Thanks North America Scholar Consortium. Now I’m the douchebag.
So today, one of my close friends gets an e-mail stating that she had been invited to a scholar program. The “North America Scholar Consortium”. It was delivered to her UNT e-mail. By the lack of information in the e-mail, and the fact that it was the following:
3 April, 2009
Dear K*****, K**** L,
As a result of your dedication to scholarly success in University of North
Texas, North
America Scholar Consortium extends to you an invitation to apply for
membership in the NASC Honor Society. Membership application is by
invitation only; therefore, membership is a special honor afforded to
a small group of outstanding students.Membership applications are available at
http://inv.naschonor.org//lt.php?id=ZkgDBQxQxxxITQMfBxxxCAME Please use
your
assigned invitation code when you apply.Invitation Code: xxxxxxx
To learn more about the opportunities that accompany NASC Honor
Society membership, please visit
http://inv.naschonor.org//lt.php?id=ZkgDBQxQV1EBTQMxxxVCAME for more
information. I encourage you to seize this valuable and rewarding
opportunity and look forward to seeing your name among the next list
of new NASC Honor Society members!Sincerely,
Louis Birch
President 2009-2010
NASC Honor Society
So I start to do some digging. I had never heard of this scholar program and shes psyched that shes done so good in school that she’s gotten this e-mail. Just by the way the e-mail was formatted, a lack of phone number and further details as to what they do got me suspicious and made me smell a rat.
So I google the name to find the #1 search result to see if this may be a phishing scam. Nope, the website referenced is the #1 result. Okay so far so good. Whois returns:
Created On:30-Oct-2008 17:55:00 UTC
okay, 6 months old… kinda fishy but not completely out of the question.
Registrant ID:GODA-055102752
Registrant Name:Registration Private
Registrant Organization:Domains by Proxy, Inc.
Registrant Street1:DomainsByProxy.com
Registrant Street2:15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Scottsdale
Registrant State/Province:Arizona
Registrant Postal Code:85260
Registrant Country:US
You would think a legitimate organization would have contact details. Strike 1.
Membership Application Form
By Invitation Only
Application submission is free of charge. Please DO NOT send us any payment at this stage.
A life-time membership fee of $68 will be required only if your application is approved.
BZZZZ strike 2. Something like this is usually sponsored and free.
No phone number on the contact us page? Strike 3. Its a scam.
I go to tell my friend this and she has called her mom and told her how cool it is and i tell her its a scam. I swear she almost started crying.
UPDATE: As it turns out. She did cry after she left the room. ASSHOLES I’m going to find you.
It’s one thing to phish and spam. But to use something like a fake scholars program, that’s just not cool.
Thanks assholes, now i feel like a douche bag for something you got her hopes up on.
Jackasses. I hope you burn in hell.
Hi,
It is absolutely disheartening to see someone playing with students’ emotions under the name of some scholar society. To NASC: this is completely unacceptable, SHAME on you guys!
Thanks for this post. I received an invitation this morning from NASC too. Like your friend, I was very happy about the invitation too. But my happiness was short-lived, I was googling to find out the legitimacy of this group and was dumbstruck that it is a big scam!
-Grace
Thanks!
Great Snooping and Good lookin’ out!
Tell everyone you know – I’ll do the same.
Fernando
I got one of those emails too for Marquette University. Bummer. Glad I investigated it first.
I also received an e-mail from “NASC” for Arizona State University. I live in Scottsdale, Arizona where this pathetic “company” is located. Maybe I will go visit Ste. 160 on 15111 N. Hayden Rd. I agree, shame on these people.
Dude, don’t feel like a douchebag.
She deserved to know.
I got one of those emails too.
I got into the National Honors Society in high school, so I thought maybe it was legit.
Thanks for clearing that up.
Assholes, gettin’ my hopes up and whatnot…
I got one of these this morning, at the University of Arizona. Last year I actually got a letter from a scam very similar to this. It had a different name though. I’ve learned to assume invites like this are a scam. What can I say, I’ve been trained by let downs from ASSHOLES!
Thank you so much for posting this. I just received one this morning and so I went to their website to read about them and found a typo error. What kind of intelligent organization posts a typo on their website? So then I went snooping around online and found this post. Thank you so much for confirming my conspicuous thoughts.
@M
did you? I have recieved two letters and an email from them! I am freaking tired of it!
The Secret Service is under the Treasury Department. They handle monetary fraud like internet, banking phising, etc. All of us need to report this to them so these people can be taken away in handcuffs.
@Bobbie Miller
Let’s go for it!
I had seen someone post something on FML about this the other day, and then received an e-mail from them today. I figured I would double check on it, and sure enough it’s a fraud. Very good investigative work, and thank you for confirming it all!
Damn. I got one of these yesterday. I was particularly vulnerable. I had just received a final grade in a tough class. I got an A when only 5 A’s were given out. I was stoked. And then I receive this e-mail. Now I am glad I didn’t tell the whole world.
@Grace
The second I got this, I knew it was a scam. I am such a p!ss-poor student that there is no way I would be invited to such a thing… And to think you smart people almost bought into it….
i mean.. it’s not a scam. I am sure if you pay the fee you do become a lifetime member. I am sure some people pay the 68 dollars, become members and are happy about it; Maybe an employer even reads it on their resume and is impressed.
What if a scam got you a job? would it still be a scam? would it be worth $68?
What is different from this and other honors societies.. anyone can start on honors society
@mdb
Are you affiliated with it? Usually honors organizations are in existance for at least several years. They also don’t typically spam, and they usually have phone numbers, valid WHOIS information, and not just a single server with the default apache settings.
I did some more digging into the server’s specifications. It is running Ubuntu (No sane organization runs this as a web server). It is an uncustomized installation (Anything that would move a high amount of traffic would be secured). The system is not protected by a firewall.
It is a scam. I don’t think anyone should trust an organization that does it’s best to mask it’s real identity.
Perhaps this was the person who was on FMyLife.com and wrote about this.
Thank you for doing the digging. The first thing I do when I get an invite like this is Google to find the complaints. Your site came up very near the top, and you confirmed what I suspected (I hadn’t yet visited their site; if I had, I would have noticed the $68 fee, which would have sent me running). I’m hoping pretty soon your site will be the number one result. Tell your friend that there I hope she gets an invitation to a legitimate scholarly honor society.
i saw this on FMyLife.
wow.
My invite commended me on my scholarly success at a university that I don’t even attend yet.
Yeah, scam.
@JimREN
“and to think you smart people almost bought into it”? Dude, that’s a really shitty thing to say. Anyone and everyone can get scammed, a lot of the time unsuspectingly until it’s way to late to do anything about it. And honestly, the students that are good students and don’t half-ass their schooling all the time usually work their asses off to get where they are. Therefore, what’s the harm in feeling excited when they think they’re being rewarded for their efforts?
@Ashley
Me too haha…the funny thing about that is I just transferred here sooooo, I don’t have any grades yet for them to select me from. That was my first red flag.
I recieved this email this evening. After browsing on the site a little bit I though it seemed fishy. I will say that I have joined an Honors Society through my college, which is based at the national level, and it did have an annual fee of $20 for membership (though the membership included a shirt and certificate as well as a dinner at the end of the Spring semester with all of the different chapters getting together).
That being said, the lack of detail in the email it what tipped me off after I looked at the website. If they’re seriously viewing your records and sending you something it should come through your university and/or they should have your records on file which would either be included in the email or when you go to look at the website. There shouldn’t be any need for you to input any of it. The fact that they ask for your University name and GPA after they supposedly have viewed your records is a pretty strong sign that something’s not right.
It’s too bad, really. I hope there aren’t too many people that blindly go in to it. There are a lot of great, legit organizations out there that I personally would feel leery about considering after recieving this email if I hadn’t already joined a few.
Letter received…co-sign most of the above!!!
I could tell it was a scam just by the word “consortium.” It’s a word that 1) has to do with independent companies or banks joining a partnership and 2) a legal term that means one spouse has the legal right to the other spouse’s affection and support.
For an honor society, I dont really believe that either of those categories fit. Unless there is some secret definition the dictionary is not aware of yet.
I got one of those emails as well this morning. I have gotten similar scholar group invitations claiming they’re prestigious and then they ask you to pay some arbitrary fee. This scam was the most obvious: (a) they sent me an email and not letters to my home, although some do that, and (b) I haven’t even finished the first semester at the school I transfered to that was referenced in the email. Good one NASC, trying to trick strait A students.
I feel stupid now! I applied then realized it was a scam. I didn’t pay anything, but I’m worried about some of the information I sent. Does anyone know of who I could contact or what I should do to avoid dealing with some stupid scam.
@Anonymous
No kidding, the “smart people” are more easily to scam like this because they actually DO get emails like this that are legitimate. It is easy for the poor students to see through this because nobody in their right mind would invite them to an honor society.
I just received the invitation email this evening. I’m nosey as all get out so I to decided to google this organization and perform an investigation. SCAM!!! There’s nothing legit about this organization. Just look at the remedial website they posted! That is what gave me 80% of my proof right there. I was sought out for a national honors recognition in high school and early undergrad, but I know its highly unlikely that anyone would care about the academic achievements of a graduate student. This is sad….beyond sad!
I feel stupid just for keeping the email in my inbox for several days till I had time to do anything about it.
Thanks to all for the posts..and good luck in your studys
It’s sad to see that all of these comments have been posted within the past 2 weeks. They must have sent out an enormous amount of emails! That’s sad….
I got mine today too and I must say I was a little intrigued. I attend the University of South Carolina. I was intrigued until I came home and actually went to their website and concluded that I could make one better than they did. And $68? Really? I’m not interested in paying $68 to have the option of putting a line on my resume. Glad I found this forum-make sure you tell your friends.
I’m a student at the University of Houston, and got an email today. This pretty much confirmed what I was thinking…
Gee- I checked out the web site as you all have done and found nothing of value –except for Perhaps a fancy certificate and the right to add to a resume~ although- reading the letter it already STATED …
” I am glad to inform you that your application to NASC Honor Society membership has been approved officially. Congratulations on the acceptance to NASC Honor Society.”
Therefore- one may already, honestly add this to one’s resume!! Tada! A win-win for those students accepted!
I had hoped the membership would at LEAST offer applications to scholarships- couldn’t find any~
So…Congratulations to all for doing well in school- keep it up!
(A caring Mom)
I just got the email this morning (at 5am) and I’m glad I googled it before I even thought about applying. Because of the line “As a result of your dedication to scholarly success at Marquette University” I knew it couldn’t possibly be real. My grades are faaaaar from scholarly this year. =\ I feel so bad for those who do great academically and are scammed by this joke [and as a response to the "smart people" comment, it's easy to be fooled like this since a LOT of grant money and scholarships are given away by small fairly unknown companies and are sometimes the best to apply for when there's a small applicant pool]. Has anyone checked into a way to report this so-called organization through the treasury or whatever was suggested? Hopefully word spreads fast so more people aren’t screwed over. The post on fmylife.com should help that out. Thanks to whoever made this page, and I’m sorry to hear about your friend’s disappointment.
-Kim
Got the same email today at my NCSU account. What a joke. Haha I haven’t even finished my first class there.
Someone’s been selling my name to the world at least.
Well Shit I found out about this a little too late…I amazingly brought my GPA up this semester so I thought I was being recognized! I did pay the 68 bucks and now I’m worried they’re going to steal my identity. Anyone have any suggestions as to what I should do
@Leah
I would contact your local FBI office, the Better Business Bureau, and the Federal Trade Commission.
Also, call your credit card company or however you used to pay, say that the payment was made under false pretenses and they may be able to trigger an investigation.
Good luck. It may be an offshore scam so you may be SOL, but who knows.
This is the response I got after filling out the form, lol:
From: NASC Honor Society
Subject: NASC Honor Society Membership – Andrew Wiltz – Action Required
To: awiltz2@uic.edu
Date: Wednesday, April 15, 2009, 2:42 PM
Dear Andrew Wiltz,
I am glad to inform you that your application to NASC Honor Society membership
has been approved officially. Congratulations on the acceptance to NASC Honor
Society. NASC Honor Society membership is a special honor offered to a small
group of outstanding students.
Member Information:
Name: Andrew Wiltz
University of Illinois – Chicagp GPA:3.50
Membership Level: Member with High Honor
Date of Acceptance: April 15, 2009
The lifetime membership fee is due within 15 days from the date stated above.
To confirm your membership status, please make the payment at:
http://www.naschonor.net/member/acceptance/25515184
Once your membership status is confirmed, it will be verifiable through our
organization database immediately. You will be authorized to put it on resume or
on any other document as your official qualification.
Welcome to the family of NASC Honor Society.
Sincerely,
Louis Birch
President 2008-2009
NASC Honor Society
I am responding to this email with a link to this page. Maybe he’ll get a kick out of it. For those who are wondering how they got your emails, almost all colleges have a student search, like UIC does (http://www.uic.edu/searchUIC.html). Be careful out there,
-Andrew Wiltz
@Andrew Wiltz
I also love how they spelled Chicago wrong, lawl.
Oh my gosh! That is the most poorly drafted response letter from an “alleged” professional honor society I’ve ever seen! Its composition almost reads like the Nigerian scam-spam emails begging for a U.S. money sponsor’s bank account information. Hahaha…Thank you, Andrew, for posting about your experience.
I, too, received this solicitation and the term “consortium” first tipped me off. As mentioned above, there are no functional structures for honor societies involving consortiums. The claim makes no sense. Having earned an excellent return gpa-wise on my hard work in school, it was not inconceivable that yet another “honor society” might be contacting me for “membership.”
However, my advice to all who truly want to ensure that your “honor society” membership is genuine and guaranteed to impress future employers and colleagues is to join only those organizations with credible university faculty member sponsorships and endorsements. Check with your professors. They are the ones who either determine qualifications and issue the invitations to join authentic honor societies, or they know from years of experience who the credible administrators of these organizations actually are. Credible societies have colleagues associated with them who have networked professionally with each other for decades.
If you are “faculty” recruited by those under whom you have studied, then you are to be commended. Congratulations! This is the quality honors award line item you do indeed want to include on your resume – something readily identifiable by those who really matter. Any other unrecognizable “honors” listed on graduates’ resumes are considered amusingly suspect by employers.
I went ahead and applied and, imagine this… got the acceptance!! The acceptance email has the following contact information (again, no phone number):
Louis Birch
President 2008-2009
NASC Honor Society
Glad I did a quick verification before I submitted a payment… this type of scam sucks.
I also tried to reply using the membership email listed, and it rejects incoming email.
Thanks for the catch!!
Phew! Just in time. I go to the University of Toledo, just got the email a couple days ago and submitted my info, but didn’t pay. Definitely a scam – thanks for blogging about this.
Hey you cannot reply to the email they sent you because the email you are supposed to send questions to is membership@naschonor.org instead of the .net email that they used to send to you. Please everyone email that .org one and give them a piece of your mind like I did.
Thanks for doing the digging for us. When I googled them, they same up as the first site and this page came up second. Too little money in grad school to be spreading it around to people who don’t deserve it.
Holy Crap! I was even filling out the application when I decided I was not in the mood to finish it so I quit and then I decided to google it… Thank goodness I found this site… I totally feel like a dork now…
I also received this email and thought about joining. After reading over the website, I saw numerous grammar errors! Grammar problems on an honor society website?!?! So, I was looking into it more and found many people that found that it is very dubious!!! I will not be joining! Thanks!
phew!! Just in time. Apparently, I have scored a GPA of 71% in NC State according to this shitty scam thingy. Hello? I haven’t yet reached NCSU to pursue my Masters!! Lolzzzzzz …
@Grace
Thanks for all yalls support..F the underhanded, plotting, scamming, SOBs in this world.
I got the same email from NASC. After viewing their website, I don’t think it’s a right organization. So, I won’t join.
Thanks guys for being active in such blogs and ensuring such scams are caught early on. I am sure you guys have saved many ppl from burning $68 and possibly their identity.