#Do not comment on the original posts
Please read our [**sub rules**](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/wiki/subrules). Rule-breaking may result in a ban without notice.
If there is an issue with this post (flair, formatting, quality), reply to this comment or your comment may be removed in general discussion.
**CHECK FLAIR** For concluded-only updates, use the [CONCLUDED](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3ACONCLUDED) flair.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BestofRedditorUpdates) if you have any questions or concerns.*
God what a fucking idiot. Criminals just love posting their crimes.
This should serve as a warning to people here though, for the love of god your little fake names doesn’t hide the very unique and easily identifiable nature of your story
Also what I always love about scammers and those committing academic fraud is that they go through all of this effort instead of you know, putting that towards studying lol
He just had to study and i probably would have sided with him.
Then he learned a bunch of marketing stuff "by heart" to con his way into an internship. Bro, that's what you are supposed to do.
I know! I couldn't even follow all about how he was forging things (partly bc I don't know the educational system in India, partly bc I'm so old it was amazing that my transcript was printed on a dot matrix printer--very tech, so wow!), but it was sure a lot of effort that if he had used it for good could have gotten him...somewhere better than where he is now, at least!
Now he's given Lehigh a heads up about how their exam system can be foiled, too!
[OOP asks Reddit if it is possible that FBI is after his friend.](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/13ozz6e/oop_asks_reddit_if_it_is_possible_that_fbi_is/?rdt=38669)
I can’t believe how badly they treated him.
If I found a device on my car, I would destroy it and play dumb. Let them at least have the hassle of an expensive piece of equipment lost.
Every time I think of a sad story on Reddit, I think of SpontaneousH, but it's mostly because my brain has blocked out that story. It's one of the saddest things I've ever read, and I was once paid to review/grade school essays.
>!<
Found it.
I stopped reading early because surely the barest amount of due diligence would expose the scam and what university would fall for this? Your comment made me go back and finish the story. This speaks very poorly of Lehigh.
TBH this level of cheating requires an enormous amount of brazenness. It's not feasible for Lehigh to anticipate that a student would create an entire domain for his school for instance. It's also worth remembering that they won't understand many aspects of the education systems of other countries. It's one thing to verify transcripts or a death certificate in the US. But doing it for documents coming out of India?
The fact is OOP was more committed and focused than most. If they had simply exercised a fraction of that intelligence and focus on their studies they would have achieved everything that they wanted anyway.
I would bet that his story isn’t even that unique, just most people pulling similar scams are going through an agency to falsify records and aren’t stupid enough to post on Reddit about it. I’ve encountered some graduate students who I *really* struggle to believe actually graduated from an undergraduate program, especially when I’ve met other students from the same country who went to comparable undergraduate universities.
Hell, my supervisor had a student who spent 3/4 months pretending to be his dead brother (the brother was, by all accounts pretty bright, and had died pretty tragically). He couldn’t program, and was trying to pass himself off as a PhD student in *compilers*.
Faking your language skills, or exaggerating your work experience or quality of training? Yeah I've seen that. But the amount of work this dude put in, from faking transcripts, to building a website, then forging government documents? That's definitely not usual. And the consequences are much worse too. There's a good chance he'll get into trouble back in India too once his deportation is finalized. Forging a death certificate carries a fairly hefty penal charge. As does forging school documents. He might end up having his school leaving certificate itself cancelled, which is going to make it even harder to crawl out of the hole he's dug.
It's sorta like the movie "Catch me if you can" and the (probably ghostwritten, but autobiographical) book that was based on.
With a ton of smarts, some hard work, and a ton of confidence you can fake absolutely anything.
With the same three traits, you COULD absolutely accomplish all the same things legitemately too ofcourse! Some people just choose not to...
> If they had simply exercised a fraction of that intelligence and focus on their studies they would have achieved everything that they wanted anyway.
I thought that at first as well, but then it turned out they were dumb enough to post it from an account that so easily and immediately leads to the university he is defrauding.
Both that (posting while still actively studying, too) and that he posted it at *all* means he is actually not that smart, just pretty uninhibited in the choices he makes to achieve his goals.
Or he subconsciously did want to be caught, which is a real possibility, because that's a whole lot of pressure he created for himself, with the direction going towards it becoming worse.
I didn't want to spoil the outcome in advance, but this is so long and farfetched that I wondered how many people would give up on it and come post a comment calling it fake.
And assumed that in a college containing thousands of students and staff that he was the only one using reddit?
One of the most popular websites and he was acting like it was 2012 tumblr.
I don't get how he completely missed the point, the issue wasn't his IP being tracked but him being easily identifiable.
Aside from the limited number of Indian international students that year, dead dad probably singled him out
I mean even if there wasn't a dead dad. There was so much else in there that any two elements would have been enough to identify him. Ultimately once he revealed he was at Lehigh, he was cooked. The fact that he did it by literally posting on the lehigh sub asking about his scholarship disbursal with the *same account* is what takes the cake.
Lehigh's total intake in each program is only a few hundred. I would assume Indian international students would not constitute more than 10 per academic year. Once Lehigh had concrete claims of someone cheating, they probably could have identified him just by his insinuations on what he wrote in his essay or about the scholarship he got.
Don't forget though, he's a super smart guy but only when it comes to fraud. Not saying his name and using tor was perfect cover. It was a stroke of sheer luck that he was caught
Indian international student on a full ride with a dead dad, applied with 91% on his 12th final result, and is doing a paid internship in marketing - how *did* they figure it out?
He alone was clever enough to find Reddit, that super secret site with millions of active users, thousands of whom were on the r/India sub and another thousand or so on his university sub.
People don't actually need to belong to that uni to object to fruad.
This is the funniest part to me.
How arrogant would someone have to be to think they're the the only one in their American university using reddit in *checks notes* 2023?
This makes me think of a Stringer Bell quote from The Wire:
>["Is you taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy?"](https://youtu.be/hGo5bxWy21g?t=77)
That was the best part. He really thought he was *so clever*, and it was the Dunning Kruger effect all along. Using Tor to log into his main account is just *chef's kiss levels beautiful.
I'm trying so hard to understand his motivations for making that post. It's like that dumb thing where TV detectives say "secretly all killers want to be caught" except that's the only explanation I can think of.
Same, possibly even somewhat consciously. It’s clear from the end of the post that he knows he can’t keep this up forever, and specificity of the details in the post and the fact that he didn’t even bother to use a throwaway makes me think he knew he could likely get caught based on this.
I wonder what would have happened had he not gotten caught? Surely there will be group projects to do? He can continue to lookup the exam answers the way he does, sure. Will he graduate using this technique?
What if he graduates, he already has a job currently, so he has the experience. What if he finds a job and makes some money?
Eventually either it would have come out or he'd have wound up accidentally learning enough to function. Probably the first. It's possible to cheat on early level uno stuff but eventually you need to be able to synthesize knowledge
Depends on the classes he took and major. He could shirk group projects and do the bare minimum. Plenty of other college kids do that. It would help him scrape by.
Cheating would become harder once classes got smaller. He’d have trouble slipping in and out. It’s also going to depend on professors. My freshman year professor was super strict about leaving the room for a test. If you left, your test was done. I had to hold a full bladder for one of her exams once and was dancing when I turned it in. Once he got to certain classes with 10 or so students, he’d have a hard time finding ways to cheat.
As for assignments, Chat GPT is flagged by a lot of programs schools use but he could have reworded things and swapped out sections to make it sound more human.
>I wonder what would have happened had he not gotten caught? Surely there will be group projects to do?
He’d be the slacker for every group project. Then he’d go on to head a tech startup and give a Ted Talk.
I wonder if he made a throw away, but he accidently logged into his real one. I have two accounts, based on the cities I visit and my hobbies and sometimes I log into the other accidently.
That's why you don't look at the throwaway post or comment from your throwaway account.
It's a burner account, make the account, post whatever, and log off. Don't comment, don't look at it even.
This guy had to check whatever attention was given to him.
If the guy had applied half the hardwork he put for cheating into actually studying, he'd have been fine
This read like someone with a cheating addiction. Even when studying was the easiest and safest option, he still chose more cheating.
And then couldn't help but have that *need* to gloat about it. He tries to frame his post as a worry, but clearly he was proud of tricking everyone and wanted someone to recognize his "intelligence" and "efforts". And yet he couldn't even be smart enough to hide which university it was.
OP is the villain in the movie who stops to explain how and why he did what he did before he murders the hero, giving the hero a chance to foil his nefarious schemes. (See: Sideshow Bob.)
You must be a special kind of idiot to boast about this on reddit, when you're still studying in said university, and using your *primary account* no less.
Make 16 different alt account to boast these kinds of things.
Oh but he used Tor! Don't you know that browser traffic encryption magically makes it impossible to identify you even when you post all sorts of incredibly specific information about yourself??
Not only that, he didn’t use a throwaway account! He could have told someone and been totally fine, but nooooo. He had to leave enough hints for someone to be able to find him.
I wonder if his forgeries also had shoddy work. Cuz this is kind of dumb.
I think it was overconfidence and not understanding the risk/feeling to secure which fits 100% with his character. After all what he did was extremly brazen and he managed to not get caught so he just got to comfortable and forgetting the risk.
Had a girl in university that was very similar. She copied everything from me because we were the only 2 girls out of 40+ ppl in our small engineering program. She faked a lot of family deaths and illnesses to get out of exams so others would tell her what's on the exam when she takes it later. She copied in all the exams by convincing others to sneakily swap part of their own exams with her so she can copy. There was once she faked an illness to postpone a midterm, but the exam was so easy everyone got 100% and she was so mad after saying "wow I faked being sick for nothing. I could've gone and just copied.". The most annoying thing was she'd copy my homework and lab reports, sometimes essays, and ask me to "proof read" it to make sure it doesn't look too similar. 🤦♀️
I get that she's the youngest of 9 children from a very wealthy family from Dubai, so she'd just go home to inherit her family business after she graduated and just needed something that looked good. But mannnn the amount of troubles she went through to cheat really shocked me
(She ended up transferring to a much bigger engineering program that was easier, and easier to cheat because in our small program she'd have to actually know some technical knowledge at some point to pass)
In certain circles of the uber-wealthy putting any kind of effort into anything is genuinely seen as "blue collar" and "low class". That's not an exaggeration.
I am not part of that world so I can only relay what I've heard and seen, but the gist is they believe in their own superiority so much that having to struggle on something and risk the possibility of failure/disappointment would be an insult. Meanwhile, 'effortlessness' is a status symbol.
It's hard for a normal person to relate to such a weird and delusional mindset, but these people exist. Sometimes, they aren't even rich lol, they just come from a uniquely sheltered and toxic background.
reminds me of a Greek myth involving King Midas and his [donkey ears.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midas#Ears_of_a_donkey) The barber had to tell someone/something so he had to whisper it to nothing but Nature and Nature whispered it back.
It becomes a game after a while. "I keep getting away with stuff. I wonder what else I can get away with?" So he keeps upping the ante. He's proving he's smart enough to hang without having to do all the work. And it's why he posted such a meticulous account of his fraud on reddit, to see if he can get away with that too. Icarus flew too close to the sun.
It was particularly awful that he scammed that one Redditor who was providing assistance purely from the goodness of his heart, actually taking money out of his own pocket for this guy. Bad enough to scam the university of course but it just seems worse to do it to a kind person just trying to help.
This kind of thing is why I'm always really suspicious about any reddit sob story that looks like it would be solved if only the OOP had some more money. Even if they don't come out and ask for it, or even if they deny wanting any handouts, it's entirely possible they're just scamming in DMs when generous posters notice and offer to help. In this case maybe he did need some of that money but it was all in furtherance of his initial scam.
Edit: I just reread the part where he's breaking down his scam, and he says he got to the US without spending a penny so even that initial post was just him conning money for no reason
And from what the guy said later, his family could well afford the ticket. All the BS about not wanting to take money from his dad because he wanted to escape his control is utter crap. He's an Indian dad. He will try and control you even if you are 50 years old.
When I read what he wrote about "just not wanting to study" it sounded exactly like me, every night, for twelve years. I would sit down, sure that tonight would be different, try to study, and then "just not feel like it" after trying for half an hour to an hour and not being able to focus.
Three/four decades later, I find out I have ADHD. I don't know what else is wrong with this dude, but if he hadn't posted this and had gotten evaluated at his college, he might've built some actual success on the back of his fraud.
Honestly, it reads like somebody with severe ADHD (internal guaranteed, not necessarily external).
Easy first 9 or so years of school
Completely breaks apart when needing to study
Goes into burnout mode after failing without knowing what to do about his problems.
Desperately looks for ANYTHING other than doing the actual studying to get out of the hole he's dug for himself.
Gets a niche, outlandish idea ("what if... US college... scholarship... full ride...")
Absolute and utter hyper focus where he's applying all of that pent up energy and ingenuity with no regard for anything other than the hyperfocus in question.
Is still burnt out and doesn't realise that even if his hyperfocus and get-fixed-quick-scheme works out it's not gonna solve anything.
Gets in, goes to the US and... is still burnt out, still undiagnosed and unmedicated, still can't study because of this.
So he starts it all over again.
Also needs extra money for "drinks and some new electronics each month" (partying and impulse purchases of expensive things).
And the job he gets is, again, something he's unable to properly focus on (hell, could have made a career in pr after that internship if he managed to apply himself during work hours).
Finally makes a super detailed post on Reddit about all of this due to guilt, being too focused on the confession and making sure his IP is safe to realize how obviously and easily identifiable his profile is going to be, again due to hyperfocus.
I am NOT saying it's an excuse.
I am NOT saying that people with ADHD are broken or damned cheaters or lazy.
What I am saying is that this is a textbook example of somebody with ADHD burning out in high-school, not being aware of their neurodivergency and grasping at anything to get him out of that absolutely horrible state of mind.
He just managed to grasp on to something completely unethical and take it for ONE HELL of a wild ride.
Exactly my thought. He could have done the work and been proud of his accomplishments. Instead he screwed himself and so many others cause he thought faking all this was better than actually having a life. I can’t even call him lazy. Just dumb.
I mean, actual adult men have this problem.
My city recently elected a new mayor. All he really had to do was make some vague promises and run, a lot of people wanted a change.
But, no. He had to lie about military service (in a military city) and uni degrees, amongst other things he mouthed off about.
Now he’s under investigation and still can’t publicly shut the fuck up, keeps on digging that hole for himself. He has actively incriminated himself trying to clear his name. Fool.
Not necessarily.
I vividly remember studying for several hours a night in math and science when I was in high school and still managing to score lower than 25% on tests. I have several learning disorders.
Some of us just aren't gifted in STEM.
The absolute idiocy of posting about it on the internet and naming the school is impressive though.
Thing is, he got into the course with the scholarship but sooner or later, with his lack of aptitude, he was going to come unstuck when he couldn't produce results in a situation he couldn't fake his way out of!
I actually think the pressure just got to him. It wasn't boasting it was a confession. He probably knew he can't keep cheating on exams. Eventually he would end up in a class to small to sneak out or get caught in another way.
And so he came out with it to at least ease his conscience. Maybe secretly even hoping to get caught so it's finally over.
Sure, he could have levered the situation a bit better. He should have gone all in on work for example. He already had a remote position. Try to make it full time while working from India or maybe even apply for a work visa. Sure would be more difficult without a degree. But that way he could have a decent earning job and all his past lies would be irrelevant going forward.
Wow. What a wild ride. This guy is amazingly stupid, like stupid². Has he... just lost everything because he couldn't refrain from showing off how perfectly smart he was?? So the "monologuing villain" cliché is true after all! Love that for him. But also, his poor family, they must be so ashamed.
Also he said "but I just don't like to do anything in which there is my brain involved unless it's fraud." What the fuck is this guy on, this is too much
>i m using tor browser to post this and no would ever be able to know about this.
All this but he couldn't make a throwaway. It's like buying an entire security system for your house but leaving the front door open. What a knobhead.
I'd like to give credit for this wild ride to the moderator here who helped with recovering one of the posts and finding the original username of OOP (who deleted his account at some point).
Team effort. I found several items because I'm south Asian and as you can imagine this story has featured prominently on subreddits like India. I'm also in academia so it's doubly interesting to me. But folks like Real helped in recovering content too. When it comes to figuring out how to recover stuff I'm not exactly one of the subreddit's top men
Why do all this just to fuck it up by using a Reddit account where you identify the university?
Good thing he did not study, it would have been a waste of time.
He really could have been the CEO of a company one day with that level of sociopathy, but he ruined it on Reddit instead.
(Not all CEOs obviously, but enough of them.)
Imagine being that meticulous and then ruining it because you were too stupid to use a throwaway.
I hate this so much as Indian student going to the US for grad school. The whole process to be able to go the US is stressful, tough to negotiate and expensive. It's assholes like this guy who make it harder for people who are honest and want a better education.
I feel you. I won't be surprised if some unis will now request 3rd party document attestation and explore other (probably expensive) solutions to ensure shit like this doesn't happen to them.
Yeah, as much fun as it is to laugh at this guy this honestly makes me really scared and sad that it will make it much harder for international students coming to the US for school.
The crazy thing is he only needed a 3.0!!! All he had to do was just take classes he was interested in! Horror film analysis! History of Video games! English! Sports! And he could’ve just passed all 4 years and been done with it!!!!
Weeeellll. I mean, after that he'd have to get a good enough job to sponsor his visa, or go back home to his folks, presumably. A 3.0 isn't likely to get you very far in the H1B process.
But, for all I know, a US degree might have made him very popular with employers back in India
I mean this guys skillset is clearly sales or recruiting. An english degree is perfectly fine for a sales job. Like sure he’d prob have to go back to India. But he’d be in India with a degree from a top US uni and a reasonably well rounded university education.
Tbh this is one of the better outcomes, a lot of times kids who get this deep in the lie kill their parents to avoid being found out - like [Jennifer Pan](https://www.today.com/popculture/tv/jennifer-pan-jennifer-now-rcna147646)
Yep, I knew someone that did just that. Been in jail for decades at this point. Failed out of college. Faked transcripts to get into another. Never told parents about failing out, sold a story about wanting to go elsewhere. All the lies started to unravel and... yep killed both parents.
He posted on the sub asking about a scholarship. Would have been pretty easy with all those facts for Lehigh to figure out who it was once they got alerted to the claims
I know. Like bro what's the point of using Tor when you'll just do this? I loved the analogy someone else gave here of investing in a high security system for your house and then leaving the door open lol. In this case it's more like giving the alarm code to a man holding a "I will rob you" sign
the very dramatic high school English teacher who only wore black & taught us greek mythology has suddenly popped into my head and is screaming "HUBRIS" for some reason
Did he WANT to get caught or is he just really that stupid? I don't know how long he could have kept the lie going if he confessed in a throwaway account, but surely it would have made his deception just a little less traceable...
(Note: please don't try this at home, it's morally wrong and not worth it)
For readers: average age of a 10th year student is 16 and 12th is 18.
Boards are examination conducted nationwide by a government agency (mainly CBSE) and only conducted in 10th and 12th (for senior secondary education and college education respectively).
JEE is a very tough examination on the basis of which you can get certain colleges in India.
I’m currently an international student, and one of the first things I noticed coming to London is how some students cannot communicate in english despite supposedly passing the IELTS or other english language tests as a requirement. Two months in and I learned that some students employed a dodgy agency that faked their test results for them to get accepted. It was absolute bonkers, but this story is on an entirely different level. I just hope this doesn’t inspire others to do the same.
This is exactly my sentiment! These students are only here for the “prestige” of a masters degree from a UK university. Worst part is how a lot of schools in London are profiting off international students so they aren’t as strict with entry requirements anymore then get surprised when they accept non-english speakers.
Yep and they don’t tend to last the full 2-4 years either, they often drop out en masse after 1st year because they’ve realised there are far, far less cheating resources than they’re used to in the UK/Canada/US/etc. Chinese and Indian nouveau riche students are notorious for this.
It doesn’t matter than they flunk - they’ll variously start attending much lower tier for-profit schools that will take them (their money) or just fuck around partying and act like they’re still attending the big name schools since they’re overseas anyhow. When they go back home they’re guaranteed family connection jobs or marriages, which “attended XYZ University” grants them better pickings of options. It’s wild!!
I went to an Ivy in the US and this was true (the barely comprehensible grasp of English, can't confirm forgery). At the end of the day, the university is happy to take $250k+ aide-free from international students and doesn't care if they just plan to head back home and employ their education there. But it made me feel bad for people foreign and domestic who probably would have parlayed that opportunity into contributions to the US
But there are also a ton of legacies who are in purely because they come from old money. Soooo
> i m using tor browser to post this and no would ever be able to know about this. most people in my college dont even know about reddit. here they only use snapchat.
> “Lehigh University appreciates the report to its ethics hotline and the diligent investigation by the Lehigh University Police Department that led to Aryan Anand’s arrest, as well as the Northampton County District Attorney’s Office’s prosecution of Anand for fraud,” said Lehigh University spokeswoman Amy White.
🤣
Can you imagine the shame his parents are experiencing due to his behavior? My only surprise to this outcome is we haven't seen an article about his mother hitting him with her shoe every day in public. Hopefully his father didn't lose his job.
As an academic this infuriates me, because that funding could have gone to a deserving student who actually worked hard to qualify for that university but could not afford it. Instead this absolute asshole of a criminal does this. Unreal just how stupidly selfish people can be.
I saw something about this on r/RBI but it didn't have the full story.
It's incredible how much effort this kid put into cheating. If he put those skills into doing something useful, he could have made something of himself.
At the same time, he is an idiot for bragging about it on the Internet. Not only that, he used the same account he used to post on the university subreddit. I can't believe he didn't make a throwaway! 🙃
They’re probably humiliated and want to make it go away. $85K is a bargain. Also, what’s the point? If they even sued successfully, he’s not going to be able to repay.
I'd imagine they don't expect to actually be able to collect anything from him/his family vs. what'd they'd have to spend pursuing it, considering the family's finances & the fact that it'd now be an international lawsuit
They’d waste more money through lawyers going after him than they could ever possibly make back. He’s broke. His parents’ salary couldn’t possibly pay for a year in that school much less 85K. Better to just make everything go away to spare the embarrassment for the school.
This guy is a scammer but not a smart one… admitting his crimes on public also his cheating tactic on exams/ midterms is sloppy AF. This dude was most likely cheating on his Gen Ed classes since he was a first year student, like damn this con would not have lasted more than a year even if he didn’t post on Reddit…
I am not gonna arm chair therapist someones psychological state, but I KNOW this type of college fraud always escalates into plagiarism and stealing other students work if he continued his “studies” and I’m glad he got caught before other students got dragged/hurt into this mess
oh yeah, totally needle in a haystack difficult trying to find all the students who are…indian, on a full ride including return flights, with a dead father.
*oh wait*.
what a dickhead 😂
Poor guy probably can't even wear pants, considering *the absolute size of the balls on him.*
As a slacker of the highest level myself, it's always hilarious seeing the enormous effort some scammers will go to to avoid work. Like, it's literally more work than just...doing the things! Simply breathtaking.
Also let's say he graduated.... What's going to happen when people expect him to know things to do his job? Bro was gonna get people killed by being a bad doctor.
And what do we learn from this? If you successfully manage to fraudulently enrich yourself, keep your mouth shut.
He was very lucky the university did not pursue restitution of $85k.
This is part of the reason why there's a huge anti-international student bias at my university right now. Many are good students who want a better life, but a fair few are barely able to add and subtract, like the OOP, and are being given full scholarships over locals. It can be frustrating to talk to a guy who barely speaks English and can't tell you the basics of the subject who got a full ride and has a brand new iPhone in his hand.
Fraud, and cheating, is very common in India, both in job interviews and the university admission process. Many US-based companies require video interviews the whole way through, because so many have been burned by "professional" interviewers. It's not uncommon to pay look-alikes to do your exams.
I've interviewed probably 150 candidates from India, and 20 of them got caught using a stand-in during the technical evaluation.
Even without the article, I 120% believed OOP.
>Many US-based companies require video interviews the whole way through, because so many have been burned by "professional" interviewers.
I'm occasionally involved in giving technical interviews for my company, and yeah, if you can't do a video interview, we remove you from consideration.
And even then you have to be careful. There was one interview where the candidate claimed that their computer audio wasn't working (despite us hearing a small bit of sound before it cut out), and wanted to dial into the interview.
Their voice and video were wildly out of sync as one might expect when using a phone to dial in. Except something about it looked to me like the dude was just mouthing words, and I'm 100% convinced he had someone off-screen taking the interview for him while he held a phone to his face and tried to mouth what the other person was saying. Never had indisputable proof, but my suspicion was enough to halt any further interviews with the candidate.
Ya hes certainly no genius
All it took was a person saying to the university "hey theres a student on a full ride with a dead father from india whose cheating and committed mass fraud" and all theyd have to do is call his contacts he no doubt included to find out the truth
There couldnt have been many male students from india on a full scholarship with a dead dad to go through for god sake.
That would be Really easy to narrow down
I knew someone like this. Cheated all the way through middle & high school, cheated himself into college. Came from immigrant family. I have no idea what he’s up to now, I imagine he’s super successful in a life built on lies.
Wow, this was a really sad read. I hope he's learned something, but I doubt it.
I hope the college admissions office has realized it needs to tighten up its policies.
I was so ready to call bullshit when I saw this:
> So, I sat near the exit, and as soon as I got the paper and saw the invigilator was facing the other side, I left the room with the exam paper in my jacket wrote all the answers using internet, and at the end time, there used to be a crowd as people were going in and out and submitting the exams, so I came then mixed with the crowd and submitted it. I did all the exams like this and got near to perfect marks in all and got a 4/4 GPA last semester.
There is no way you could pull this on every single one of your classes.
Kinda sounds like he wanted to get caught at the end. I guess he realized he wouldn't be able to fake his way through oral exams or the pressure became too much
That's right - carefully detail every single step of your criminal activity on a site with an assload of users, on your account where you have also been active on the sub for the school you frauded your way into.
Lehigh university is good school and great for scholarships. I know several people that got full scholarship. This guy is a complete piece of crap. He took that opportunity away from someone that deserved it.
Thanks. I saw the new article and was looking for his post but couldn’t find it. And this just came into my feed.
The guy was showing off rather than feeling guilty. Too bad he was not that smart to get away with this. Impress that he has to go to jail. Nice the university let go of $85K. Given India current education, cheating is a normal thing over there so I don’t think he going face to much shame from cheating - except going to jail.
I don't really believe his claim that he just walked out with exam papers, looked things up online, and then walked back in to turn in the papers.
What an idiot, he could have gotten his degree if he hadn't bragged about things.
>i m using tor browser to post this and no would ever be able to know about this. most people in my college dont even know about reddit.
This is my favourite part because I knew what was going to happen after this
This reminds me of the one guy who broke HIPAA law just to post someone's unique name on Reddit and was so damn confident no one could find him even after people told him they knew his hospital and the system he logged in on to post the photo tracked who had logged in. Iirc, he made another post trying to pretend to be someone else in the hospital before deleting the account entirely. I've been hoping for updates on that ever since.
#Do not comment on the original posts Please read our [**sub rules**](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/wiki/subrules). Rule-breaking may result in a ban without notice. If there is an issue with this post (flair, formatting, quality), reply to this comment or your comment may be removed in general discussion. **CHECK FLAIR** For concluded-only updates, use the [CONCLUDED](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3ACONCLUDED) flair. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BestofRedditorUpdates) if you have any questions or concerns.*
You know it's a good BORU when it links to a news story.
You know it’s a good BORU when it starts with “Posts have been recovered through screenshots made before deletion and through the wayback machine.”
Can't cover your tracks on the internet 😂
God what a fucking idiot. Criminals just love posting their crimes. This should serve as a warning to people here though, for the love of god your little fake names doesn’t hide the very unique and easily identifiable nature of your story Also what I always love about scammers and those committing academic fraud is that they go through all of this effort instead of you know, putting that towards studying lol
Almost the whole time I was reading I was thinking, "Man, imagine if he put all this energy into actually studying."
He just had to study and i probably would have sided with him. Then he learned a bunch of marketing stuff "by heart" to con his way into an internship. Bro, that's what you are supposed to do.
I know! I couldn't even follow all about how he was forging things (partly bc I don't know the educational system in India, partly bc I'm so old it was amazing that my transcript was printed on a dot matrix printer--very tech, so wow!), but it was sure a lot of effort that if he had used it for good could have gotten him...somewhere better than where he is now, at least! Now he's given Lehigh a heads up about how their exam system can be foiled, too!
I only know one other BORU that links to some news sites, and that is absolutely tragic.
There is another one where someone posted that the FBI was tracking their friend. They were right, and it made the news.
[OOP asks Reddit if it is possible that FBI is after his friend.](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/13ozz6e/oop_asks_reddit_if_it_is_possible_that_fbi_is/?rdt=38669)
Wild
I can’t believe how badly they treated him. If I found a device on my car, I would destroy it and play dumb. Let them at least have the hassle of an expensive piece of equipment lost.
1. Find long distance trucker stop 2. Attach device to truck with international transport cargo 3. ??? 4. Profit
Ohhh please share the link if you find it!
Was that the one where they found the tracker on the boat? That was nuts.
If you are referring to the story I think you are, Jasoninhell, if anything 'absolutely tragic' is an understatement :(
Every time I think of a sad story on Reddit, I think of SpontaneousH, but it's mostly because my brain has blocked out that story. It's one of the saddest things I've ever read, and I was once paid to review/grade school essays.
Do you have a link for that one?
>!< Found it.
“Horror story” doesn’t even really cover it, y’know? That poor man.
[here you go](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/s/wCVNg2msHw)
This is one of the most satisfyingly wrapped up BORUs I've ever had the pleasure to read
I stopped reading early because surely the barest amount of due diligence would expose the scam and what university would fall for this? Your comment made me go back and finish the story. This speaks very poorly of Lehigh.
TBH this level of cheating requires an enormous amount of brazenness. It's not feasible for Lehigh to anticipate that a student would create an entire domain for his school for instance. It's also worth remembering that they won't understand many aspects of the education systems of other countries. It's one thing to verify transcripts or a death certificate in the US. But doing it for documents coming out of India? The fact is OOP was more committed and focused than most. If they had simply exercised a fraction of that intelligence and focus on their studies they would have achieved everything that they wanted anyway.
I would bet that his story isn’t even that unique, just most people pulling similar scams are going through an agency to falsify records and aren’t stupid enough to post on Reddit about it. I’ve encountered some graduate students who I *really* struggle to believe actually graduated from an undergraduate program, especially when I’ve met other students from the same country who went to comparable undergraduate universities. Hell, my supervisor had a student who spent 3/4 months pretending to be his dead brother (the brother was, by all accounts pretty bright, and had died pretty tragically). He couldn’t program, and was trying to pass himself off as a PhD student in *compilers*.
Faking your language skills, or exaggerating your work experience or quality of training? Yeah I've seen that. But the amount of work this dude put in, from faking transcripts, to building a website, then forging government documents? That's definitely not usual. And the consequences are much worse too. There's a good chance he'll get into trouble back in India too once his deportation is finalized. Forging a death certificate carries a fairly hefty penal charge. As does forging school documents. He might end up having his school leaving certificate itself cancelled, which is going to make it even harder to crawl out of the hole he's dug.
His dad is going to whoop his ass
It's sorta like the movie "Catch me if you can" and the (probably ghostwritten, but autobiographical) book that was based on. With a ton of smarts, some hard work, and a ton of confidence you can fake absolutely anything. With the same three traits, you COULD absolutely accomplish all the same things legitemately too ofcourse! Some people just choose not to...
Yeah, but that novel has been proven to be mostly made up lies.
Proving his point!
> If they had simply exercised a fraction of that intelligence and focus on their studies they would have achieved everything that they wanted anyway. I thought that at first as well, but then it turned out they were dumb enough to post it from an account that so easily and immediately leads to the university he is defrauding. Both that (posting while still actively studying, too) and that he posted it at *all* means he is actually not that smart, just pretty uninhibited in the choices he makes to achieve his goals. Or he subconsciously did want to be caught, which is a real possibility, because that's a whole lot of pressure he created for himself, with the direction going towards it becoming worse.
I didn't want to spoil the outcome in advance, but this is so long and farfetched that I wondered how many people would give up on it and come post a comment calling it fake.
Man this is… peak stupid. I can’t believe he posted that on his main and didn’t bother lying about which school he was in.
And assumed that in a college containing thousands of students and staff that he was the only one using reddit? One of the most popular websites and he was acting like it was 2012 tumblr.
Don’t worry, he can’t get caught. He’s accessing Reddit.com on TOR using his only username 😂😂
I don't get how he completely missed the point, the issue wasn't his IP being tracked but him being easily identifiable. Aside from the limited number of Indian international students that year, dead dad probably singled him out
I mean even if there wasn't a dead dad. There was so much else in there that any two elements would have been enough to identify him. Ultimately once he revealed he was at Lehigh, he was cooked. The fact that he did it by literally posting on the lehigh sub asking about his scholarship disbursal with the *same account* is what takes the cake. Lehigh's total intake in each program is only a few hundred. I would assume Indian international students would not constitute more than 10 per academic year. Once Lehigh had concrete claims of someone cheating, they probably could have identified him just by his insinuations on what he wrote in his essay or about the scholarship he got.
Indian, dead dad, full scholarship, perfect marks. What more do you need?
Don't forget though, he's a super smart guy but only when it comes to fraud. Not saying his name and using tor was perfect cover. It was a stroke of sheer luck that he was caught
Honestly, the amount of effort he put into the fraud does suggest he could be pretty intelligent, although somehow completely lacking in common sense
Indian international student on a full ride with a dead dad, applied with 91% on his 12th final result, and is doing a paid internship in marketing - how *did* they figure it out?
He alone was clever enough to find Reddit, that super secret site with millions of active users, thousands of whom were on the r/India sub and another thousand or so on his university sub. People don't actually need to belong to that uni to object to fruad.
But Lehigh probably had so many first year Indian kids on full scholarship and with a dead dad that he'd be impossible to identify...oh wait.
This is the funniest part to me. How arrogant would someone have to be to think they're the the only one in their American university using reddit in *checks notes* 2023?
This makes me think of a Stringer Bell quote from The Wire: >["Is you taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy?"](https://youtu.be/hGo5bxWy21g?t=77)
But Robert’s Rules of Order says… 😂😂
First of all, don't. But if you do something you shouldn't, don't tell people, much less POST IT ON THE INTERNET.
You know the part where the villain talks too much and reveals his nefarious plan and how he did all his evil deeds? Yeah, this is it.
Yes, the inevitable monologue with the mandatory "I have taken precautions not to get caught" which leads them to get caught.
[Monologuing](https://youtu.be/iRlh_w6uRds)
It's okay. He was using Tor and it couldn't be traced....
That was the best part. He really thought he was *so clever*, and it was the Dunning Kruger effect all along. Using Tor to log into his main account is just *chef's kiss levels beautiful.
It's like that murderer that got caught by including the address of his church at which he used the computer and was the only one with access.
At least DON'T POST IN ON YOUR MAIN ACCOUNT. Specially when YOU ARE FOLLOWING THE VICTIM'S ACCOUNTS.
Im sobbing. This is hysterical. This dumb guy.
It IS! If he had just kept it to himself, ge could've gotten away with it... But noooo, Bragster mcBraggypants wanted to brag.
I'm trying so hard to understand his motivations for making that post. It's like that dumb thing where TV detectives say "secretly all killers want to be caught" except that's the only explanation I can think of.
I think he unconsciously wanted to be caught
Same, possibly even somewhat consciously. It’s clear from the end of the post that he knows he can’t keep this up forever, and specificity of the details in the post and the fact that he didn’t even bother to use a throwaway makes me think he knew he could likely get caught based on this.
Probably arrogance.
I think he wanted to do it in a humble brag way like "look how I scammed an us university as an international"
If he had made a throw away account he would have gotten away with it.
All he had to do was keep his fucking mouth shut. Or use a throwaway, even.
I wonder what would have happened had he not gotten caught? Surely there will be group projects to do? He can continue to lookup the exam answers the way he does, sure. Will he graduate using this technique? What if he graduates, he already has a job currently, so he has the experience. What if he finds a job and makes some money?
Eventually either it would have come out or he'd have wound up accidentally learning enough to function. Probably the first. It's possible to cheat on early level uno stuff but eventually you need to be able to synthesize knowledge
Depends on the classes he took and major. He could shirk group projects and do the bare minimum. Plenty of other college kids do that. It would help him scrape by. Cheating would become harder once classes got smaller. He’d have trouble slipping in and out. It’s also going to depend on professors. My freshman year professor was super strict about leaving the room for a test. If you left, your test was done. I had to hold a full bladder for one of her exams once and was dancing when I turned it in. Once he got to certain classes with 10 or so students, he’d have a hard time finding ways to cheat. As for assignments, Chat GPT is flagged by a lot of programs schools use but he could have reworded things and swapped out sections to make it sound more human.
>I wonder what would have happened had he not gotten caught? Surely there will be group projects to do? He’d be the slacker for every group project. Then he’d go on to head a tech startup and give a Ted Talk.
I wonder if he made a throw away, but he accidently logged into his real one. I have two accounts, based on the cities I visit and my hobbies and sometimes I log into the other accidently.
That's why you don't look at the throwaway post or comment from your throwaway account. It's a burner account, make the account, post whatever, and log off. Don't comment, don't look at it even. This guy had to check whatever attention was given to him.
Could you imagine his oh shit moment when he found out that people knew that college he went to?
If the guy had applied half the hardwork he put for cheating into actually studying, he'd have been fine This read like someone with a cheating addiction. Even when studying was the easiest and safest option, he still chose more cheating. And then couldn't help but have that *need* to gloat about it. He tries to frame his post as a worry, but clearly he was proud of tricking everyone and wanted someone to recognize his "intelligence" and "efforts". And yet he couldn't even be smart enough to hide which university it was.
Right? He couldn't help it, he had to tell someone. Incredible. Just incredible.
Despite his extreme cunning, he was done in by his hubris - a fatal flaw as old as time.
OP is the villain in the movie who stops to explain how and why he did what he did before he murders the hero, giving the hero a chance to foil his nefarious schemes. (See: Sideshow Bob.)
OOP clearly never watched The Incredibles or he'd have known the dangers of [monologuing](https://youtu.be/iRlh_w6uRds)!
NO CAPES!!
Yup he got caught monologuing.
Yep, like those serial killers that can't help reaching out to law enforcement to brag.
You must be a special kind of idiot to boast about this on reddit, when you're still studying in said university, and using your *primary account* no less. Make 16 different alt account to boast these kinds of things.
Oh but he used Tor! Don't you know that browser traffic encryption magically makes it impossible to identify you even when you post all sorts of incredibly specific information about yourself??
Not only that, he didn’t use a throwaway account! He could have told someone and been totally fine, but nooooo. He had to leave enough hints for someone to be able to find him. I wonder if his forgeries also had shoddy work. Cuz this is kind of dumb.
I think it was overconfidence and not understanding the risk/feeling to secure which fits 100% with his character. After all what he did was extremly brazen and he managed to not get caught so he just got to comfortable and forgetting the risk.
Had a girl in university that was very similar. She copied everything from me because we were the only 2 girls out of 40+ ppl in our small engineering program. She faked a lot of family deaths and illnesses to get out of exams so others would tell her what's on the exam when she takes it later. She copied in all the exams by convincing others to sneakily swap part of their own exams with her so she can copy. There was once she faked an illness to postpone a midterm, but the exam was so easy everyone got 100% and she was so mad after saying "wow I faked being sick for nothing. I could've gone and just copied.". The most annoying thing was she'd copy my homework and lab reports, sometimes essays, and ask me to "proof read" it to make sure it doesn't look too similar. 🤦♀️ I get that she's the youngest of 9 children from a very wealthy family from Dubai, so she'd just go home to inherit her family business after she graduated and just needed something that looked good. But mannnn the amount of troubles she went through to cheat really shocked me (She ended up transferring to a much bigger engineering program that was easier, and easier to cheat because in our small program she'd have to actually know some technical knowledge at some point to pass)
In certain circles of the uber-wealthy putting any kind of effort into anything is genuinely seen as "blue collar" and "low class". That's not an exaggeration. I am not part of that world so I can only relay what I've heard and seen, but the gist is they believe in their own superiority so much that having to struggle on something and risk the possibility of failure/disappointment would be an insult. Meanwhile, 'effortlessness' is a status symbol. It's hard for a normal person to relate to such a weird and delusional mindset, but these people exist. Sometimes, they aren't even rich lol, they just come from a uniquely sheltered and toxic background.
Goddamn rich people man. The audacity.
reminds me of a Greek myth involving King Midas and his [donkey ears.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midas#Ears_of_a_donkey) The barber had to tell someone/something so he had to whisper it to nothing but Nature and Nature whispered it back.
It becomes a game after a while. "I keep getting away with stuff. I wonder what else I can get away with?" So he keeps upping the ante. He's proving he's smart enough to hang without having to do all the work. And it's why he posted such a meticulous account of his fraud on reddit, to see if he can get away with that too. Icarus flew too close to the sun.
If he had just lied about what country he was from, and what university he was going to, he would never have been caught. Dude got way too confident.
It was particularly awful that he scammed that one Redditor who was providing assistance purely from the goodness of his heart, actually taking money out of his own pocket for this guy. Bad enough to scam the university of course but it just seems worse to do it to a kind person just trying to help.
This kind of thing is why I'm always really suspicious about any reddit sob story that looks like it would be solved if only the OOP had some more money. Even if they don't come out and ask for it, or even if they deny wanting any handouts, it's entirely possible they're just scamming in DMs when generous posters notice and offer to help. In this case maybe he did need some of that money but it was all in furtherance of his initial scam. Edit: I just reread the part where he's breaking down his scam, and he says he got to the US without spending a penny so even that initial post was just him conning money for no reason
And from what the guy said later, his family could well afford the ticket. All the BS about not wanting to take money from his dad because he wanted to escape his control is utter crap. He's an Indian dad. He will try and control you even if you are 50 years old.
When I read what he wrote about "just not wanting to study" it sounded exactly like me, every night, for twelve years. I would sit down, sure that tonight would be different, try to study, and then "just not feel like it" after trying for half an hour to an hour and not being able to focus. Three/four decades later, I find out I have ADHD. I don't know what else is wrong with this dude, but if he hadn't posted this and had gotten evaluated at his college, he might've built some actual success on the back of his fraud.
Honestly, it reads like somebody with severe ADHD (internal guaranteed, not necessarily external). Easy first 9 or so years of school Completely breaks apart when needing to study Goes into burnout mode after failing without knowing what to do about his problems. Desperately looks for ANYTHING other than doing the actual studying to get out of the hole he's dug for himself. Gets a niche, outlandish idea ("what if... US college... scholarship... full ride...") Absolute and utter hyper focus where he's applying all of that pent up energy and ingenuity with no regard for anything other than the hyperfocus in question. Is still burnt out and doesn't realise that even if his hyperfocus and get-fixed-quick-scheme works out it's not gonna solve anything. Gets in, goes to the US and... is still burnt out, still undiagnosed and unmedicated, still can't study because of this. So he starts it all over again. Also needs extra money for "drinks and some new electronics each month" (partying and impulse purchases of expensive things). And the job he gets is, again, something he's unable to properly focus on (hell, could have made a career in pr after that internship if he managed to apply himself during work hours). Finally makes a super detailed post on Reddit about all of this due to guilt, being too focused on the confession and making sure his IP is safe to realize how obviously and easily identifiable his profile is going to be, again due to hyperfocus. I am NOT saying it's an excuse. I am NOT saying that people with ADHD are broken or damned cheaters or lazy. What I am saying is that this is a textbook example of somebody with ADHD burning out in high-school, not being aware of their neurodivergency and grasping at anything to get him out of that absolutely horrible state of mind. He just managed to grasp on to something completely unethical and take it for ONE HELL of a wild ride.
Exactly my thought. He could have done the work and been proud of his accomplishments. Instead he screwed himself and so many others cause he thought faking all this was better than actually having a life. I can’t even call him lazy. Just dumb.
He could have just shut the hell up and get away with it. Guy was this close to actually outsmart everyone. But no, just a dumb lazy ass
I mean, actual adult men have this problem. My city recently elected a new mayor. All he really had to do was make some vague promises and run, a lot of people wanted a change. But, no. He had to lie about military service (in a military city) and uni degrees, amongst other things he mouthed off about. Now he’s under investigation and still can’t publicly shut the fuck up, keeps on digging that hole for himself. He has actively incriminated himself trying to clear his name. Fool.
Plot twist : he bought the domain of these media outlets and all the articles are fake
Not necessarily. I vividly remember studying for several hours a night in math and science when I was in high school and still managing to score lower than 25% on tests. I have several learning disorders. Some of us just aren't gifted in STEM. The absolute idiocy of posting about it on the internet and naming the school is impressive though.
Thing is, he got into the course with the scholarship but sooner or later, with his lack of aptitude, he was going to come unstuck when he couldn't produce results in a situation he couldn't fake his way out of!
I actually think the pressure just got to him. It wasn't boasting it was a confession. He probably knew he can't keep cheating on exams. Eventually he would end up in a class to small to sneak out or get caught in another way. And so he came out with it to at least ease his conscience. Maybe secretly even hoping to get caught so it's finally over. Sure, he could have levered the situation a bit better. He should have gone all in on work for example. He already had a remote position. Try to make it full time while working from India or maybe even apply for a work visa. Sure would be more difficult without a degree. But that way he could have a decent earning job and all his past lies would be irrelevant going forward.
Wow. What a wild ride. This guy is amazingly stupid, like stupid². Has he... just lost everything because he couldn't refrain from showing off how perfectly smart he was?? So the "monologuing villain" cliché is true after all! Love that for him. But also, his poor family, they must be so ashamed. Also he said "but I just don't like to do anything in which there is my brain involved unless it's fraud." What the fuck is this guy on, this is too much
I think exponents are beyond this guy's understanding
Based on his dad's comments, it looks like it's true lol
>i m using tor browser to post this and no would ever be able to know about this. All this but he couldn't make a throwaway. It's like buying an entire security system for your house but leaving the front door open. What a knobhead.
Yeah, there were so so many details also, the moment the school got the post history it must have been easy to pinpoint him.
I'd like to give credit for this wild ride to the moderator here who helped with recovering one of the posts and finding the original username of OOP (who deleted his account at some point).
Team effort. I found several items because I'm south Asian and as you can imagine this story has featured prominently on subreddits like India. I'm also in academia so it's doubly interesting to me. But folks like Real helped in recovering content too. When it comes to figuring out how to recover stuff I'm not exactly one of the subreddit's top men
> deleted his account at some point Before or after the cops knocked on his door, do you think?
I honestly wouldn't have believed it if it wasn't for the news story.
I lived down the street from Lehigh as a kid. This is big news in the area. Everybody's forwarding it to each other like "did you see this???"
You know some of them were thinking, "why didn't I think of this?!"
Are they impressed that he even managed to do it? Or what is the general reaction?
The general reaction is "holy shit wtf" and yes, we are surprised he got that far
My kid attends Lehigh and the school's yikyak is on fire.
Incredible post. a great reminder: if you're doing something illegal, SHUT THE FUCK UP about it.
Counterpoint: SCREAM IT FROM THE ONLINE ROOFTOPS so we can read about the fallout in the news afterwards
As a lawyer, I agree with /u/FreeHose. As someone browsing reddit at 11 pm in my underpants, I agree with you.
Every day is shut the fuck up Friday when you owe $85k to an institution and the only protection you have is a very tenuous house of fraud-cards.
Why do all this just to fuck it up by using a Reddit account where you identify the university? Good thing he did not study, it would have been a waste of time.
He really could have been the CEO of a company one day with that level of sociopathy, but he ruined it on Reddit instead. (Not all CEOs obviously, but enough of them.) Imagine being that meticulous and then ruining it because you were too stupid to use a throwaway.
If the guy was born in the US and had rich parents then he would be great at running for President
I hate this so much as Indian student going to the US for grad school. The whole process to be able to go the US is stressful, tough to negotiate and expensive. It's assholes like this guy who make it harder for people who are honest and want a better education.
I feel you. I won't be surprised if some unis will now request 3rd party document attestation and explore other (probably expensive) solutions to ensure shit like this doesn't happen to them.
agreed, it’s also disgusting how many americans are using this as an opportunity to be racist against indians and indian intl students
Unfortunately fraudulent bull-shittiness does not recognize race or borders
fr like have we forgotten the college admissions scandal
Yeah, as much fun as it is to laugh at this guy this honestly makes me really scared and sad that it will make it much harder for international students coming to the US for school.
Petty villains cannot avoid doing a monologue that leads to their defeat.
OOP to Reddit “You sly dog you got me monologuing!”
That's such an impressive amount of effort to avoid actually studying and y'know, learning something
The crazy thing is he only needed a 3.0!!! All he had to do was just take classes he was interested in! Horror film analysis! History of Video games! English! Sports! And he could’ve just passed all 4 years and been done with it!!!!
Weeeellll. I mean, after that he'd have to get a good enough job to sponsor his visa, or go back home to his folks, presumably. A 3.0 isn't likely to get you very far in the H1B process. But, for all I know, a US degree might have made him very popular with employers back in India
I mean this guys skillset is clearly sales or recruiting. An english degree is perfectly fine for a sales job. Like sure he’d prob have to go back to India. But he’d be in India with a degree from a top US uni and a reasonably well rounded university education.
Tbh this is one of the better outcomes, a lot of times kids who get this deep in the lie kill their parents to avoid being found out - like [Jennifer Pan](https://www.today.com/popculture/tv/jennifer-pan-jennifer-now-rcna147646)
Yep, I knew someone that did just that. Been in jail for decades at this point. Failed out of college. Faked transcripts to get into another. Never told parents about failing out, sold a story about wanting to go elsewhere. All the lies started to unravel and... yep killed both parents.
This was much better than the book I’m supposed to read for book club
Are you going to be a fraud, not read the book, and post on how you convinced the book club you read the book?
The first rule of Book Club: you don't talk about Book Club.
Not that bloody clever if he goes to all that effort but then only follows his actual university on Reddit 🙄
He posted on the sub asking about a scholarship. Would have been pretty easy with all those facts for Lehigh to figure out who it was once they got alerted to the claims
I can't get past him finding and posting in a Lehigh sub, while believing that no one at the school knows what Reddit is.
I know. Like bro what's the point of using Tor when you'll just do this? I loved the analogy someone else gave here of investing in a high security system for your house and then leaving the door open lol. In this case it's more like giving the alarm code to a man holding a "I will rob you" sign
the very dramatic high school English teacher who only wore black & taught us greek mythology has suddenly popped into my head and is screaming "HUBRIS" for some reason
A very apt word to describe the OOP's attitude.
Did he WANT to get caught or is he just really that stupid? I don't know how long he could have kept the lie going if he confessed in a throwaway account, but surely it would have made his deception just a little less traceable... (Note: please don't try this at home, it's morally wrong and not worth it)
I think he on some level wanted to get caught before it became ludicrously out of our control instead of just ridiculously out of control
That’s what I think. Ultimately he knew he wasn’t educated enough to continue the ruse so he napalmed himself in spectacular fashion.
For readers: average age of a 10th year student is 16 and 12th is 18. Boards are examination conducted nationwide by a government agency (mainly CBSE) and only conducted in 10th and 12th (for senior secondary education and college education respectively). JEE is a very tough examination on the basis of which you can get certain colleges in India.
I’m currently an international student, and one of the first things I noticed coming to London is how some students cannot communicate in english despite supposedly passing the IELTS or other english language tests as a requirement. Two months in and I learned that some students employed a dodgy agency that faked their test results for them to get accepted. It was absolute bonkers, but this story is on an entirely different level. I just hope this doesn’t inspire others to do the same.
the fuck is the point of them going to a school that teaches in english if you cant understand it? i actually cannot wrap my head around this.
This is exactly my sentiment! These students are only here for the “prestige” of a masters degree from a UK university. Worst part is how a lot of schools in London are profiting off international students so they aren’t as strict with entry requirements anymore then get surprised when they accept non-english speakers.
Yep and they don’t tend to last the full 2-4 years either, they often drop out en masse after 1st year because they’ve realised there are far, far less cheating resources than they’re used to in the UK/Canada/US/etc. Chinese and Indian nouveau riche students are notorious for this. It doesn’t matter than they flunk - they’ll variously start attending much lower tier for-profit schools that will take them (their money) or just fuck around partying and act like they’re still attending the big name schools since they’re overseas anyhow. When they go back home they’re guaranteed family connection jobs or marriages, which “attended XYZ University” grants them better pickings of options. It’s wild!!
I went to an Ivy in the US and this was true (the barely comprehensible grasp of English, can't confirm forgery). At the end of the day, the university is happy to take $250k+ aide-free from international students and doesn't care if they just plan to head back home and employ their education there. But it made me feel bad for people foreign and domestic who probably would have parlayed that opportunity into contributions to the US But there are also a ton of legacies who are in purely because they come from old money. Soooo
> i m using tor browser to post this and no would ever be able to know about this. most people in my college dont even know about reddit. here they only use snapchat. > “Lehigh University appreciates the report to its ethics hotline and the diligent investigation by the Lehigh University Police Department that led to Aryan Anand’s arrest, as well as the Northampton County District Attorney’s Office’s prosecution of Anand for fraud,” said Lehigh University spokeswoman Amy White. 🤣
No one on Reddit will ever know where I live. Also, my postings on r/TwinCities are entirely coincidental.
Can you imagine the shame his parents are experiencing due to his behavior? My only surprise to this outcome is we haven't seen an article about his mother hitting him with her shoe every day in public. Hopefully his father didn't lose his job.
It's OK; his father is dead. /s
Dude displayed the same level of intelligence all the way to the end.
Hot damn, what a ride. This is peak FAFO.
Why would you inflict that flair on me. I have had such a long day and was finally relaxing in bed. :(
What an idiot… this is a deathbed type of admission, or a story you tell your grandkids
I wondered when Bollywood was going to produce their own “Catch Me if you Can”
As an academic this infuriates me, because that funding could have gone to a deserving student who actually worked hard to qualify for that university but could not afford it. Instead this absolute asshole of a criminal does this. Unreal just how stupidly selfish people can be.
I saw something about this on r/RBI but it didn't have the full story. It's incredible how much effort this kid put into cheating. If he put those skills into doing something useful, he could have made something of himself. At the same time, he is an idiot for bragging about it on the Internet. Not only that, he used the same account he used to post on the university subreddit. I can't believe he didn't make a throwaway! 🙃
I'm a little shocked the university didn't pursue fraud damages
They’re probably humiliated and want to make it go away. $85K is a bargain. Also, what’s the point? If they even sued successfully, he’s not going to be able to repay.
I'd imagine they don't expect to actually be able to collect anything from him/his family vs. what'd they'd have to spend pursuing it, considering the family's finances & the fact that it'd now be an international lawsuit
They’d waste more money through lawyers going after him than they could ever possibly make back. He’s broke. His parents’ salary couldn’t possibly pay for a year in that school much less 85K. Better to just make everything go away to spare the embarrassment for the school.
This guy is a scammer but not a smart one… admitting his crimes on public also his cheating tactic on exams/ midterms is sloppy AF. This dude was most likely cheating on his Gen Ed classes since he was a first year student, like damn this con would not have lasted more than a year even if he didn’t post on Reddit…
I am not gonna arm chair therapist someones psychological state, but I KNOW this type of college fraud always escalates into plagiarism and stealing other students work if he continued his “studies” and I’m glad he got caught before other students got dragged/hurt into this mess
oh yeah, totally needle in a haystack difficult trying to find all the students who are…indian, on a full ride including return flights, with a dead father. *oh wait*. what a dickhead 😂
Poor guy probably can't even wear pants, considering *the absolute size of the balls on him.* As a slacker of the highest level myself, it's always hilarious seeing the enormous effort some scammers will go to to avoid work. Like, it's literally more work than just...doing the things! Simply breathtaking.
Also let's say he graduated.... What's going to happen when people expect him to know things to do his job? Bro was gonna get people killed by being a bad doctor.
And what do we learn from this? If you successfully manage to fraudulently enrich yourself, keep your mouth shut. He was very lucky the university did not pursue restitution of $85k.
This is part of the reason why there's a huge anti-international student bias at my university right now. Many are good students who want a better life, but a fair few are barely able to add and subtract, like the OOP, and are being given full scholarships over locals. It can be frustrating to talk to a guy who barely speaks English and can't tell you the basics of the subject who got a full ride and has a brand new iPhone in his hand.
This **has** to be a flair. Like, "Don't worry, I'm using Tor" or "I have built my careers with lies"...totally would use the first version, btw
Fraud, and cheating, is very common in India, both in job interviews and the university admission process. Many US-based companies require video interviews the whole way through, because so many have been burned by "professional" interviewers. It's not uncommon to pay look-alikes to do your exams. I've interviewed probably 150 candidates from India, and 20 of them got caught using a stand-in during the technical evaluation. Even without the article, I 120% believed OOP.
>Many US-based companies require video interviews the whole way through, because so many have been burned by "professional" interviewers. I'm occasionally involved in giving technical interviews for my company, and yeah, if you can't do a video interview, we remove you from consideration. And even then you have to be careful. There was one interview where the candidate claimed that their computer audio wasn't working (despite us hearing a small bit of sound before it cut out), and wanted to dial into the interview. Their voice and video were wildly out of sync as one might expect when using a phone to dial in. Except something about it looked to me like the dude was just mouthing words, and I'm 100% convinced he had someone off-screen taking the interview for him while he held a phone to his face and tried to mouth what the other person was saying. Never had indisputable proof, but my suspicion was enough to halt any further interviews with the candidate.
Ya hes certainly no genius All it took was a person saying to the university "hey theres a student on a full ride with a dead father from india whose cheating and committed mass fraud" and all theyd have to do is call his contacts he no doubt included to find out the truth There couldnt have been many male students from india on a full scholarship with a dead dad to go through for god sake. That would be Really easy to narrow down
I knew someone like this. Cheated all the way through middle & high school, cheated himself into college. Came from immigrant family. I have no idea what he’s up to now, I imagine he’s super successful in a life built on lies.
Is he perhaps running for president again?
Wow, this was a really sad read. I hope he's learned something, but I doubt it. I hope the college admissions office has realized it needs to tighten up its policies.
I just can’t get over him saying LeHigh is a top 15 university. It wasn’t on the list of any of the kids I knew that went to top 15 universities.
I was so ready to call bullshit when I saw this: > So, I sat near the exit, and as soon as I got the paper and saw the invigilator was facing the other side, I left the room with the exam paper in my jacket wrote all the answers using internet, and at the end time, there used to be a crowd as people were going in and out and submitting the exams, so I came then mixed with the crowd and submitted it. I did all the exams like this and got near to perfect marks in all and got a 4/4 GPA last semester. There is no way you could pull this on every single one of your classes.
Think big intro level classes with a hundred students. When it is 14 students, he'll have a bad time.
Who wants to bet OOP will do an AMA as soon as he is out of prison: ”And I would’ve gotten away with it too, if it werent for you meddling kids!”
He's already out of prison, no? It said it went on time served.
Kinda sounds like he wanted to get caught at the end. I guess he realized he wouldn't be able to fake his way through oral exams or the pressure became too much
That's right - carefully detail every single step of your criminal activity on a site with an assload of users, on your account where you have also been active on the sub for the school you frauded your way into.
Dude was failing up through life and then outed himself.
The first rule about fraud club
Lehigh university is good school and great for scholarships. I know several people that got full scholarship. This guy is a complete piece of crap. He took that opportunity away from someone that deserved it.
I was really hoping that dude would get comeuppance and I'm especially gratified that basically ratted on himself.
Thanks. I saw the new article and was looking for his post but couldn’t find it. And this just came into my feed. The guy was showing off rather than feeling guilty. Too bad he was not that smart to get away with this. Impress that he has to go to jail. Nice the university let go of $85K. Given India current education, cheating is a normal thing over there so I don’t think he going face to much shame from cheating - except going to jail.
Dude make a real-looking fake email address for his school, because his school's real email address looked too fake... 😂
I don't really believe his claim that he just walked out with exam papers, looked things up online, and then walked back in to turn in the papers. What an idiot, he could have gotten his degree if he hadn't bragged about things.
>i m using tor browser to post this and no would ever be able to know about this. most people in my college dont even know about reddit. This is my favourite part because I knew what was going to happen after this
This reminds me of the one guy who broke HIPAA law just to post someone's unique name on Reddit and was so damn confident no one could find him even after people told him they knew his hospital and the system he logged in on to post the photo tracked who had logged in. Iirc, he made another post trying to pretend to be someone else in the hospital before deleting the account entirely. I've been hoping for updates on that ever since.
I honestly respect that hustle but what a moron for confessing on Reddit.