Fake Universities

Well, well. The Web is an endless source of fraud. BBC just had a news bit on "Corruption that is damaging education" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/6729537.stm). One part of this was Fake Universities on the Web (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/3369567.stm). Some universities mentioned in the article are "Shepperton University", University of Dorchester", "GM University", "Greater Manchester University Ltd". A check of the still active Web site of "Shepperton University" reveals a page for International Students that says "All tuition and fees must be paid in U.S. currency and all checks drawn on U.S. banks." All other tuition fees are also in US$. Yeah, sure, for an English university in England, you need to pay in Pounds.
But another key way of detecting the fraud is the Web address: From BBC "The website addresses of the bogus institutions are a quick giveaway, because they cannot obtain the bona fide ".ac.uk" domain - though it has been known for some to use ".ac", the Ascension Islands domain." In other countries, like the US, academic institutions usually end in ".edu". In other countries it may be more difficult to get a list of real universities, as there is no system such as "ac.uk", or ".edu". Still, it should not be too difficult to find real institutions with proper Web sites that list addresses, faculty members, etc.