All Posts Tagged With: "Fraud"

Strange apology inside

Some of the computer hardware stolen from the University of Victoria earlier this month was found by a postal worker in a letter box in Langford, B.C. Saanich Police say that all of the laptops and flash drives had been rendered inoperable, although a copy of the information was included, along with a note that police are calling “a strange twist.” CBC News reports that the note says the following: “The information in these bags was not copied, distributed or exploited” and “we want no part of everyday people living in fear that their personal information is being used against them to take [their] hard-earned money. Criminals are human before they were criminals.”  The police are scratching their heads. “Whether it is simply altruism or regret on the part of the suspects or whether it is something more sinister, is unclear to investigators,” they wrote. The computer hardware contained the unencrypted banking information and the social insurance numbers of up to 13,000 current and former employees.

Stole $4,200 from school

A former University of Prince Edward Island student was sentenced Tuesday to one week in jail for stealing $4,200, reports CBC News. Steven Mitchell Colp worked as a room booker for the school. After he graduated, he still had access to the computerized booking system and he used it to request fake refunds that were credited to his own card. Colp is now a graduate student in psychology at the University of Calgary. He wept in court as he apologized for his crime.

“Accomplishments” kept him out of jail: judge

A former student council president at the First Nations University of Canada in Saskatoon has been convicted of fraud and theft of $30,000.

Blue Pelletier, 31, repeatedly wrote himself cheques from the student union’s bank accounts in 2006 and 2007 and never accounted for the money. Three other members of the council testified that Pelletier had told them he had used the money to buy a car and furniture for himself.

But he won’t go to jail. Instead, he’ll serve an 18-month conditional sentence that includes a curfew and he’ll be required to pay $20,000 back to the student’s council, reports CBC News.

Judge Gerry Allbright said that although Blue Pelletier is guilty, he had accomplished so much in his life that it proved the fraud was “no doubt, in my mind, an aberration.” Had it been more than an aberration, he would have gone to jail, said the judge.

That’s despite the fact that Pelletier accused the other council members of lying and blamed the lack of records for the cheques on a “lackadaisical” style of accounting. He had pleaded not guilty.

Scam making the rounds at U of Waterloo

Earlier this week the Waterloo Regional Police issued a warning to students who are trying to sublet or rent off-campus housing, according to an article in The Record, after the fraud branch received reports of a scam that could rob students of hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

The fraud branch in Waterloo warns that the scam involved targeting students who posted rooms for rent on the University of Waterloo off-campus housing website, but the scam is apparently a common one, and police caution students to be suspicious of advanced payments in the form of a cheque which are larger than the agreed upon amount as it’s part of the scam. The cheques are fake, which means you will also lose any cash you’ve advanced them, thinking you’re ‘repaying’ them the difference.

“The bad guys come up with cheques that have some legitimate account numbers on it, though they’re not their numbers,” said Staff Sgt. Dale Roe of the Waterloo Regional Police fraud branch in The Record article. “That just takes more time for it to be caught in the banking system.”

The fraud branch in Waterloo can be reached at: 519-653-7700, ext. 8380.

University to review hiring policy for adjuncts

Allegations that a former adjunct professor faked his credentials is leading the University of Victoria to review its hiring practices. It was reported yesterday that Jason Walker, who also had an administrative role with a Victoria area health clinic, was charged with “fraud, forgery and swearing a false affidavit for allegedly faking his credentials.” Walker has claimed he holds two doctoral degrees.

In 2006, Walker taught three undergraduate courses, and one graduate course at the University of Victoria. Although a PhD is a prerequisite for teaching graduate level classes, the university says there is no clear policy for hiring adjuncts. As the Times Colonist reports:

University policy requires professors to have a doctorate if they’re teaching a graduate course, [university spokeswoman] Patti Pitts said. But the requirements for part-time adjunct professors vary widely from one faculty to the next.

“Quite often, the appointment is based on the reputation of the individual, recommendations from other researchers, and the person’s ongoing affiliations with other institutions or organizations,” Pitts said.

A similarly laissez-faire attitude was taking by the health clinic Walker worked for, which says it saw no reason to verify his credentials because he was working in an administrative role:

Before hiring Walker, VIHA checked his employment references, but not his academic credentials, Marshall said.

“Credentials of potential employees in non-clinical and some mid-manager positions are not routinely verified,” she said. “Mr. Walker’s credentials were not verified as his responsibilities were of an administrative nature, and there was no indication that they needed to be verified.”

By contrast, physicians, nurses, pharmacists and other clinicians must provide proof that they’re licensed and registered with one of the professional colleges.

If adjunct hiring is as spotty as suggested by this story, that is a pretty obvious policy change. Why wouldn’t universities have a formalized procedure for hiring casual faculty? They are taken to be experts in their fields, just like regular faculty, and they are responsible for using that expertise to transfer knowledge to students.

It is unnecessary to subject adjuncts to the sort of grueling hiring process tenure-track candidates go through, but a simple phone call to the institution where a prof. says he earned his doctorate would suffice. Relying on faculty recommendations alone is just lazy.

Are you a member of a Class of 2013 group? Better make sure it’s for real

According to this story by University Affairs deputy editor Léo Charbonneau, all of those “Class of…” groups on Facebook, where students can network, plan activities and share opinions, might not all be legit.

Most universities in Canada have these types of groups. For example, a student starting at Carleton University next fall might want to join the “Carleton University Class of 2014″ before they actually step foot on campus.

But this year, Charbonneau says there have been several cases where these groups, purportedly representing students from a particular university, have been found out as fakes. In the U.S., blogger Brad Ward warned faculty at other universities that Facebook groups were being appropriated by people who had never attended, and were not set to attend, the schools.

“Think of it…posing as an incoming student. Think of the data collection,” wrote Ward. “The opportunities down the road to push affiliate links. The opportunity to appear to be an ‘Admin’ of Your School Class of 2013. The chance to message alumni down the road. The list of possibilities goes on and on and on.”

The Canadian connection to the story beings with Matthew Melnyk, the electronic outreach liaison officer at Brock University’s recruitment and liaison office. Last February, according to Charbonneau, he discovered a Facebook group pretending to represent Brock students. That group was linked to another Facebook group called “Grads of 2009 (Canada)” that had other links to fake “Class of…” websites at more than a dozen Canadian universities.

Melnyk contacted Facebook administrators, and was able to persuade them to take the Brock scam site down, citing copyright infringement on the group’s main logo. But when he met Ward on the Brock University campus, using Ward’s contacts at the social networking site, was able to convince Facebook administration to bring the whole fake Canadian network of sites down.

For more on this story, you can read Charbonneau’s account here, and Melnyk’s blog here.

Anonymous reporting system can take tips either online or over a telephone hotline

A new security reporting tool, designed to allow employees to report theft, fraud, vandalism and unethical behaviour, is creating controversy at the University of Ottawa.

According to the Ottawa Citizen, the trademarked ClearView Connects system, which will cost the school about $13,000 dollars, will collect anonymous tips both online and through a live operator on a telephone hotline. The tips will then be forwarded to the school’s governance office.

In an email to staff, acting vice-president of governance Nathalie Des Rosier says “it is the duty of each employee to immediately report any incidents of wrong-doing related to University activities.”

She says McMaster has a similar reporting policy, as does the University of Lethbridge and Athabasca University.

Some academics are outraged, and say the system represents an invasion of privacy.

“A snitch line — that’s really what this is — creates an atmosphere of mistrust and secrecy,” said James Turk, executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers. “It will open the door to malicious allegations because it promises anonymity.”

Phil Enright, ClearView’s executive vice-president of sales says the service is not a snitch line.

“My clients use it as an employee engagement mechanism — they know their concerns. Employees report things they sincerely believe to be a problem. It’s a positive thing,” he says. “Our clients have reported that the system is extremely valuable. Not just learning about ethics concerns, but learning about people leaving the organization.”

Enright declined to say how many clients the company has, but ClearView is the major player in Canada. He says the system is compliant with the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.

For more, click here.

More than 200 military members, civilians and contractors caught with fake degrees

When U.S. soldiers can’t be all they can be, some fake it.

At last count, more than U.S. 200 service members, army civilians and defence contractors bought bogus university degrees in order to snag promotions and boost their paychecks. One especially sneaky major rose through the ranks with the help of eight fake degrees, including a bachelor’s in Business Management, a master’s in Management and a Ph.D in International Management Strategy.

“To have someone who would go and do something like this, it sickens me,” said one defence department spokesman. “Each case, it is significant, it is egregious and it just smacks right at those core values that we live by.”

The U.S. army has launched its own internal investigation.

Watch the video from WHNT News here.