Got burned by a fake certification at a conference in Austin

I went to a marketing conference in Austin last March and saw a guy selling a 'Google Certified Professional' badge on the spot for $150. He had a whole booth set up with fancy banners and everything. Turns out it was totally fake, no actual Google affiliation at all. I almost bought one until a buddy pulled me aside. Have any of you run into these fake certification scams at networking events?

2 comments

2 Comments

wood.john16d ago

Wait, did they at least have a legit-looking website or something to back it up? Ive seen these guys at a few trade shows in Dallas and theyre getting slicker every year. One booth was selling "Google Ads Expert" certificates and even had a fake testimonial video playing on a loop. The worst part is that some people probably buy them and put them on LinkedIn, then wonder why theyre getting roasted in interviews. I had a colleague who fell for a "Microsoft Certified Partner" badge at a vendor expo and got called out by a recruiter months later. Its like the Wild West out there with no one checking credentials.

tessa39416d ago

That booth with the looping testimonial video is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. I saw a similar setup at a tech expo in Austin last year where they were selling "AWS Certified Solutions Architect" badges for 50 bucks, no test required. The website they had looked real too, almost identical to the official AWS partner page, with stolen logos and all. Did the recruiter who called out your colleague actually get that badge taken down, or was it one of those things where nobody wanted to chase the company?