Member Article

Students warned of fraud risk from graduation selfies

As the critical graduation period gets underway, Prospects warns students of the risks of sharing selfies holding their degree certificates.

Graduates taking photos with their degree certificates and sharing them on social media provides an opportunity for counterfeiters to copy the latest university logos, crests, signatories, stamps, holograms and wording.

Graduate careers expert Prospects manages the Hedd Degree Fraud Service on behalf of the Department for Education and is advising graduates to cover up any identifying details on their degree certificates before taking photos to stop the creation of forgeries.

Prospects has launched a toolkit to support students who may be worried about degree fraud, which is a multimillion pound industry spanning fake universities, forged degree certificates, essay mills and CV lies.The student degree fraud toolkit explains how degree fraud can affect genuine students from freshers’ week to their first jobs, damaging career prospects, the integrity of qualifications and devaluing their investment.

Chris Rea manages Prospects Hedd: “Graduation day is one of the proudest events in any student’s life and naturally, they’ll want to document it and show-off their degree on social media. Unfortunately this is a counterfeiter’s paradise. Sophisticated, high-pixel cameras mean that every detail of your degree certificate will be visible. Fraudsters need only to look through graduation hashtags to find hundreds of reference points.

“Fake certificates are commonly sold online for a few pounds and can be passed off as genuine to unwitting employers. Checking degree qualifications with the awarding university or Hedd service is the only way to determine if a candidate has the credentials they claim. It’s in everyone’s interest to verify. It means that employers are protected against dishonest candidates, universities protect their reputation and genuine students can be assured that they are competing for jobs on a level playing field.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Prospects .