Pakistan’s Largest Software Exporter Sells Fake Diplomas And Reaps Millions In Revenues

A Karachi based company, Axact software, has been at the centre of a global fake diploma scam. The company has portrayed a vast education empire which offers online degrees in dozens of disciplines, but in reality peddled fake academic degrees. This vast global scam has defrauded millions of students, turning it in to a big time Ponzi scheme.

The company Axact Software operates out of the port city of Karachi and boasts of employing over 2,000 people. It does sell some software applications, but the major revenue is derived from selling fake diplomas online. The company has websites with glossy photographs of sunlit campuses, smiling students, distinguished looking professors and fake academic degrees bearing signatures of U.S. secretary of State John Kerry. It is said that the company earned millions of dollars per month, which is recycled through many offshore companies.

According to the New York Times, the company has been positioning itself as a prestigious online school and its websites periodically crop up on online searches. But the school itself does not exist and the web of deceit is spun through stock photographs, paid actors and fake endorsements. The New York Times report adds that “In fact, very little of this virtual academic realm, appearing to span at least 370 websites, is real — except for the tens of millions of dollars in estimated revenue it gleans each year from thousands of people, all paid to a secretive Pakistani software company.”

Axact has reportedly taken advantage of the chronic lack of regulation in Pakistan, hiding behind proxy Internet services. At the Axact headquarters, customers are duped and pushed to enrol for courses which do not materialise. The sales person even impersonates American officials to sell their scam and force customers to buy expensive certifications and authentication documents. Some customers are even assured that their life experiences are enough to get them a degree. But there are some who are willing participants and pay money for a fake diploma.

According to BrandSynario, these revelations have created a storm and #Axact has become a trend of the day. The Twitteratis have bashed the company and slammed it for giving Pakistan a bad name.

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