room full of butterflies.

If you happen to stay at Pedro’s Inn in San Pedro Belize let Peter know Donny sent you. It is the best Belize Hostel by far and I’m talking from 3 weeks experience staying there in my cool air conditioned room drinking bananna shakes and eating my Pedro’s Inn pizza’s from their delicous pizzeria. Their Pizza is amazing, at least stop by and give it a try and come back here and comment on how you liked it.

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Rough Diamonds

De Beers currently controls about 40% of the diamond market and takes proactive steps to make sure conflict free diamonds or blood diamonds do not make it into their supply of diamonds. De Beers has requested places like New York where the Gemstone industry is the strongest to help in training the African countries in learning how to polish and cut diamonds. De Beers request to have the New York gemstone industry teach the African communities and businesses about polishing and cutting makes it even clearer just how much New York has control of the wholesale diamond market. In order to buy diamonds at wholesale prices you must be in touch with the diamond suppliers in New York as well as the GIA certification companies in this city.

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How To Buy Diamonds At Wholesale Prices

No this is not a marketing gimmick as you will see there are many many of them as you search for wholesale diamonds on the internet. There are so many advertisements and diamond portals that link up to the same typical diamond retailer that would never sell you a wholesale diamond that it is enough to make your head spin. This articles intent is to make it simple for you to bypass the multiple pages on Google and Yahoo of spam and fake online diamond discount stores.

First Step

It is very simple; you need to go to at least 3 different diamond retailers in your town. You will receive a card that has the 3 C’s (Carat, Cut, Clarity). You use this card to find the diamond of the quality you are interested in. The card will be free so you can take it with you to the other stores. A few stores you could go to are Walmart, Sam’s Wholesale Club, and James Avery. These are stores in my town but you will probably have similar stores or a local jeweler will do the trick. You need to write down the price of the diamond, the color, cut and clarity. In the end of the process you will use this to make a comparison chart. One other thing to ask the store is if the diamond is GIA certified. Any other certification claim is an appraisal and not an actual certification of the diamonds quality. Why is this important? If it isn’t GIA certified, the diamond retailer could be giving you a wrong estimate of the diamonds quality. GIA certified diamonds are more expensive and are not in most stores but if you can you want to give extra weight to these diamonds as they can be guaranteed on the quality.

Chances are that after leaving these stores with notebook in hand with the 3 C’s and the questions you have asked on the paper you will be asked back in. The store owner will give you a cheaper price quote as he will see you are a serious buyer. Take advantage of this as it will get your diamond price closer to the current diamond retail price. Cross out the previous price and right the new price.

Next Step

You now want to get on Craigslist.com. Why not eBay? You want to avoid eBay as there are many stores selling clarity enhanced diamonds. This is where they inject glass into a flawed diamond so that it looks as if it has no flaws. The ones that are selling genuine quality diamonds are also suspect as the auction will usually go up at the end suspiciously beyond a reasonable eBay auction price. Many of these stores hook potential buyers into the auction only to bid on their own auctions to hike the price to their acceptable selling price. This practice is against eBay’s rules but it happens all the time. Craigslist.com is a free local listing classifieds site for all major cities in the U.S.A. You will find many previously engaged people on here with “I don’t want it anymore syndrome”. You can take advantage of this psychological principle. These people want to get rid of some bad memories and will likely sell the diamond for $1,000 - $2,000 off what they paid for it. Now I know what you are thinking, “I don’t want a used ring” Keep reading as this will not end in you buying a used ring.

You buy the ring off of Craigslist.com for a discount after measuring it with the prices and quality criteria on your chart. You want to buy a GIA certified ring if possible and you want the original receipt. Many diamond jewelry stores will allow you to trade in a GIA certified diamond ring for a ring of 20% or greater in value. Verify the store and receipt and make sure they have this policy in place before buying it from the seller on Craigslist.com. Now all you need to do is trade in your discounted ring in for a ring of your choice of 20% or greater value.

Summary

You have now found out how to successfully buy a wholesale diamond ring at current diamond prices while avoiding the marketing hype offered on several diamond stores on the internet. This method is fool proof so long as you follow my suggestions. You will save thousands of dollars and the diamond you choose will be your choice and may even allow you to buy the diamond ring you wanted but just couldn’t afford.

About The Author

Donny is a diamond expert having been involved in buying diamonds and working with gemologists for 5 years. He has valuable industry experience in the diamond retail field and has written several articles on the subject of diamonds and diamond prices.

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If you look on the internet and do a search for wholesale diamonds or discount diamonds you end up finding quite a lot of spam or websites hiding their own agenda within somewhat informative material. I began to pull my hair out trying to find a purely informative diamond site that had no alternative marketing agenda.

So what did I find out after searching through the first 10 pages of Google search results for diamonds?

I was able to find craigslist advertisements for some people who were recently engaged and now need to get rid of their diamond ring. This was helpful information but there was still a small problem. The guarantee that you are getting a legitimate quality diamond ring is sketchy at best. As far as you know the craigslist seller could have put a low grade diamond in the ring while claiming it is a certified quality diamond.

In order to get around a possible scam I filtered through to those rings that have a GIA certified slip with the diamond. There of course is still the possibility that a switch was made and they are just giving you the GIA certificate of the diamond they are now keeping for themselves.

The secret when buying diamonds from a regular Joe off of Craigslist

Then I ran across a policy that many legit diamond stores offer. The policy goes something like this, “You may return your ring at anytime for a ring of 20% or greater value.” This means you could potentially buy a GIA certified deeply discounted diamond ring along with keeping the previous owner’s receipt from the diamond store they bought it at and exchange it for a more expensive ring. That means you could buy a .75 karat diamond ring for $2,000 off what they paid for it and exchange it for a 1 Karat diamond solitaire ring probably around the cost of the .75 karat diamond ring. You can do this simply because you bought it from someone with an “I don’t want it anymore syndrome” attitude. They just had their engagement broken off and they don’t want the memory of, just being rejected, by a very expensive ring sitting on their dresser. If they can sell it to someone at a $2,000 loss they will do it.

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I ran into a magazine sales guy today at my apartment. He came by and knocked on the door and had a clever sales pitch. One of the pitches was that the money could be donated to a charity of my choice. They basically work in every possible angle to sale you a magazine. I was really interested in this group because an old friend had been in one of these groups a long time ago and said it was a drug and alcohol infested type of organization usually and that it was a terrible influence on the young kids who travel with these magazine sales companies.

What do you like most about the magazine sales group?

“Mainly traveling and seeing new places across the country. Not so much the money.” 

What is the name of the magazine agency?

“I cannot tell you, they may track this information back to me.”

Do they provide alcohol or drugs and other perks?

“They do not provide drugs alcohol or parties at all.”

What are the ages of the sale people?

“Age range is 18 - 27″

What is the background of the sales people?

“Most have graduated highschool. Some are highschool drop outs.”

How long do the sales people do this for?

“Maximum about 4 years. I have been doing it only 4 months.”

 What is your boss like?

“He has been doing it for 30 years and owns the business. He has 1 kid and is divorced. The business is with the BBB.”

How many are in the crew?

“There are 20 people in the crew and they drive two vans out of their hub hotel location in Lousiana each day.”

How much does your boss make?

“I have no idea how much he makes.”

What are the perks?

“No other perks besides the travel.”

Where do you stay?

“We stay in nice hotels throughout the country, 2 per room.”

Do they provide a script and can you make up your own script?

“They give a basic 5 step script but they want you to stick to the NCA contest, $1,000 to a positive career goal and a trip.”

Is the boss a demanding controlling sales manager?

“The boss tries to be upbeat and positive and they are not a scam operation.”

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1. Download this file - Combofix

2. Double click combofix.exe & follow the prompts.
3. When finished, it shall produce a log for you. Post that log in your
reply to these instructions.

Note:
Do not mouseclick combofix’s window whilst it’s running. That may cause
it to stall.

After you have run combofix and have followed the instructions above, download this file to your desktop: Combofix script 

Drag and drop this script file onto the Combofix application as the image shows you.

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Follow the Vundofix at the bottom of this page to fix the issue

The latest variant of Smitfraud C may not change your screen saver or background but it will install some softwae that will cause webpages to randomly appear as you browse the web. Some of the pages are www.broadcaster.com and a winpcdoctor virus remover site. Several other virus removal webpages come up and some ask you to pay for their program to remove this spyware and virus trojan at an unrealistic price.

The spyware trojan virus basically holds your computer hostage with annoying pop ups until you pay to have it removed using their software.

Lots of the Removal tools out there for this are outdated and no longer work. Even the manual removal instructions available on the internet are no longer relevant to the latest variant.

These instructions work as of August 2007 in removing the Smitfraud-C Spyware program that has been lately propagated via spam email across the internet. Many of the spam mails are labeled postcard or someones name along with a pdf file.  

Please download VundoFix.exe to your desktop.

• Double-click VundoFix.exe to run it.
• Click the Scan for Vundo button.
• Once it’s done scanning, click the Remove Vundo button.
• You will receive a prompt asking if you want to remove the files, click YES
• Once you click yes, your desktop will go blank as it starts removing Vundo.
• When completed, it will prompt that it will reboot your computer, click OK.
• Please post the contents of C:\vundofix.txt.

Note: It is possible that VundoFix encountered a file it could not remove. In this case, VundoFix will run on reboot, simply follow the above instructions starting from “Click the Scan for Vundo button.” when VundoFix appears at reboot.

Please also post a fresh HijackThis log. There may be some more left overs to clean up with HijackThis, but we can deal with that when you post a fresh log file.

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To begin let me explain what Digg is

Some people are not familiar with Digg so I will do my best to explain. Digg is an online bookmarking site. Instead of bookmarking your site in Internet Explorer you actually go online to Digg.com or you have a button in Internet Explorer for Digg. By clicking on this button you are “digging” the webpage you are on or “adding” it to your favorites in the Digg.com system. As more people add it as their favorite it gets a higher ranking. It could eventually be “dug” so many times that it reaches one of the top articles of the day.

What is so great about being “dug” on digg.com

If a website makes it to the front page on Digg.com they will receive millions of visitors to their site for that day. Everyone knows visits mean money and so they could potentially make tens of thousands of dollars on this particular day. There are people out there who have several hundred digg accounts. They digg over 100 articles a day and get their clients up onto the top page. They charge anywhere from $2,000 - $3,000 to do this but it is well worth it to the internet entrepreneurs who make most of their money by selling their product online. Lets say 1,000,000 people view a site that paid a Digg extrepreneur $3,000. Chances are that 2% of the people viewing the article will click on a pay per click ad or buy something he is selling. The website owner stands to make $50,000 from that day alone. This is only a guess as to the money thath is available out there but there are people taking advantage of it and it is quite interesting to say the least.

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