How to Spot a Fake Transcript
Do you want to know how to spot a fake transcript? Degree/transcript fraud is becoming somewhat more sophisticated than it used to be decades ago. This means spotting the odd transcript from a bunch of them is becoming much more difficult these days unless you know what to look out for.
This post highlights the key things or factors that give away a transcript as a fake. But before then, what is a transcript?
What is a Transcript?
A transcript is technically an official list of grades and academic courses. Transcripts are generally simple but still get the job done, i.e., communicating your suitability for a particular position at your place of work or proving that you are indeed a graduate of a particular accredited university.
How to Easily Spot a Fake Transcript
Identifying a fake transcript these days may be a bit complex. However, you can easily save yourself the headache of going online and searching to see if a particular school is real.
You can spot a fake transcript a mile away, especially if you know. Here they are in no particular order:
Transcript Design
A great transcript design is not all about creativity and unnecessary flourishes. It is about ensuring the information it displays is available and legible.
Design is a compelling way of transmitting a loud and crystal clear message without the need to say anything. A transcript with clear content and a beautiful layout should make the case that your alma mater provides nothing less than a top-tier education.
A transcript should have the following goals:
- Professional
- Easy to read
- Distinctive
- Easy to skim
But most fraudsters seem to forget these goals and focus on designing transcripts with unnecessary flourishes. They focus on long-abandoned typefaces formerly used by old universities, believing that this style makes transcripts look real.
Transcript Components
Most authentic universities or academic institutions take several measures to protect their overall integrity. This includes using sophisticated holograms, watermarks, seals, embossed stamps, signatures, and crests that authenticate any document – including certificates and transcripts – that they give out to their graduating students.
However, fraudsters have also developed their own tech versions of these tell-tale security properties. But most of these fraudsters end up messing up their transcripts.
The first thing to do if you doubt the authenticity of a transcript is to find the school’s official website. Then compare the school’s logo, crests, emblems, etc. to the transcript in your hand.
Carefully check the fonts, the color of the logo’s background, how each letter is printed within logos, badges, seals, etc. Fake insignias can never look as authentic as original versions. This is because most fraudsters do not guarantee the ultimate in realism.
You can contact the office that issues certificates and transcripts in order to verify the authenticity of the academic document in your possession. Make sure you get your hands on an original copy of the transcript, not a Xeroxed version.
Domain Names
Another major factor that gives a transcript as fake is websites with Ascension Island, a prevalent domain choice for fake website service providers and scammers. You can easily recognize such a website via the suffix, e.g., www.fakeuniversitydomainname.ac.uk. The ‘ac.uk’ is the suffix that many fake website service providers use. It is a fraudulent person’s choice because it looks somewhat like a university’s domain. But this is untrue.
Websites with this suffix or domains have been readily restricted since this discovery. This means that any transcript that needs to be verified on a so-called university website with such a domain is fake.
Name and Location of the Academic Institution
Several fake university websites and academic institutions exist today. It is easier these days for fraudsters to claim that they graduated from one obscure academic institution. A quick search online, and you will see a university website with contact information such as a postal or email address and a phone number.
But that is usually where the façade stops. Of course, you may likely receive a response if you mail to that postal address or call the phone number.
However, if you conduct a more profound research, you will discover that the fake university website is just a front. The people that run such websites create fake certificates and transcripts for fraudulent individuals who use them for nefarious purposes. Of course, the fake university will not belong to – or be affiliated with – an actual academic institution such as a high school or university.
Authentication from a University
Some places like the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, etc., have a diverse and substantial high-education sector. This usually makes it somewhat challenging for recruiters to pinpoint or identify students or graduates from one academic institution to the other.
Moreover, rebranding, name changes, and mergers are the norm within the higher education sector. Unfortunately, some fraudsters are usually not updated with the latest happenings in the education sector.
They end up creating transcripts that no university anywhere can verify or authenticate.
Conclusion
As you can see, spotting a fake transcript a mile off is easy, but only if you know what you are looking for.
There’s nothing wrong with creating a fake transcript, as long as you don’t use it for unethical purposes. Moreover, working with inexperienced fake transcript service providers can quickly put you in a spot of trouble. You should avoid this as much as possible.
If you are not a fraudster and do not intend to use a fake certificate and transcript in a dishonest way, you should consider working with the #1 fake transcript service provider, Diploma Makers. We create high-quality, realistic, but fake certificates and transcripts – customized with your personal details – that always pass muster under the most critical examinations.
Diploma Makers has been in business for decades and has created hundreds of perfect match certificates and transcripts. You will find many transcript samples and templates on our website, along with glowing reviews from past clients who have purchased their top-notch service.
Get in touch with Diploma Makers to get novelty transcripts for yourself or your close friends.