Congrats on your totally bogus degree

If you're like most people, you're inbox is filled with spam... porn, penis enlargement, Rolex watches, cheap mortgages, cheap meds, cheap ink... blah blah blah.

One of my favorites is the spam for cheap college degrees. For somewhere between a couple hundred and a couple grand, they'll send you a degree from a "real" university. Some even blatantly advertise "no tests, no books, no hassles" type messages.

Click on the graphic to see one that I received just last week.

There are three levels of reaction I had to this:
1) it was kind of funny that these even exist and that some yahoos fall for it. And like many spam emails, the spelling, punctuation and grammar usually leave something to be desired, which is doubly ironic in an email for a college degree.

2) it makes me a little mad that people are once again preying on people who want to get something without doing the work, and I'm also disappointed in the people that want something for next to nothing. Do the work, ya lazy piece of...

3) as I researched a bit more, the results of people going through these diploma mills are downright scary and even deadly. Folks are practicing medicine with these completely BS (and I don't mean Bachelor of Science) degrees! Check out this article from USA Today about the woman who's daughter died after going to one of these scumbags.

Here's a blurb from Clark Howard's site on fake degrees:

As you may know, there are fake universities operating around the U.S. that will issue you a phony degree if you send them enough money. A bachelor's degree may cost you $200 or $300, while a doctoral degree costs up to $1,000. According to NBC, Pennsylvania's Attorney General wanted to see how far he could take the hoax. So, he sent in his cat's resume. That's right, his cat Colby apparently earned a master's degree in Business Administration from Trinity Southern University. The school is supposedly in the Dallas suburb of Plano. Along with the diploma, Colby got a transcript of all the classes he supposedly took to receive his 3.8 GPA. You might find this funny. But if you're an employer, it can be very damaging. People are "buying" degrees - even doctoral degrees - and passing them off as real because employers don't check as intently as they should. Reference checking is more important than ever because it's so easy to buy your education without doing any work.

Rest assured that my BA in Communication from St. Norbert College is legitimate, thank you very much.