The criminal scammers Erkan Sutculer and Yuliz Obergfell of the diploma mill / certificate mill Skillfront are proving there are no depths to their narcissistic personal disorders and capacity to commit felony fraud.
In a post from over a month ago on LinkedIn, a victim of the scammers raised an issue on how Sutculer and Obergfell stole money from his credit card, and then cut off all communication with him when he tried to confront them. Not content with having stolen the guy’s money, Suctuler and Obergfell thought they’d rub salt in the wound by “liking” his post. Have a look:
Apparently, this fellow is not the only victim, and the couple has been ripping people off and risking prison for some time now. It’s not uncommon for narcissists to believe they can commit felonies with impunity, since they think the law doesn’t apply to them. It seems to be the case here.
It’s one thing to issue fake MBA degrees, issue fake ISO 9001 certificates, issue fake Project Management certificates, issue fake “Scrum Master” certificates, and engage in repeated fraud against US veterans. Stealing thousands of dollars from credit cards and then “liking” the posts that call you out on it is a whole new level of misbehavior.
Whereas Sutculer and Obergfell were merely humorous annoyances before — remember the time they certified a dog? — this is starting to piss me off. And that means it’s time to bring in the lawyers and law enforcement. I am reaching out to as many sources as I can to see what can be done to put these two criminals in prison where they belong.
Meanwhile, I am digging further into the involvement of the Long Beach CA based charity Veterans & Youth Career Collaborative (VYCC). If you recall, back in 2022 I revealed that Sutculer and Obergfell were selling their fake Project Management credentials through the VYCC, which they claimed had partnered with their fake company, the “International Organization for Project Management” (IO4PM). I learned about it in 2022, but the scam went back as far as 2019, when Obergfell was bragging about it on LinkedIn.
I wrote to VYCC’s Executive Director, Nelson Varas, and assumed he had no idea Obergfell and her husband were Turkish scammers using his charity to rip off US veterans. Varas, though, did some strange things. First, he refused to answer me at all, not responding to phone calls or emails. But behind the scenes, he was deleting all references to IO4PM from the VYCC website. he wasn’t, however, telling Obergfell to stop marketing her scams under the VYCC name, though.
That was weird, but I chalked it up to Varas being embarrassed or afraid of some legal fallout. Now, I’m not so sure.
Sure enough, in January of this year — 2025 — Obergfell republished a press release about the partnership of VYCC and IO4PM on their website. That got me checking back into VYCC, and things got weird.
First, there was a flurry of lawsuits entangling Varas, the VYCC, and its fellow directors. In one case, Varas sued his former co-director, Hector Salazar, for “defamation,” but the court docket appears to show that his attorneys bungled it. So much so that the court ordered a few show cause hearings on why Varas’ attorney shouldn’t be sanctioned for the screwups. It’s not clear how that ended, though, but I don’t see any record of his attorney being sanctioned, so I think it was dropped.
Another case shows a landlord suing VYCC over (I believe) unpaid rent. Again, I’m not sure how that turned out. But the cases suggest the VYCC isn’t the most reputable non-profit in existence.
The Google reviews for VYCC are pretty damning. Says one reviewer:
Predatory practices. Definitely not helpful to any recent Veterans who have degrees and have worked for real corporations. Essentially a cert mill for low end/low wage grunt work.
And this one:
They claim when you do the course it’s free, but it’s a lie you pay for the course. I don’t know fingerprinting are supposed to be expensive but it was $100. Also, be careful signing in this organization. They will harass you until you get a job. Even though you barely finish the course a few days, I felt liked I needed to block them. Not only that they’re terrible at answering your questions. They only want your information so you will be their security. And will say anything for you to sign with them, Even though sometimes what their telling you is not 100% accurate. Its also like they were doing it for money honestly even the parking lot was $10. I felt robbed coming in here. It’s chaotic because the building is connected with multiple businesses
VYCC also got a “Zero Star Rating” at the nonprofit monitor Charity Navigator. The group was issued at least four citations from the California Dept. of Consumer Affairs, Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education. These were for infractions such as not paying annual fees and not filing required Student Tuition Recovery Fund records. Despite that, it looks like they were able to get some COVID-19 relief funds in 2020, so they must have been able to file that paperwork.
So a picture starts to form here, and it doesn’t look good.
As for right now, Varas claims (on his LinkedIn profile) that he’s no longer with the organization. Despite VYCC still being listed as active, I tried to call the public phone number and found it was disconnected. The website is down, too.
But Obergfell continues to use the VYCC name to sell scams to US veterans. You would think Varas might do something about that, even if he’s “retired.” You’d be wrong.
I’ve filed a complaint wth the California regulatory body that oversees nonprofits in that state to see what they come up with.
Christopher Paris is the founder and VP Operations of Oxebridge. He has over 35 years’ experience implementing ISO 9001 and AS9100 systems, and helps establish certification and accreditation bodies with the ISO 17000 series. He is a vocal advocate for the development and use of standards from the point of view of actual users. He is the writer and artist of THE AUDITOR comic strip, and is currently writing the DR. CUBA pulp novel series. Visit www.drcuba.world
