Employers: Don’t Get Fooled By The “Diploma Mills” Degree

Go to www.accuscreen.com today for cost effective ways to help prevent resume lies

What are “diploma mills”?

A diploma mill or degree mill is an organization that awards academic and diplomas with substandard or no academic study and without recognition by official educational accrediting bodies. All that is required to get an education from a diploma mill is a valid credit card. There are no real standards and studying is not necessary.

With so many schools out there, ligitimate or otherwise, how can employers make sure they are not being duped by unethical employees? The best way for an employer to get verification is to hire a professional employment background screening agency to research the educational background of an applicant or employee. These agencies have the experience, resources and skills to distinguish between legitimate and bogus schools.

Why employees buy into this

Today’s job market is very demanding. The competition is among job candidates is fierce. As a result, some job seekers feel justified in lying on their resume′ to get a job.
A few of the reasons employees buy into diploma mills is out of desperation, ignorance, laziness and greed. Not exactly the qualities an employer looks for or needs in an employee.

Some employees purchase diplomas under the impression they are getting legitimate degrees. They are sold on the marketing ploys diploma mills use such as accepting “life experience” for credit towards a diploma. While it is true that some legitimate colleges offer “life experience” for credit, it usually under very strict guidelines.

On the other hand, some employees purchase fake diplomas to fool current or prospective employers. These employees see it as an easy way to get ahead with as little effort as possible. After all, $1000 for a bogus medical, nursing or certified public accountant degree is even cheaper than a legitimate community college degree. And for $20 anyone can purchase templates to create the diplomas right of a printer.

How fake diplomas may be a liability for employers

Imagine hiring an employee that turns out to have a fake medical or accounting degree. The consequences can be devastating to innocent clients and to an organization. Keep in mind that the employer is liable for any damage that an employee may cause while on the job. This is especially true if the employee was hired without verification of his or her qualifications.

Accredited, unaccredited and diploma mills

How can an employer tell the difference? Sometimes it is very obvious. Real school: Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA. Fake school: Stanford University–anywhere else. But sometimes it is not so obvious. This must be the case as diploma mills are a billion dollar business. It’s very unlikely these fake schools will disappear any time soon.

In order to attract customers, many of these diploma mills use the exact name or similar name of a well-known college. The people who run these mills know they will eventually be closed down, but in the meantime they will have profited millions of dollars. And even if they are closed down today, they will just open up another “school” tomorrow. This is partly due to the ease to advertise on the internet and the demand for fake diplomas.

How can an employer protect itself against applicants with fake diplomas?

One of the best ways to combat this increasing and persistent problem is to make sure every employee goes through an employment background screen, including an educational background search. A professional employment background firm will be able to distinguish accredited schools from unaccredited diploma mills.

The reality is that most Human Resources departments are too busy to investigate every school on an applicant’s resume or application. Many of these diploma mills are very sophisticated to the point of having a “registrar” that can verify the validity of their diplomas. It’s usually best to leave this type of verification to an experienced employment background screen firm, especially one familiar with diploma mills.

Visit www.accuscreen.com today for cost effective ways to help prevent resume lies

Employers: Avoid The Worst Employees Of The Year!

Contact pre-employment background screen firm Accu-Screen, Inc. at www.accuscreen.com.

The Worst Employees

These employees seem to cause or attract trouble wherever they go. The problems can be mild like the chronic troublemaker who always seems to have a hard time getting to work on time because the car had a flat tire or there was an “accident”. Then there is the extreme employee who can cause physical and financial harm.

Employers can avoid the “worst employees of the year” by having solid recruiting practices in place. This should include using a professional pre-employment screening firm such as Accu-Screen, Inc. The careful screen of an employee can reveal many inconsistencies and allow an employer to make a solid and informed hiring decision.

When you use the services provided by Accu-Screen, Inc. you can avoid hiring employees who are:

• Violent
• Lazy
• Unskilled
• Liars
• Criminal
• Problematic

The worst employees awards

If there was an award for the “worst employees of the year”, these employees would win hands down:

The violent employee

This violent employee should be avoided at all costs. This type of employee does not work well with others and may cause harm to fellow employees and other persons they come into contact with at work.

The lazybones employee

This type of employee will come to work, do as little work as possible and complain all day long about how much work they do. This type of employee is generally unproductive
and likes to spend a good part of the day socializing. This employee acts busy when the boss is around, but will go from cubicle to cubicle at the first opportunity.

Unskilled workers

Several kinds of employees can be categorized under unskilled employees. This employee will usually embellish his or her skills during an interview to land a job.
The lack of skill is readily apparent once this person is asked to perform the tasks in the position. Unfortunately by then they could have caused minor or very serious damage to a business, fellow employees, clients or patients.

Liars

Watch out for fake licenses, credentials, references and even bogus degrees from this employee. They are also known to outright steal someone else’s identity in order to get a job.

Criminal

Some job seekers with a criminal past will lie about it on their resume′ or application.
These employees range from petty criminals to violent offenders. Regardless of the criminal record, an employer should be aware of this prior to making a job offer. Keep in mind that an employer is responsible for his or her employee’s behavior while on the clock.

Problematic employees

• The “Finagle’s Law” employee who is always the victim of an elaborate chain of events that prevents them from being at work on time, coming back from lunch on time and requires them to leave early.
• The “sufferer” who always works harder and longer than everyone else. This employee also refuses to take a lunch or a break because they just have so much work to do. This wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t spend half of their time letting everyone know how “overworked or busy” they are.
• The “saboteur” You can’t turn your back on this employee because she is eyeing your job. This employee makes it difficult for an employer to do their job because of the time, energy and effort involved in managing this employee.
If an award for the worst employee of the year were being given, any of these employees would easily receive it. Employers can make sure they don’t end up with these “winners” by contacting pre-employment background screen firm Accu-Screen, Inc. at www.accuscreen.com.

Don’t Let A “Poor” Employee Send You To The Poor House

Find out how to protect your business against “poor employees” visit www.accuscreen.com today!

What is a “poor” employee?

A “poor” employee is an employee who has a history of poor performance, ethics and skills. Due to these issues, these “poor” employees can drain the company of its resources through loss of profits, theft and lawsuits.

These employees manage to sneak in a company in a variety of ways. The most common reason these types of employees are hired is due to careless or lazy recruiting. Many employers will look at resume′ and judge it by how well it is written. Many of these “poor” employees have another person prepare the resume′ for them. So employers are basically hiring “blindly” and in turn are being robbed blind.

The reality is that most of these employees are just following and repeating their bad behavior at a new position. Many times avoiding these bad employees is just a matter of hiring a pre-employment background-screening firm to verify the information on a resume′ or application. Employers are often surprised at all the inconsistencies that show up on a resume′ once a pre-employment background screen is performed. According to Kevin G. Connell, founder and CEO of AccuScreen, Inc. up to 43% of job applicants lie on their resume′.

The consequences of hiring a “poor” employee are profit loss, lawsuits and bankruptcy.
Other effects of the actions by these inferior employees include reduced staff as a result of loss of profits and damage to the reputation of the business.

Profile of a “poor” employee

Employees with poor performance, ethics, skills and work history come from all walks of life. There is no way to identify them by looking at their resumes′ or job applications.
The following situations are good examples of what can occur when prospective job applicants are not screened:

• A woman accused of embezzling as much as $600,000 from a Spanish Fork Kmart is now being sued by her former employers.

• A cab driver has been arrested and is being held at Orange County Jail on suspicion of raping an intoxicated female passenger in his car.

• Two officials suspended by NASCAR are the same two accused of exposing themselves to a former co-worker who has filed a $225 million lawsuit against the organization alleging racial discrimination and sexual harassment.

• A Greenville woman who admitted she was stealing money in part to pay restitution in two previous embezzlement cases was sentenced to 12 years in prison Wednesday.

Although each of the cases is different, the reason behind these situations is related to a “poor” employee. Many times, after these incidents occur, it is discovered that this is not the first time it has happened.

How to avoid a “poor” employee

One of the best ways to avoid ending up with a problematic employee is to conduct a thorough background search, including a criminal records search. Even if no criminal conviction is discovered, other inconsistencies may be discovered that can save an employer’s finances by avoiding a “poor” employee.

To find out how you can protect your business against “poor employees” visit Accu-Screen at www.accuscreen.com today!

Dental Offices: How To Avoid Being A Target For Employee Theft!

Call 800-689-ACCU (2228) today to get more information on how to protect your dental business against employee theft.

Why dental offices are targets for employee theft

Dental offices are easy targets for unethical employees because of the opportunity and trust these employees are given. The main reasons why some dental office employees steal are the need for money, revenge and excitement.

If you carefully analyze most dental offices, it’s easy to see why so much theft occurs. There is a back office and a front office and they seem to work independently of each other, with minimal supervision. Additionally, the owners–the dentists–are way too busy to keep tabs on the finances and supplies. They are depending on and trusting their staff to do this. As a result some employees take full advantage if they think they can get away with identity theft, fraud and embezzlement.

Why pre-employment screenings are key to reducing employee theft

Dental offices are also easy targets of embezzlers due to the fact that most of the time dental offices do not conduct reference checks. This may be due to the fact that many dental offices are small businesses operating without a human resources department. This may the best reason to hire the services of a pre-employment background-screening firm such as Accu-Screen, Inc. Hiring a professional and experienced employee background firm can help prevent the following scenarios:

• A Miami-Dade County dental assistant was arrested for defrauding the state Medicaid program out of more than $50,000. The dental assistant worked at a Miami dental facility as the office’s Medicaid biller and fraudulently submitted numerous claims for services that were never provided.

• A dental assistant was overcharging patients by creating two bills–a legitimate one and another patients weren’t aware of. The second transaction acted as a customer credit and was deposited with Household Bank or Bank One.

• In Queensbury a 33-year-old Fort Ann woman was arrested on a charge that she stole more than $8,000 from the dental office where she was employed. She was accused of taking cash that was paid by patients for dental services and altering billing information in the computer to cover the theft.

• Dental office assistant–formerly employed by Blandon Dental–was arrested for allegedly using patient’s personal information to commit identity theft, fraud and grand theft. The 21-year old allegedly used private information to open lines of credit at stores such as Target and shopped online during her time of employment. She had the merchandise delivered to her home address, which enabled authorities to find her.

How To Avoid Becoming A Target For Employee Theft

Dentists should assure that all employees go through an employment background screening. It is very effective in uncovering employee theft or other poor working habits shown at a previous employer. It will also help deter applicants that may have something to hide in their background.

When choosing a pre-employment background-screening firm, it is important that the firm have experience and the resources to provide accurate, up to date information. With 14 years of experience conducting pre-employment background and criminal records screenings, Accu-Screen, Inc. can produce the most accurate, factual information to help a company hire safe, qualified candidates.

Visit the Accu-Screen, Inc. website today at www.accuscreen.com or call 800-689-ACCU (2228) to get more information on how to protect your dental business against employee theft.

Employers: Learn The “Fraud Triangle” To Prevent Fraud

Go to www.accuscreen.com today for cost effective ways to help prevent employee fraud.

What is the Fraud Triangle?

The Fraud Triangle is a model developed by Dr. Donald Cressey, a criminologist whose research focused on embezzlers. According to Dr. Cressey, there are three factors that must be present in order for an ordinary person to commit fraud. All three of these factors must be present at the same time in order for fraud to occur:

• Opportunity
• Pressure
• Rationalization

Opportunity

One leg of the fraud triangle is opportunity. The person must see some way she can abuse his or her position of trust to solve her financial problem with a low perceived risk of getting caught. This is the one angle of the Fraud Triangle that employers can control.

When the opportunity for fraud is prevented from occurring, those losses can be avoided and time and effort can be saved in trying to reconstruct fraudulent transactions, track down the embezzler and reclaim missing funds. One of the most cost effective ways to stop fraud from occurring is by conducting a professional pre-employment background screen. By hiring an experienced employee background hiring a firm such as Accu-Screen, Inc., the following issues can be discovered to help deter potential problem employees:

• Serious personal financial problems
• Criminal history
• Unstable employment history

Pressure

Another leg of the fraud triangle represents pressure. This is what Dr. Cressey called a perceived non-sharable financial need. This is what motivates the crime in the first place. The fraudster has some financial problem that he is unable to solve through legitimate means:

• Unable to pay personal bills
• Desire for luxury items
• Drug, alcohol or gambling addiction

Rationalization

The third leg of the fraud triangle is rationalization. Embezzlers do not view themselves as criminals. They see themselves as ordinary, honest people who are caught in a bad set of circumstances.

How to prevent fraud

The key to dealing with fraud is to focus on prevention. It is cheaper and more effective to prevent fraud from happening than it is to try to detect the crime. By the time the fraud is discovered, the money is gone and chances are slim to none that it will be recovered. Additionally, it is costly and time consuming to investigate a fraud.

Perhaps the most important lesson of the fraud triangle is that all three factors must normally be present for fraud to occur. If any one of the three elements is missing, fraud may not occur.

The key to dealing with fraud is to focus on the prevention of opportunity. It is much less expensive and more effective to prevent fraud from happening than it is to try to detect the crime.

Contact Accu-Screen, Inc. at www.accuscreen.com today for cost effective ways to help prevent employee fraud.