A claim written on Closedcollege.com, “We will take your word that you are ordering a replacement degree because we believe that most of the Internet community is honest and forthright,” may be as bogus as the college degrees the site sells.

In an attempt to “curb the trafficking of bogus college degrees,” the Illinois Board of Higher Education will finalize a legislative proposal at its Tuesday meeting at Illinois State University to be sent to the Illinois General Assembly. The proposal, to be sent to the Illinois General Assembly, would make selling phony degrees a Class 1 felony punishable by four to 15 years in prison, Donald Sevener, director of IBHE media relations, said Friday.

“We are trying to be proactive in stopping a problem by letting people know if they will traffic false college credentials, there will be a major penalty,” he said.

A subcommittee formed by the IBHE discovered more than 20 Internet sites trafficking fake degrees, Sevener said. Bogusphd.com, Graduatenow.com, Secretknow-ledge.com and Degrees-r-us.com are among the sites offering the degrees.

Closedcollege.com, one of the sites listed in IBHE’s report, sells students replacement degrees from colleges and universities that are no longer functional. Patrons can pay $225 to obtain replacement degrees for an original they may have lost, the site claims.

Other sites traffic degrees from colleges that are still open and operating.

For example, individuals willing to pay $75 to become a member of Fakedegrees.com may purchase phony degrees from Illinois’ institutions such as Illinois State University, Western Illinois University, Illinois Wesleyan University and Illinois Valley Community College.

Sue Harvey, Eastern’s director of academic records, said, “One site does offer a degree from Eastern, but I am unsure of the site’s URL.”

Harvey added, there have been some reports from Credentials Incorporated, which is contracted by Eastern to print degrees, “of people trying to verify degrees that they had not actually earned form Eastern.”

That does not necessarily mean the degrees were purchased over the Internet, Harvey said.