Unethical Website of the Month November 2004

Not just unethical but downright sinister, the flagship website of "The National Academy" (www.naas.org) purports to distribute "The Easley National Scholarship" to deserving college students in a competition based on academic performance. Tuition costs being what they are, the offer of a scholarship (of up to $10,000) is enough to get the "National Academy" listed on various reputable websites that exist to help students and parents find additional resources. But the "Easley National Scholarship" is really akin to a raffle created for the enrichment of its sponsor, and The National Academy of American Scholars is a for profit company.

Here's how the profit is made. The NAAS requires applicants for its so-called scholarship to submit an application fee of twenty or thirty dollars, as well as a lot of personal information (Social Security number, photocopy of a driver's license). Then the National Academy simply informs applicants that they didn't make the cut, or sends them far less than promised. With enough volume from hopeful and trusting students, the application fees far outstrip the small amounts doled out as "scholarships" to keep the operation from being prosecuted as an outright fraud.

If the applicants complain, the NAAS gets really get nasty. Its modus operandi is to launch a web-based smear campaign, accusing their victims and their victims' supporters of everything from criminal activity to terrorism. In one case documented recently in the New York Times, a Brandeis student whose parents complained about the lack of any resolution of his application for an Easley scholarship found himself accused in various web sites of theft, ties to a Mafia-like criminal family, and having a sexual relationship with a rabbi!

The intended message: "Don't mess with us, kid. Chalk up that lost application fee to experience. It's a jungle out there."

Amazingly, the Times story reveals that the NAAS has so far avoided legal consequences for its activities. Its largely bogus scholarship treads the thin line between deceit and fraud, and the organization's principals remain difficult to track down. The Federal Trade Commission lawyer interviewed by the Times reporter, Samuel Freedman, points out that web scams like this are infuriatingly difficult to stop. "If you use a publicly available means like the Internet, and if you have an innocuous name," he says, "then 9 out of 10 times you can operate for a long time without being found out. Or even 10 out of 10."

If you know a college student who is looking for scholarship money, warn them, and quick, to stay away from www.naas.org. This web site is a predator.

See unethical sites from other months