The problem of bogus universities has been around for a very long time
indeed. In the 1980's I worked for the British Council, and one of my
responsibilities was providing information to overseas offices and
students regarding such institutions. At that time they were not acting
illegally, so I was very limited in the information that I could give,
and I had to limit myself to statements such as 'The qualifications
offered by 'x' institution would not necessarily be recognised as
acceptable should you/the student wish to take further qualification'
and 'You cannot apply to this institution via the UCAS scheme'. Indeed,
if you visit the ECDOL site under the section on
accreditation/recognition of their member's qualifications they say

"ECDOL recognition is not a guarantee that credit will transfer to any
college or university."

In the mid 1980's I do recall that the Government did bring in some sort
of act (though since it was a long time ago I'm afraid I can't recall
which one), that meant that these institutions could no longer pass
themselves off as offering first degrees.

However, that still left a lot of loopholes. Many universities will
accept students who don't have mainstream qualifications (particularly
mature students), but will take into account 'life experience', and so
it was possible for these bogus institutions to follow the same route.

Other institutions would claim to be off-shore American Universities,
attempting to cause confusion between themselves and legitimate
universities.

Others would rent out rooms at a respectable university and would take
photographs of the university, saying that courses took place there, and
lead students into believing that the 'qualification' they were getting
was in association with or validated by the university.

I've not looked at the site in question, so can't comment directly on
it, and my comments above should be taken as being generic, rather than
relating to any organisation specifically, but you could of course
contact the institution in question and ask them to remove the link, or
you could add a line of text to your page which is being linked to and
say something along the lines of 'If you followed a link to this page,
we do not necessarily endorse or validate the page or organisation which
provided the link.'

Other things that you could do would be to contact the British
Accreditation Council for Further Independent Education, the British
Council and, if appropriate, the American Embassy (if any such
institution claims to be an off-shore American organisation) to seek
their viewpoint. It would also be worth contacting the local Consumer
Affairs representative in the appropriate local government and ask them
to look into the situation.

Finally, to return to the ECDOL list, it's interesting to note that many
excellent UK universities are members. I would be very inclined to
contact your colleagues in these universities to ask for their opinions
and ask them if they are aware that they are included in a list of
organisations along with some possibly less reputable organisations. It
may also be worth approaching the people at ECDOL to ask for their views
as well, and to perhaps say that if your organisation is currently a
member, you may well decide to review this and withdraw your membership
since you are not happy with the academic reputation of some of the
other organisations on it.

A final note: I worked in this area for 6 years and was responsible for
giving information to British Council offices, many academic
organisations, British Government departments, and both at home and
abroad. I am well aware of how quickly certain organisations that I was
asked about were quick to threaten legal action, so the opinions and
advice given above are just mine, and not of any other organisation, and
my comments are general, and should not be taken to imply criticism of
any specific organisation, either on the ECDOL list, the ECDOL itself
(of which I know nothing that what I saw at the website), or any
organisation referred to in this thread.

In the unlikely event that anyone would like to discuss this with me
directly, please feel free to email me direct.

Hope that helps,

Phil.
--
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