Buyer Beware! PhonyDiploma.com and its many fake diploma sister sites (PhoneyDiploma.com, DiplomaCompany.com, NextDayDiplomas.com, RealisticDiploma.com, and RealisticDiplomas.com) are part of an FBI sting operation!
DO NOT purchase from or contact this site under ANY circumstances! If you do, you can expect the FBI to pay a visit to you and your employer very shortly.
This is my story:
A couple months ago I had a great job with great pay and great benefits. I ended up purchasing my first home a few months ago and shortly after moving in, I came across my college diploma in a file cabinet I had just moved into my new home office. I thought it might be nice to finally have a place to hang my diploma on the wall, but after a few years of being tossed around in the file cabinet, mine had become a little torn and tattered, so I set out to get a replacement. After speaking with the university that I graduated from and hearing that it would cost $400 dollars to get a replacement, I started searching around on the internet. After doing a quick search for "replacement diplomas", I came across a handful of sites - one of which was PhonyDiploma.com.
PhonyDiploma.com offered exact replicas of my degree and the best part was it only cost $185 instead of the $400 the university wanted to charge me. After speaking to them on the phone and having them absolutely assure me it would indeed be an exact replica, I went for it. They even accepted credit cards and told me I would have it delivered within 3 days. "Done deal! That sure was easy..." I thought.
Sure enough, 3 or 4 days later I got my package from PhonyDiploma.com.
My first disappointment came when I opened the box to find that the diploma didn't exact match my old diploma. As a matter of fact, this new one looked nothing like my old one. The layout was completely different. It looked like something that had been laser printed with a gold state seal on it instead of the embossed and multi-colored university seal like my original diploma has.
The real shock didn't come until about 3 weeks later however when I was abruptly fire from my job without reason, recourse, or severance pay.
I was absolutely infuriated. I had now worked for this company (which I won't name) for a few years and had received 1 promotion already as well as a handful of pay raises and out of the blue I am fired. Not only am I fired though, they also refuse to tell me exactly why I am being fired and even go as far as to have me quickly escorted off the property by a security guard.
To make a long story short, after about a week and talking to a few lawyers, I decided to sue for wrongful termination.
Almost a month had passed before my lawyer finally received a letter from human resources stating that I was fired for "conspiring to commit employment fraud".
It is important to note at this point that at NO POINT had I told ANYONE at my company that I had purchased a replacement for my diploma. I hadn't even told my lawyer, because at the time it hadn't even crossed my mind that would be somehow related to my termination. This was simply something that I had purchased to hang in my home office, which I never even ended up doing when all was said and done.
Within about 48 hours of my lawyer receiving the letter from the human resources department where I used to work, he also received an envelope via certified mail from the FBI in Richmond, Virginia. The letter contained further information on an investigation that was done concerning me with a few additional details as well as a disclosure notice that the FBI insisted I sign and immediately return it. The disclosure basically concluded that I wouldn't discuss what had happened, any contact I had with PhonyDiploma.com, or why I was fired because of an "ongoing investigation".
Needless to say, I didn't sign anything.
I have since tried to contact my employer to explain the situation to them and that I was only trying to order a replacement for a diploma that I already have, but so far I am not even getting a call back.
I probably should have put two and two together before I ordered anything from PhonyDiploma.com. I remember thinking to myself after I placed the order, "Wow. That was easy. I could have ordered just about anything I wanted. I wonder how these guys (PhonyDiploma.com) gets away with doing this..."
In my opinion, it is really complete BS how the FBI does this. I can see if they are trying to catch people ordering from other countries that are trying to sneak into the U.S., but why they have to ruin the life of a productive American citizen by setting up phony websites to entrap people I have no idea. My guess is though, I am not the first hard working Amrerican that has fallen victim to this trap and I probably won't be the last.
The thing about it is that if I hadn't went as far as hiring a lawyer and really pushed the issue, I probably never would have known the real reason why I was terminated.
I have done quite a bit of research since, and it looks like the FBI has already done this before, but with fake ID sites. A couple weeks ago, I came across an news article about a "congressional investigation" that was done in which the investigators had set up fake ID sites and had tracked people who ordered from the site for years to see what types of people were ordering, where they were ordering from, and what they were using the ID for.
Moral of the story:
BUYER BEWARE! STAY AWAY from PHONYDIPLOMA.com or any of its affiliated websites including:
- DiplomaCompany.com
- NextDayDiplomas.com
- RealisticDiploma.com
- RealisticDiplomas.com
- PhoneyDiploma.com
Do NOT contact or purchase ANYTHING from ANY of these fake degree websites! All of these fake diploma sites are the SAME COMPANY. These sites all have P.O. Boxes in Richmond, Virginia, which are located just miles from the FBI office where the letter that was sent to my lawyer was sent from - which also happens to be one of the main FBI offices in the country.
PhonyDiploma.com, PhoneyDiploma.com, DiplomaCompany.com, NextDayDiplomas.com, RealisticDiploma.com, and RealisticDiplomas.com are all fake scam sites that have been set up by the FBI as part of a sting operation!
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