[jonahbenton]

There is.

He offers to rewrite the name with that of the buyer.

And while the paper "belongs" to him, in reality that paper is a credential issued by Harvard, and the source of truth for credential holders is Harvard, not the holders/subjects.

All colleges maintain lists of credential holders.

An attempt to verify the ownership and subject of the credential- which happens quite often, many mid to high level employment offers, all background checks, etc, perform this verification- using the buyer's name, fraudulently rewritten on the piece of paper- will fail.

Issuing fraudulent credentials of various kinds and advertising them as valid...is fraud.

And if you don't think so...I've got a bridge to sell you.

Cheers.

[throwaway8581]

There is no fraud here. The guy addresses all of these things. It's a PR stunt with a piece of paper he owns, carried out openly for all to see. That's not fraud. Certainly, the recipient could turn around and try to do something fraudulent with the diploma, but there is nothing inherently fraudulent about anything this guy is suggesting.