Gfilui

I know a person who falsely claims having a PhD in computer science.

His name card reads as "Name, PhD" and he has long been working in a high profile and remunerative position for a semi-government company.

However, he does not have a PhD!

He had enrolled for a PhD program in a X university, but his PhD program was terminated, because he could not publish any papers within the allotted time. I have complete details on this person including his registration number with the university, supervisor name, the company name, address and company supervisor name.

Specifically: the maximum duration of the PhD program in this X university is 6 years. To graduate, the university requires the candidate to publish one ISI indexed journal paper or two Scopus indexed papers. This person did not meet the requirements and, in fact, does not even have a conference paper to his credit.

I often feel like informing the company he is serving, as I find this infuriating and deeply unfair, but I just can't seem to make up my mind:

1. Is this the right thing to do?


2. Why should I report this?


3. Why shouldn't I report this?

It is certainly appropriate for you to bring this to everyone's attention. However, it is also important that you do so in a way that will protect yourself from retaliation as you seem to suggest the person has some power.

The dilemma, of course, is that an anonymous accusation is easy to dismiss. But if you can just direct people to source of your information so that they can independently verify your claim it will stand a better chance of being heard.

It is also possible, that the "authorities" are already aware of this and are, in fact, invested in the career of the person. This happens in some places, so, depending on the norms of your location, it may be especially important to protect yourself, and in the worst case prepare for the situation that it won't be addressed.

People who need to lie about obtaining any title are clearly not capable (or not able, maybe for external reasons) of obtaining said title (otherwise they would have done so), but want to enjoy the benefits that come with this title. By not being capable of earning the title (in most cases), the person is not displaying the required traits of those who successfully (through hard work) earned that title, which, in my opinion, gives a bad name to all holders of that title.

There are, of course, some people who have earned a PhD, but still give other PhD title holders a bad name, but it is their right to do so, they have earned the title.

Those who did not do the hard work and did not earn the title do not have the right to do so and need to be reported without exception.

When reported, it should be reported to the ethics council of the university the fake title supposedly came from or the the ethics committee of the Ministry of Education (or similar).

Yes, of course report the situation.

If what you describe is accurate, there is a high likelihood this person committed serious fraud (i.e. mail fraud or wire fraud) as a 'semi-government company' (particularly in the US) is very likely to have required multiple forms of proof of graduation. Federal jobs, for example, routinely require transcripts, documents, the whole file. Federal contractors follow suit.

For this reason, what you claim here is (to me) quite fantastic and requires you to delineate between 'knowing this person is a fraud' and 'I can't find suitable evidence to prove this person is whom he claims to be'. But certainly this sort of thing happens, I assume.

Well, it doesn't sound like you know for a fact that the person did not earn the PhD, but you are surmising it because you can not find published papers.

If you are reasonably confident that the PhD was not earned, then I think you could anonymously notify both the university and the employer. At that point, I believe, you have done your duty, you have raised a question about the credentials someone has claimed. The employer may take this seriously or not, depending on whether they have verified the credentials previously, how important it is to them to be able to prove the person has the credentials, e.g. if an engineer is designing a bridge and lives could depend on it, an employer wants to be sure of an engineer's claim that they have their Professional Engineer license.

Maybe the employer won't care because the work output is satisfactory. I would hope the university would at least make a cursory review based on the student's name and years in the program.

Beyond that, you need to consider if there could be adverse fallout for you. Could someone guess you reported the matter? Could that be held against you? What if you are wrong, and the person has their PhD?

I am a PhD student and I know how hard is to get this title! Long story short: You should let know authorities of what this impostor has done. This is a fraud! a serious one! This is a crime against many people in the X university, in the organization where he or she is serving (serving?), and against all the PhD students who work crazy toward this award!