18 fake degrees, $90,000 gold and a wily salesgirl

DUBAI: A panicked medical technologist in Al Ain sold all her jewellery to raise $90,000 – $30,000 in one night, after a wily salesgirl at AXACT tricked her into believing she was calling from the UAE embassy in the US.

Speaking fluent Arabic, learned from her days in Riyadh, the salesgirl told the Arab medical technologist that she would face legal action if she didn’t immediately pay the amount to cancel her many degrees and get an accredited one from a Sharjah University.

The Arab woman had bought 18 degrees from various AXACT run universities over three years for $60,000 to get a promotion at the hospital where she still works.

She refused to take calls from XPRESS, saying she didn’t want to talk about the issue. But XPRESS has evidence showing she wired $30,000 to the AXACT owned bogus Cambell University on September 24, 2014, the night she got the phony call and another $39,100 on October 8 last year.

Former AXACT quality assurance auditor Yasir Jamshaid, who heard the interaction between the Arab woman and the Karachi–based sales girl as part of his job recalled: ‘It was around 6.30pm when I picked up this call that had been going on for quite a while. What I heard was beyond shock. Here was this 25-year-old girl pretending to be a highly placed US-based UAE diplomat who could land this woman in trouble if she didn’t pay up $5,000 for each of her 18 degrees.

Jamshaid, who also understands Arabic, said the conversation went on for at least another hour during when he heard the Arab woman haggle for the best price for her jewellery. “She sounded desperate.

“Later that week, the salesgirl, who was struggling to meet her monthly target, was given a Rs100,000 (Dh3,605) bonus for closing this job. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

A few days later, Jamshaid resigned and fled to the UAE with records of nearly two dozen customers payments totally around $600,000.