Beware of Online Learning Cyber Scams and Phishing: How to Know if Online Degree Is Fake or Real? From University Accreditation to Tuition Fees, 6 Ways to Detect ELearning Scam

Cyber scams are not new, and they have been around for years now. With things significantly going online, these scams have become more prevalent, as scammers can send out millions of emails, casting a wide net in hopes of hooking a handful of people. The challenges in all fields have increased, especially among students. With competitions, already being so high, universities have now come with online degrees and distance learning. This gives students a fair opportunity to access quality education. But how to identify, whether a certain online degree is real or fake? Last year, the University Grants Commission (UGC) declared 24 universities as bogus. During such uncertainty, how do you decide if an eLearning is not a scam? From university accreditation to tuition fees, here are six ways which will help you to avoid being tricked by an education scam.

1. Lack of Educational Content

At times, you may come across courses which have little educational content and value and is instead a sales presentation filled with commercial advertising. Through advertising, the course is a guise to persuade you to opt for a sometimes unrelated product or service. Look out for training courses listed with many learning objectives and seek out for Google reviews.

2. Accreditation

The best way is to be sure that any school or distance learning programme is fully accredited, which means, the institution has been reviewed by its peers in the education field and validated or verified. If the university is accredited, you will find a reference to it on their website.

3. Admission Criteria

At times, the admission criteria seem too good to be true. If there are a few simple requirements, such as just a resume and a motivation letter, without asking for prior qualifications or exam results, you should rethink. It can be an exception for open universities, which typically has very few admission requirements.

4. Name of the Institute

Often, fake online degree providers modify reputable universities’ names to trick people into thinking they are authentic or associated with that institute. Be cautious of websites that use these sort of names, and if you suspect something is amiss, do more research.

5. Tuition Fees Upfront

If the institution requires a lot of money upfront before you even know you were admitted, the chances are that it is not legit. Universities never ask to pay the entire tuition fees at a time. It is strictly optional. Usually, tuition fees are paid in instalments, each year or each semester.

6. Phishing

Phishing is one of the most common methods of cybercrime. People often fall their victim. How to avoid that? There are few things you need to keep in mind—no legitimate organisation will send emails from an address that ends with “@gmail.com,” not even Google, in which case, the legitimate email will read “@google.com.” The email is poorly written—you can often tell if an email is a scam or if it contains poor spelling and grammar. If the message creates a sense of urgency, you should be suspicious too.

All these may seem a lot of extra work, but doing so will help you assure that whatever distance or online learning degree programme you choose, it is safe to pursue your future.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 25, 2021 05:53 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).