I have built my life and career on lies and fraud - Long

[lollilolli2020]

• I am NOT OP. Original post from r/Btechtards and r/India by TransportationOk4728. Posts have been recovered through screenshots made before deletion and through the wayback machine. It has been lightly edited for typos, to include translations and definitions of acronyms. Editor's notes in italics.

• Trigger Warnings - manipulation, extreme deception, theft, mention of faked cancer, mention of faked death

OOP's first post in this saga seems to be this one, from r/India

Received full scholarship from a US university but can't afford visa & flight cost - May 23, 2023

I have passed my class 12th this year and have received full scholarship from a US university for my undergrad. tuition, housing, food, health insurance and even textbooks is covered in my scholarship/financial aid package.

The only thing I have to pay is for the flights and visa but even that is major financial challenge for my family. the visa will cost around 40K and one way flight from India to US will cost around 1 lakh. that's a significant amount from my family.

I have already asked my university for help but they said their financial aid policy doesn't cover visa and transportation costs so they can't help me in this.

I was wondering if anyone knows any organization or NGO which can help me in this. or what should I do? any advice would be greatly appreciated.

thankyou!

Editor's note - most comments from OOP were unrecoverable, but comments from other users confirm he would be attending Lehigh University.

Comment: Congratulations man, Lehigh is an absolutely amazing school. Lots of resources already linked here, I'll just say best of luck, you have a great future ahead of you!

OOP received some advice to watch out for scams, some skepticism about the veracity of his story and some offers of help, including this one:

melayaraja: I am based in New Jersey. Not far from your campus. Please DM proof of your admission and I20. Will provide partial support after review.

I-20 proves that you are legally enrolled in a program of study in the United States

OOP also posted this on r/Lehigh , the sub for his university:

I was awarded 2,500$ in work study for 2023-24 academic year in which 1250 was for fall and 1250 for the spring.

I was able to earn only about 500$ in the fall, so can I earn the remaining 2000 in the spring or am I allowed to earn a max of 1250 only a semester?

Anyone has any idea about this?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Lehigh/comments/18n7v6o/deleted_by_user/

OOP returned nine months later with a new post:

I have built my life and career on LIES and FRAUD - February 22, 2024

read only if u have time, it's very long but worth it.

So, it all started when our 10th board exams got cancelled. From that day till now, I haven't seriously studied for even 2 hours. As usual, I took Science in 11th, dreaming of cracking JEE Editor's note: (Joint Entrance Examination) and all, but soon realized it wasn't a piece of cake. I barely passed 11th with 49%.

Then, in 12th, I thought I would restart everything and took admission in a dummy school. I might have studied seriously for like 2-3 days, but then again, I started repeating the same things. There was a time in my life where I was just eating, sleeping, and watching movies. I used to watch horror movies all night long for months then sleep the whole day, and my parents thought was studying the whole night. But soon, I realized it's time, and I need to do something to get into a good college. I again tried studying, but it was not like I didn't want to study; I wanted to but was not able to understand anything in physics, chemistry even after trying very hard, I was able to understand maths a little, but that wasn't enough.

Okay, so now the real part comes. I soon realized I wouldn't be able to get even a 50 percentile in JEE, so then I started looking for colleges abroad and their admission process, fees, everything I was able to find online. Then I found out only in the US some top colleges provide full financial aid to even international students (financial aid is a type of scholarship but based on family's income), but you need to be like very very good to get those kinds of things like you should have perfect academic scores, perfect extracurriculars, everything but I didn't have any of those things. I checked these things in, like June, July of my 12th class, and the US universities' admissions applications starts from 1st Aug and have a deadline of 1st Jan for regular decisions and 1st Nov for early decisions. So, I planned a very very structured fraud plan. They need your 9-11 class result and a predicted result of 12th. I got my result for 9-11 class edited them like in a very perfect way anyone would not recognize as if it's edited, then made a completely fake predicted result for my 12th class even bought a fake stamp and seal of my school's principal to make it look perfect.

Then, as all these transcripts needed to be sent by my school's official email ID, but my school only had a a gmail.com email which, despite being official, looked fake. So, I made a fake email id of my school, not any regular email like [email protected], I bought a similar website domain of my school and got the email like if it's of principal then [email protected] so it looked exactly official, then I started preparing my application, they need your academic achievements in high school, outside of academic achievements, I made a complete full fake profile of me, and I didn't mention any of the activities like won any olympiad medal or anything I put on which cannot be verified but are still impressive, and even if they wanted to verify something, they would send an email to my school of which I had access to. Then I needed to write some essays like almost every college have a prompt why u want to come here what our college offeres which other colleges dont so i used chatgpt and i know people who has experience in aplying abroad will say chatgpt writes very bad essays but what i did was first looked on some successful and good past essays gave them to chatgpt and said to craft a similar impressove essay for the prompt so i got some decent essays to submit.

Okay, so I did this and applied a bunch of early and regular applications. I applied to almost every single US college which promised to meet the need of every admitted student, which means they would give you a scholarship for the costs you can't pay, like a typical US college costs about 60-70 lakhs per year including tuition, housing, everything, and let's if someone could only afford about 30 lakhs per year, so they would give a scholarship or financial aid for that remaining amount; it works like that, and I applied saying I cannot contribute anything to my college education, like not even a single penny but they need like your parents’ income proof and all that before they finalize your decisions, but say your father or mother earns 20 lakhs per year (~$24,000 USD), which is pretty good in India, but it is nothing in America because how can someone who earns 20 lakhs a year and spend 60 lakhs a year on college, so for most of the top colleges, if your parents’ income is not more than like say 3-4 cr, you will get full financial aid because even if someone earns 1 cr a year cannot spend 60-70 lakhs alone on college, and most of the US colleges are need-blind for US citizens which means their ability to pay doesn't affect their admissions decisions, but for non-US citizens except maybe 4-5 lvy League colleges, all the other colleges are need-aware which means the student's ability to pay now affects their admission decisions. It doesn't affect greatly if it's a top school but still do to an extent.

So I applied and got a bunch of rejections, waitlisted, deferred, and even some acceptances in the early round, but the acceptances weren't fulfilling my full need, like some were giving full scholarship for tuition, but I still had to pay around 15-20 lakhs a year for housing, food, and everything. Okay, so I got these decisions around mid and end of December, and till now, I hadn't studied even a bit of 12th grade, even for boards, JEE alone. And the boards were scheduled to start from mid-feb ig, and all the regular decision applications I applied were supposed to be released in mid to end of March. I started studying just to pass, but during boards, I realized how messed up I was except for physical education and english. I thought I would not pass in any of the subjects. In my physics exam, I wrote answers like, I remember there was a question, how are x-ray rays produced, I wrote x-ray rays are produced by x-ray machines. In maths, all I wrote was given in the questions to find or to prove, basically rewrote the questions. I wrote for like 10-15 marks out of 80 in almost all subjects except English and physical education.

Okay, so now back to the story, the decisions came, and as expected, I got rejected from every Ivy League, maybe they found out I am fake or something. I don't know what, but one college, I wouldn't name for obvious reasons, it's a top 25 in the US and a reputed college. I don't know how they accepted but gave me a very very good financial aid package which covered almost everything except my meal plan cost. It was like 5k USD a year, which is about 4-5 lakhs a year. I knew we could afford this, but I thought if still my dad would pay for my college, I would still have to listen to everything he tells me like basically be answerable to everything i do till he is paying for my college, I know this is wrong, but at that time, I just wanted freedom at any cost, and if I could go to college without even spending a penny of my parents’ money, only then I could get that.

So, I planned another very wrong and fraud thing. I created a completely fake death certificate of my father (I know you all are like what), but I did and sent that to my college, saying my dad got cancer and is dead, so my mother would receive his pension (my dad has a govt job) and that would be almost half of his actual income, so I won't be able to pay for these 5k also, and they took that very seriously, and instantly increased my aid package to over full cost of attendance, which means tuition. housing. meals and even one round trip ticket to India every year.

So there was a last thing remaining, which was sending them my 12th final result that I graduated my high school and with a good grade and I was worried that I might not even pass 12th. This was the only barrier now. I got my result, I scored 58%, and that too was more than enough for me. As soon as I got the result, I first edited the result page to 91% to show it to my parents, and for which they were really happy, and I was feeling guilty, and then got the copy from digi locker, edited that, made that 91%, and sent it to the college from school's official email which I created. They quickly accepted it and made my admission official, and everything was in place now. Now, when I told this to everyone, everyone was surprised, like how can I get into a college in the US with full scholarship. My dad and mom's friends started coming to my house to congratulate me and then seek advice for their kids, how can they too get that, all those things, and only I knew how I did this. And when at first I told this to my dad, his first reaction was like, "Tujhe toh plus-minus bhi nahi aata, ye kaise ho gaya?’ literally, he said this. Editor's note - Google translation: "You don't even know plus-minus, how did this happen?"

And some people also thought it might be a scam and all, but later realized it is all legit. Okay, so now back to the story, now I had to get a US visa, and that stuff is like not too hard but still even if they suspect anything wrong with you, like fake academic things or anything suspicious, they would instantly reject your visa application. There is a 2-3 mins short interview with a foreigner in the US embassy or consulate where they verify that you are a legit person and you have sufficient funds to survive in the US and that if you speak English properly.

So at the time of my interview, I saw a girl got rejected right in front of me, and I was next.I don't know why they rejected her. She was speaking fine, answering everything which they asked properly, but still, and I got very nervous at my turn, they first asked why this university and all. I said something unique about the uni and then said they also gave me a full ride, which means full scholarship. As soon as she saw that on my 120 (it's a doc for the visa), she said, "Oh, that's good,’ smiled and said congrats, and said, "You must be very smart,’ only I knew how smart I was, and instantly typed something on the computer and said your visa is approved and didn't even ask any further questions.

Okay, so for my boards, I was curious to know how I even passed, so I ordered the photocopies of my graded answer sheets from the CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) website, and when I received my answer sheets, I was literally shocked. I got like 10-15 marks in all the subjects except English and PE, it was written on the front of the answer sheet like 13 for maths, 15 for physics, 11 for chem, but on the result portal, they passed me by giving 29-30 in every subject and extra 20 with practical, so I got like 45-50 in every subject, so if someone who is giving boards rn remeber this, cbse tries to pass you in every way possible. The only way you can fail is if you haven't written anything on the answer sheet.

So I came here in the US in Aug 2023 without spending a penny. The college paid for my flight, and they had sent a bus to the airport to pick up all the intl students arriving on that day. So, I came here, the orientation and everything happened. I got to know a few students from India who were like on full tuition scholarship and also from some other countries, and they all are like geniuses. They have done research in some fields, some are intl Olympiad winners and all that, and I am a fraud. So, the classes started, and here we have 2 midterms and one final, and the midterm is like every month. So, first, I tried studying, i thought let just forget everything in the past and start a fresh good life here but then again, I don't know, I was just not interested in studying anymore, my habit or what I don't know what.

Exams came, and I needed to get a 3 out of 4 GPA (here we have a 4 GPA scale) every semester to continue my financial aid or scholarship to the next sem. I got very tensed.

Then, I again made a plan. In the exam hall, there are like at least 100 people at a time. What I did, I didn't take my bag or anything in the exam hall, and it's not like school like we have to leave bags outside. You can take anything also have the phone, but the phone or any electronic device cannot be seen on the desk. If they see, then it's game over for you. They take these things like very very very seriously of academic integrity and honesty, even more than Indian colleges, so cheating here is easy, but if you get caught, it's over. So, I thought as soon as I will get the exam paper, and here we don't have answer sheets, we write on the exam paper itself like we used to do in lower classes.

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.

And then we had winter break of about a month in Dec, came back to India for a month, came again here in Jan ending for 2nd sem, and again started doing the same things, going to parties, drinking, and all. 1st Midterm happened recently, I did the same thing and got perfect marks. Also, I am getting everything for free but still needed some money to buy some things or do anything, and here I cannot do a part-time job in mcdonalds or any local store as an international student, you can do it with the cash, but it's risky. If you get caught, you will be deported. And even if my parents send me some money they can send like 10k max which is like nothing here.

So, then I again made a plan. You can do internships and earn money, there are no restrictions on that. I made a complete fake resume, edited my transcript to look like a 3rd-year marketing student. I didn't do a CS or any engineering student because then for internships there are technical interviews and all, so I did the marketing one which have normal interviews not too hard and applied to over 100-150 companies, got interviews invite, and I prepared answers for every experience I listed on the resume, by hearted them, by hearted all the common interview answers, and got a marketing intern position at a small insurance firm based in New York. It's remote work, all i have to do is send some emails and sometimes make some phone calls. It's part-time. I do it like 2-3 hrs a day, and most of the time, I just clock in and watch movies or do anything unless there is something assigned to me, and I make around 1500S a month from it, like 1.2 lakhs in INR, and it's more than enough for me here. I just spend it on getting drinks, getting some new electronics every month, and stuff like that. I know I should be investing and stuff, but I just don't like to do anything in which there is my brain involved unless it's fraud.

So, I don't know what I am doing is wrong or right. It's basically wrong morally ik, but I haven't had a single problem till now, but still, I am scared something very bad would happen in my life very soon if I keep on doing these things.

EDIT: This is not a fantasy or any fake story and no one would ever be able to create such a detailed fake story. This is my life fr. believe it or not.

Some select comments:

Redditor:

you're a real idiot posting this on the internet when you're still studying in the college you scammed your way into lmao

OOP:
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.

commenter:
I'm now very suspicious about him, he said most of the people in his college uses Snapchat, and people doesn't know about reddit, but how come there's a subreddit of his college with some thousand members in it?

How did you know his college has a subreddit

I saw it on his account, the subreddit he had joined. It's Lehigh University

different commenter:
why would OP waste so much of his time typing all that and fool us? for what? this was his main account too btw, not a throwaway account doesn't make sense. even the account is deleted now, can't be for farming karma. pretty sure he isn't lying, he's just dumb. i've mailed Lehigh University the entire post. If it is true he will get caught and rusticated, deported and banned from the country

_____________

Although some comments called the claims fake, the post was true. Excerpts from a couple of news articles below. The story broke June 24th, 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.

Anand’s father is alive in India, the release says.

“I have built my life and career on lies,” Anand said on the social media site Reddit."

“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.

Anand enrolled at Lehigh as a first-year student in August 2023 and his admission was revoked this year, the news release says.

Anand pleaded guilty to forgery on June 12. As part of a plea deal, he was sentenced to one to three months in Northampton County Prison, which amounted to a time-served sentence according to defense attorney Molly Heidorn. She had no further comment on the case.

As part of the deal, Anand agreed to return to India and Lehigh University agreed not to pursue restitution of $85,000, the news release says. The release says charges of theft and tampering with records were dropped.

Anand was arrested and charged April 30, the news release says.

https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/news/2024/06/ex-lehigh-student-pretended-his-father-died-then-got-a-full-scholarship.html

Although [Anand] did not name himself or the university, a Reddit moderator noticed his post, did some digging and figured out that Anand was a student at Lehigh.

“The defendant only had one other university that he followed, which was Lehigh University. So, the moderator actually reached out to Lehigh to give them a heads up,” said Northampton County Assistant DA Michael Weinert.

The moderator alerted the university and passed on all the evidence he had.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/trending/indian-student-faked-father-s-death-for-full-scholarship-to-us-a-reddit-post-gave-him-away-101719553355830.html

Originally posted on r/India on June 28, 2024:

Indian student deported after he faked father’s death for full scholarship to US. A Reddit post gave him away

Comment:

melayaraja (editor's note - this person's comment was featured at the beginning of the post):

Wow! This guy scammed me 5000 INR (~$60 USD ). He reached out on reddit asking for help to support his travel to Lehigh University. I checked his I20 document and transferred the money back in June 2023. He was communicating from his university email address as well. 

u/FireStreek has revealed that they are the mod who turned OOP in and has provided proof of their role in this here

https://www.reddit.com/r/Btechtards/comments/1dr57g0/behind_the_scenes_of_aryan_anands_fraud/

Bruh I was the mod of btechtards when I reported this thing, I just want to make it clear that my report has nothing to do with confession sub

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pennsylvania/comments/1dohi1g/comment/lavn11f/

[lollilolli2020]

poradiki talent vundii but paniki malina danipaina waste chesukunnadu; 

[JANASENA]

he's deported i think

[Pahelwan4]

Poraniki scamming talent undi. He can become Harshad Mehta kinda person.

[papampasivadu]

31 minutes ago, lollilolli2020 said:

poradiki talent vundii but paniki malina danipaina waste chesukunnadu; 

Noru mooskuni undaleka poyaadu...

[Pahelwan4]

Exam center bayata velli paper raskochudu endi ra . Basically he didn’t make any money other than being in us and joining big school 

[papampasivadu]

1 minute ago, Pahelwan4 said:

Poraniki scamming talent undi. He can become Harshad Mehta kinda person.

aa talent unnollaki andhariki fame picchi kuda untadhi...akkade dorikipotharu..

[vetrivel]

4 minutes ago, papampasivadu said:

aa talent unnollaki andhariki fame picchi kuda untadhi...akkade dorikipotharu..

Just like CBN

[papampasivadu]

9 minutes ago, Pahelwan4 said:

Exam center bayata velli paper raskochudu endi ra . Basically he didn’t make any money other than being in us and joining big school 

Most of the time TA/RA lani pedatharu anna exam invigilation ki...vallu aath kuda pattinchukoru...eppudu aypoddha, eppudu dobbeddhama annatlu untaaru...

[nag]

18 minutes ago, papampasivadu said:

aa talent unnollaki andhariki fame picchi kuda untadhi...akkade dorikipotharu..

baddhakam kooda vuntadhi.. i have seen a few too smart and lazy ...irony is they use that talent on useless things

[lollilolli2020]

33 minutes ago, papampasivadu said:

aa talent unnollaki andhariki fame picchi kuda untadhi...akkade dorikipotharu..

@Sucker uncle gurinchee kada 

[Sucker]

15 minutes ago, lollilolli2020 said:

@Sucker uncle gurinchee kada 

Add chesara naa involvement lekunna. Kaanivvandi anna

[Konebhar6]

Someone summarize pls .. too lengthy to read ..

[lollilolli2020]

Just now, Konebhar6 said:

Someone summarize pls .. too lengthy to read ..

 

[yemdoing]

2 hours ago, papampasivadu said:

Noru mooskuni undaleka poyaadu...

its and inner doola or showing off.... look how talented I am in fooling.