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Fake Credentials 1

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BobPE

BobPE

Civil/Environmental
Jan 28, 2002
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I was reading the paper yesterday and came across an article on a structural engineer that was giving expert testimony on a court case. He was investigated and it was determined that their degree was from a the University of Berkley, not in CA but in Erie, PA. Turns out it was a diploma mill that was shut down.

How do we begin to regulate charlatans from our business? This person obviously felt they were a structural engineer, but with no verification required, they became a structural engineer.

Should we be the mouthpiece for our ethics, or do we continue to let this occur? How can we stop it?


I felt this was an interesting topic for discussion...

Bob
 
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BobPE: I agree, however the majority of the members here don't seem to see the system as being "broken" and wish to continue on as if everything is fine and dandy. I'm in the building construction end of things, and in my opinion, this end of the profession IS broken and needs all the help it can get. No one wants to rock the boat.
 
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whyun:

That is a scary website.

EVERYONE should have a look. Unlicensed engineers being treated worse than s e x o ff end e rs! (In the sense of it being made public, for all the world to see, not just the local police department)... Dang!
 
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Bob,

I report unlicensed practice and incorrect usage of the engineer title in situations where there is no threat of retaliation from my employer. This is not the ideal scenario, but its the best that I can do in the present. I do advise the folks engaging in these violations whenever I can. Most are unaware of what they are doing and are merely following their employer's orders. Sometimes I see vehicles with company names on them offering "engineering" services. I check to see if they have a C of A and report them if they don't. Just today a drafter wanted me to stamp drawings created by her husband for the renovation and addition to her house. I think that it was totally wrong for her husband do this type of "engineering" and totally wrong for her to ask me to stamp (in reality rubber stamp) the drawings.
 
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vooter,

yes, it is scary that the information is made PUBLIC (I didn't think of it that way...)

The point I was trying to make with the weblink is the LOW penalties for getting caught posing as engineers.

EddyC: a drafter WANTED you to stamp? whoa... The work done by her husband isn't even related to your company, right? Was she asking you to stamp the drawings for free? Sounds ridiculous to me. Her husband has the "right" to design anything he wishes for his house which isn't required by his local building officials to be designed by a licensed individual (at his own risk).
 
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whyun,

The drafter's husband did the design himself and then submitted it to the town. It was rejected and he was told to go find an architect or engineer. This work has nothing to do with my employer and the drafter wanted me to stamp it for free. When I told her that it cost $$$ for an engineer to design or review something, she asked how much? (for something that I haven't even seen). I want no part of it. In my opinion, engineering should be done by engineers and by no one else. Period. I'm not interested in reviewing someone else's work, someone who shouldn't have done it in the first place.
 
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The "system" is NOT broken; the PEOPLE are.

Almost all the cases of "fake" credentials come from the LACK of doing a background check.

TTFN



 
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EddyC,

The course of action they should have taken is explain their situation to you, allow you to determine what you need to review in order to achieve their goal, then allow you to quote your fee. At this point, they can take your offer or seek another who will do the job for less.

What they may not have realized is that they are asking you to build them a house for free (they pay for the material) and if anything happens to it, you cover the costs. How fair is that... Funny how people think.
 
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I would think that a person illegally acting as an unlicensed engineering consultant on the witness stand would warrant declaring a mistrial. There is literally a crime being committed in the courtroom!
 
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Expert witnesses are who ever the court wants them to be. The attorneys call an expert witness and they are confirmed as experts by the court. Being a PE is usually an automatic for being an expert. You could be challenged and disallowed if your experience and training isn't relevant to the case. A registered electrical PE with experience in 60 cycle power may not be recognized as an expert in an electronics case.
An electronics engineer without a PE could be recognized if he had sufficient credentials ( experience, patents etc.). The judge has the last word.
 
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I found this thread late, and several posts, but not all, so this suggestion may have already been given.

If I became aware of such activity in my state, I would report them to the state licensing board, who, in this state anyway, seems to have an aggressive approach to protecting the integrity of the engineering profession.

Past this, I would take no other action.

rmw (PE, by the way)
 
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"I would agree with you that there should be nothing at all to discuss but, are we going to support diploma mill engineering degrees? Is that ethical?"

The answer has to be an unqualified no. For those issues requiring a PE, we cannot tolerate deviance.

Part of this issue I believe might be the way the law is written though.
If I am to understand the law, I cannot be considered an "expert" to testify in engineering matters regarding my industry without a PE? That hardly makes sense as I certainly am "expert" enough to calculate and design the pieces and parts that make up the machine that I would be testifying about. How could a PE, who may never have laid eyes on ( in my industry ) a glass bottle producing machine and has had no instruction or experience in its theory or application? I am of the opinion we have very smart people who think that their education and passage of a test infers expertise, when in reality it only is a piece of the puzzle.
Now, for cases or applications where the states have determined a PE is required to engineer, then it should, and is a criminal act to proffer expertise where the documentation does not exist. In cases like these it appears as if one or both sides lawyers were not qualified to practice the law, and should be handled by the state bar.

In short, you made a very apt statement when you said that lawyers werent the smartest people in the world. Let us not head down the same road with one size fits all approaches to this situation, lest we become as bad as the lawyers.
 
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From the CA PE Act:
6701. Professional engineer defined
“Professional engineer,” within the meaning and intent of this act, refers to a person engaged in the professional practice of rendering service or creative work requiring education, training and experience in engineering sciences and the application of special knowledge of the mathematical, physical and engineering sciences in such professional or creative work as consultation, investigation, evaluation, planning or design of public or private utilities, structures, machines, processes, circuits, buildings, equipment or projects, and supervision of construction for the purpose of securing compliance with specifications and design for any such work.

The key phrase is "person engaged in the professional practice of..."

Someone who is offering his services as an expert witness, is, unarguably, "engaged in the professional practice." Someone who is called to testify in a particular case would not be.

TTFN



 
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BTW, EddyC, as Rich2001 has shown, credentials from non-3rd world countries can be manufactured just as easily as those from "3rd world countries can be forged easily by paying a small fee". The only difference is that the fee here is higher.
 
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EddyC, there was a case a few years ago where someone was signing and sealing plans etc.using the seal of deceased PE.

Vita sine litteris mors est.
 
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"Let's see someone try & make a fake PE credential."

How hard could it be? First of all, you can say "I'm an engineer" and a lot of people, not knowing what a PE is or means will just say "ok." You could craft a fake stamp pretty easily, too. If you've never taken (and passed) the exams, but you know the material, it would be more than easy to fool a client.

However, it is relatively easy to check someone's credentials as indicated in this thread. Will the client do that? Will the permit issuing agency do that? Maybe, maybe not.
 
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NOT hard at all, VERY easy to check.

Just went through that with moving companies. Final score: only 4 out of the 8 companies checked had valid MC licenses from DOT. Only two of the 4 that claimed BBB membership actually were.

TTFN



 
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In the early 90's (92-early 93), I was a subcontractor on an engine development project, and as the designer on record, I had to sign off on the California Air Resources Board (CARB) applications.
In 1996, my current employer advised me that internal actions against me were being initiated due to a conflict of interest. When I investigated, I found that my signature had been used on documents as recent as a month before, for a federal grant application and on a nationally distrubuted press release!
Since my name was the signature on record, my former contractor/employer had falsfied my name to the application. I cheerfully provided a deposition in pre-trial proceedings. He is now history and hopefully no longer in business.
Franz

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It also depends in what part of the world you are in, and at least here in Australia "engineer" is a fairly loose term in some particular fields.

So what do you need to be an engineer, diploma, degree, masters, doctorate ? In truth large companies with personnel departments usually check a persons credentials and employment history very carefully.

However, a very small privately owned company might be quite happy to employ an unqualified person for the "engineering" department provided he can demonstrate a sufficiently high level of real knowledge at the job interview. Often the man that owns the company IS an engineer, and can quickly recognize a high level of competence when he sees it. He may decide to choose an unqualified candidate rater than a qualified one with less experience. But he would be doing that in full knowledge of the true facts.

This all seems to be particularly relevant amongst computer and software engineers these days. There are some fairly talented and highly paid and respected people with few or no formal qualifications, believe it or not.

I see nothing wrong with that, as long as a person does not try to misrepresent himself, or use fake or forged qualifications to claim to be something he is not. That is widespread too, and an entirely different matter.



 
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