General rule of thumb is that you shouldn’t post on social media anything that you will regret. Aryan Anand became a social media sensation. But he really did share too much. Anand is a self-admitted unmotivated student, whose high school grades dropped as a result of spending too much time watching horror movies. Needing to escape from a nagging dad he began looking abroad and gravitated towards United States schools known for generous need-based aid packages. Anand didn’t exactly shine in his computer science studies at school, but that didn’t get in the way of generating a scheme that got him a work visa, student visa and a full boat to an American university.
In a lengthy write-up on Reddit, Anand shared how he created a bogus website and email address for his high school that would ensure he would be the one answering questions from American colleges and submitting the fake records necessary to get him accepted. He used ChatGPT to write his college essays. Lehigh offered him the best package, but not a full boat. Anand said his father could have afforded that cost, but he would have to still listen to everything his dad had to say. Anand’s solution was to create a fake death certificate for his dad which he submitted to Lehigh with a plea for more aid. As a result, Anand was granted full tuition, housing, meals and even one round-trip flight. Goodbye dad. Upon arrival to Lehigh, Anand fabricated his resume and college records, and got a part-time remote job earning $1,500 monthly. Then, for whatever reason, Anand blew the whistle on himself.
“I have built my life and career on lies,” Anand said on the social media site Reddit. He created an anonymous post where he laid out the details of the scheme. A Reddit moderator notified the university of the post, and now Anand is facing the penalties.
Shout out to the Reddit moderator, who did more than expected when no one was doing their job. If a 19-year-old horror-movie fan from India who’s afraid of his father can game the student visa system, imagine what terrorists and hostile foreign governments can do.
Today’s Fraud of The Day is based on article “Ex-Lehigh student pretended his father died, then got a full scholarship” published by Lehigh Valley Live on June 26, 2024.
A former Lehigh University student faked his father’s death as part of a scheme to get a full scholarship and admission to the Bethlehem school, according to a news release from Northampton County’s district attorney.
Aryan Anand admitted he forged transcripts, financial statements and his father’s death certificate as part of the scheme, according to the release issued Monday by the office of District Attorney Stephen Baratta. The 19-year-old created a fake email address impersonating a school principal, the release says.
