To ask for help with possible qualification fraud?

[Shambu]

I've discovered a relation of a close family member is promoting himself to his clients as having an Hons degree he does not have.

I've known him for 20 years, and his qualification was a much lower status one which he didn't finish.

It is featured on his email on all communication with clients.

How would I find out? I contacted the institution to find out if they offered that course at the time, but I cannot make a request for specific information without his being informed.

His qualification was sub degree level and he didn't finish it. He has no further qualifications superseding that.

The uni can't tell me what he studied without them notifying him. Thus all I can ask is whether they offered x course between set dates.

As if people are saying to stay out of it!

Those people are the ones who would be the first on this board to complain about dodgy services from their solicitor, surveyors, financial advisor etc etc.

If I knew someone was purposely deceiving customers I would want to raise it somehow. I don’t know how I’d go about it, probably some basic enquiries first or maybe even mention it in passing “I didn’t realise you had a BA, what uni did you go to” etc.

You know what, if more people were willing to call out the liars and arseholes in this world I actually think we’d be better off.

If he's an accountant then his employer would need evidence of his CPD to rely on his qualification (for CIMA, ACCA, ICAEW at least,.presumably also the other little professional bodies). If they don't bother then they aren't relying on his accountancy knowledge. If he does basic accounts receivable/ accounts payable for example, these roles do not require a professional qualification. Nobody sensible would be taking advice from someone who isn't a member of a recognised accountancy professional body.

A law firm will also require CPD if they rely on his qualification. If he were an independent solicitor then he has to be regulated by SRA.

Surveyors are generally qualified with a professional body before they get senior enough roles to matter; again at that stage he would need to do CPD through RICS, ICES or similar. If someone employs a surveyor without checking that they're qualified then they deserve any issues coming their way.

Insurers rarely check qualifications, some misinformation upthread from a PP if he's self-employed. Employers on the other hand almost always do, because it's a requirement of their insurance that they state they will check.

What are we left with? No idea because OP won't say and knows nothing about however this guy's profession actually works.

Some massive misinformation on this thread.

You don't have to produce proof of your qualifications to get professional indemnity insurance. You don't have to prove your qualifications if you're sued, and being sued doesn't automatically disqualify you from continuing in the relevant profession. For some occupations, e.g. solicitor and barrister, you have to produce proof of your qualifications to the professional body, but that doesn't necessarily apply to all; also you can avoid that by setting up as, say, a legal adviser.

If this man has been with his employers a long time and they've kept him despite being sued, presumably they value him - or else he knows where a lot of bodies are buried.

To simplify...

WHAT IS HIS JOB OP?

If he is an accountant the qualifications go beyond degree level and you do not need a degree to start it.

Oh.
I think people should tell the truth about their qualifications.
I'd like to think that if I read about someone's qualifications, it would be an accurate account that helped me work out whether or not I wanted to use the services they offered.
Have you asked him directly about his degree?
You might want to discreetly suggest to his employers that they check the accuracy of their records regarding qualifications of all their staff.

If he was so shit at his job that his employer was repeatedly getting sued they would have let him go a long time ago

All professional jobs require cpd to keep up with changes in the industry. What he doesn’t know from 20 odd years ago is unlikely to be relevant today

In short this particular scenario smells like bullshit to me

If he is an ACCA qualified accountant, he can convert his professional qualification to include an accountancy degree from Oxford Brookes University. You don't require a degree to be an accountant. Work would be undertaken in the name of his employer, not him as an individual, so he would not be sued in his own right.

if it financial advise etc the FCA is the place to check
If he has a degree does he state which University he got it from?

I'm a bit shocked at people saying this is none of your business and to leave it alone because he has been at it a while.

It is fraud, and he is over-charging, based on his lack of qualifications.

All professional jobs require cpd to keep up with changes in the industry. What he doesn’t know from 20 odd years ago is unlikely to be relevant today

Actually its not. There are a lot of useless, usually men, working in jobs they really can't do, propped up by people paid less than them to fill in the gaps. To take one example, in engineering, I once had to deal with a case where a manager had falsely represented that he had a degree when in fact he had dropped out. He had a history of being unable to complete work involving calculations, which usually was covered up by his getting lower level staff to do it for him. However on one occasion, he had been unable to do this, had done it himself, got the amounts in a quotation wrong, and had ended up binding his company in contract to complete a job for a fraction of the price it cost to actually do the work. Redundancies resulted due to this individual's lack of ability to use maths to do equations with the accuracy required in the profession he worked in. He would have never got the job had he not lied about having a degree when he didn't.

lsatis You don't have to produce proof of your qualifications to get professional indemnity insurance. You don't have to prove your qualifications if you're sued, and being sued doesn't automatically disqualify you from continuing in the relevant profession.

Actually, since insurance is a contract uberimae fidei (in the utmost good faith), it would mean that any insurance is in fact invalidated and could invalidate the employer's insurance, if they knowingly or carelessly condoned his fraud. And in a professional job, being successfully sued for fraud nearly always causes disbarring. If it doesn't, you would most likely only be allowed to continue with a severe restriction.

Moral of the story - if you haven't bothered to put in the work to complete the qualification, you are always at risk of being found and sacked, and you deserve it. People in professions get very irritated by this sort of thing because virtually everyone else has had to put the work in to get where they are. Cheating is cheating whatever excuses you make for it.

Isn't it possible to do his job without the qualification? Lots of people have on the job training and given the length of time he's been with his employer it's likely the qualification may not be that relevant now.

Anyway, if your sister suspects or you've told her he might be lying about his qualification then it's for her to address with him directly, it's not for you to play Mrs Marple to prove your suspicions.

Oh, and depending on the employment set up, a false representation as to a professional qualification could be sufficient to void (invalidate) a contract due to error, where that qualification was a material factor in awarding the contract. Depends on how much authority the fraudulent individual has in the company ie how strongly they represent the company or are involved in the work.

Yeah sounds like bull to me. There is NO occupation where a degree is the requirement.

So who cares apart from OP

I'm leaning towards accountancy/tax as well.

This is my field and you don't need a degree to do it. You may need a degree to make yourself sound fancy to get through the door, but definitely not to do the work.

Degrees (even in accountancy) are not normally helpful in the field anyway. Tends to be experience where you actually learn what to do and not.

Plus I've met a much of professionally qualified accountants who are just plain awful, even though they are accredited.

poopypants So he's been working in the field for 20 years? I think you over imagine what I'm learnt in a degree. Most lawyers don't study a law degree. They do something random and then do s 1 year conversion. They then work and do industry exams.

There really is a load of pish on this thread.

Most lawyers (solicitors, barristers and advocates) do do a law degree and then the one year LPC. There are other routes into the profession following conversion courses but they are a minority and still require a degree to be done. Qualifying through industry exams can also happen but is rarer still. The majority do a law degree at university then the usual route.

www.thelawyerportal.com/free-guides/legal-careers-deciding-on-law/law-statistics-and-facts/

I feel bad for his clients though.

If he's been going for 20 years, I guarantee there is nothing taught on the degree that he needs to know and doesn't already. His clients are not getting short-changed, this is an irrelevance, forget about it.

Moral of the story - if you haven't bothered to put in the work to complete the qualification, you are always at risk of being found and sacked, and you deserve it. People in professions get very irritated by this sort of thing because virtually everyone else has had to put the work in to get where they are. Cheating is cheating whatever excuses you make for it.

Quite. I would add that someone who lies about his qualifications will lie about other things too. Once a liar, always a liar. Perhaps that's what you should tell your DS.

If it is the construction industry and he is advising on projects could be very dangerous. Or even if giving advice like a lawyer does, still can be harmful for someone.

Maybe tell her to get out while she can.

I think you're getting an awful amount of flak for doing the right thing. It's not about dobbing him in, you're clearly trying to protect your DS and in the process protecting him, his clients and employer. Keep going.
I'm sure all the posters here would be pissed off if they wasted a lot of money on a fraud.

That would be truly awful of you. You would ruin his life. Stay out of it.

You would ruin his life. Stay out of it.
Hmm, but his lying and cheating wouldn't bear any responsibility there?

Someone copied my qualifications, even sent in my work examples which I had lent to her. She got fantastic jobs, went to USA on the back of my degree, however, what she did had no economical effect on anyone so I let it be.
Of course it did! Directly! Someone who actually HAD the qualifications should have had the job she got!

Wow, just leave it be. 20 years experience tops any degree! People are so get up about university these days but seem to forget that university generally speaking doesn't train individuals for anything! It's at best proof of being able to absorb information and develop concepts.

I don't understand this. Why was he sued and not his employer? When he was sued his lack of qualification would surely have been soon uncovered?