{"id":32089,"date":"2025-04-22T08:08:28","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T12:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/?p=32089"},"modified":"2025-04-22T08:08:28","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T12:08:28","slug":"certificate-mill-sent-fake-email-claiming-oxebridge-was-extorting-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/certificate-mill-sent-fake-email-claiming-oxebridge-was-extorting-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Certificate Mill Sent Fake Email Claiming Oxebridge Was Extorting Them"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Certificate mill operator Ram Kala Verma, who&#8217;s run an ISO consultancy, certification body, and accreditation body all at the same time, thought he&#8217;d get out of his current problems by circulating a fake email intended to make it appear that I am demanding a million dollars from him.<\/p>\n<p>Verma was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/san-francisco-ai-company-obtained-iso-27001-from-indians-accredited-in-ethopia\/\">reported<\/a> by a whistleblower after his latest CB, Quality Control Certifications\u00a0 (QCC), gave an ISO 27001 certificate to the company Thalamus AI. The whistleblower alleged that Thalamus AI was calling around asking for a certificate if a CB grant the certificate without doing an actual audit. The whistleblower claims that QCC then handed Thalamus AI a certificate in only 3 days.<\/p>\n<p>We dug into it further and filed a complaint with QCC alleging a number of ISO 17021 violations. The main sticking point is that QCC claims to have audited a site in Delaware that isn&#8217;t even used by Thalamus AI. All online publications by Thalamus AI suggest the company is actually in India, making QCC&#8217;s certificate &#8212; which shows Thalamus AI using a Delaware address &#8212; problematic.<\/p>\n<p>Verma did the usual certificate mill thing and freaked out, calling the complaint &#8220;<em>stupid<\/em>.&#8221; I then sent a second salvo of violations at him, while also reminding the IAF that Verma has a past as a known certificate mill operator. Previously, Verma ran the consulting company QEHS Management Ltd., alongside the certificate body Generic Management Services (GMS). That last one is a deep cut, as they were involved in a scam with <em><strong>another<\/strong> <\/em>certification body, G-PMC LLC, which was brandishing a fake ISO 9001 certificate that had GMS&#8217; logo on it. Verma, at the time, claimed that G-PMC had stolen their logo, so either Verma was lying or it was a case of scammers scamming scammers. Ironically, Verma held actual accreditation from the Romanian body RENAR at the time and then <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/guberman-certificate-mill-forced-loss-of-accreditation-for-actual-iso-9001-registrar\/\">lost it<\/a> over the G-PMC debacle.<\/p>\n<p>But Verma had already formed the accreditation body &#8220;<em>United Ackreditering Services Limited<\/em>&#8221; (UASL), which was later renamed United Assessment Services Ltd. after they realized they spelled the word &#8220;<em>accreditation<\/em>&#8221; wrong. Since then, Verma re-formed GMS as QCC, and has been claiming UASL accreditation as a certificate mill for years.<\/p>\n<p>(Fun fact, Verma spells it &#8220;<em>accrediation<\/em>&#8221; on his <a href=\"https:\/\/qccertification.com\/\">QCC website<\/a>, because he just can&#8217;t seem to get it right, the poor sap.)<\/p>\n<p>After the RENAR mess, Verma was apparently unable to get any IAF member to accredit him, but then got lucky with the Ethiopians. The Ethiopian Accreditation Service (EAS),\u00a0<span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;\">a full IAF signatory, finally accredited them, but the details of how they did it remain<\/span> a mystery. As of now, QCC is fully accredited, although it still appears to be operating like a shady mill. Thus, Thalamus AI.<\/p>\n<p>In keeping with certificate mill operators&#8217; inability to be decent human beings, Verma has now circulated a fake email which, he claims, came from me. In that email, I demand he pay me $1,000,000; if he does, the email says, I will remove the reporting about him. Verma then spammed LinkedIn and the IAF with copies of this fake email, calling me a &#8220;<em>scammer, blammer, and extortionist,<\/em>&#8221; although I admit to not knowing what, exactly, a &#8220;<em>blammer<\/em>&#8221; is. I presume it&#8217;s a class of Fortnite characters.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-32090\" style=\"border: 1px solid #000000;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/qccvermapost.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"409\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/qccvermapost.png 1000w, https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/qccvermapost-150x123.png 150w, https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/qccvermapost-184x150.png 184w, https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/qccvermapost-768x627.png 768w, https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/qccvermapost-560x458.png 560w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-32091\" style=\"border: 1px solid #000000;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/vermaemail.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"424\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/vermaemail.png 717w, https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/vermaemail-106x150.png 106w, https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/vermaemail-560x791.png 560w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a whole lot of fakery in the open here. First, the email address that Verma claims I used is actually an <em><strong>Indian<\/strong> <\/em>scam site (&#8220;<em>vwhins.com<\/em>&#8220;) that is famous for being used by spammers who want to hide their identity. Per the website IPQualityScore, that domain is ranked as &#8220;<em>high risk<\/em>&#8221; and they have &#8220;<em>detected a large amount of recent abusive activity originating from this domain. User accounts and applications from this domain are likely fraudulent<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But why would I use a fake email hosting service and then sign it &#8220;<em>Oxebridge<\/em>?&#8221; I&#8217;m confused on that part.<\/p>\n<p>Then, of course, there is the poor English in the message, which looks more like it was written by a guy who can&#8217;t spell &#8220;<em>accreditation<\/em>&#8221; than a published author like me. Notice how in both Verma&#8217;s LinkedIn post and the fake email, the word &#8220;<em>Compensation<\/em>&#8221; is capitalized. It certainly looks like both were written by the same person.<\/p>\n<p>The real kicker, of course, is why would anyone think a guy who works out of this dump could have $1,000,000? This is QCC&#8217;s actual office in Delhi:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/qccaddress.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-32035\" style=\"border: 1px solid #000000;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/qccaddress.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"508\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/qccaddress.png 1600w, https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/qccaddress-150x95.png 150w, https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/qccaddress-200x127.png 200w, https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/qccaddress-768x488.png 768w, https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/qccaddress-1536x975.png 1536w, https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/qccaddress-1080x686.png 1080w, https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/qccaddress-560x356.png 560w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a>Also, I&#8217;m not sure why I would extort this clown after I published the articles. Isn&#8217;t that something you do beforehand?<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, this is on brand for this type of business. Recall that back in 2020, the Indian certification body TNV Certifications had a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/registrar-tnv-accreditation-body-uaf-falsely-claim-oxebridge-involved-in-extortion\/\">similar meltdown<\/a> after we filed a complaint against them. In that case, we had emails showing TNV was selling consulting alongside certification, and yet they were accredited by the equally shady Indian accreditation body, UAF.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/tnvemail.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-19180\" style=\"border: 1px solid #000000;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/tnvemail.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"301\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/tnvemail.jpg 791w, https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/tnvemail-200x100.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/tnvemail-150x75.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/tnvemail-768x385.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a>The evidence was clear as day (as you can see above), but none of the oversight bodies took action. TNV rejected the complaint, UAF <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/uaf-shuts-down-tnv-investigation-prematurely-but-clears-oxebridge-of-false-accusation-of-extortion\/\">covered for them<\/a>, IAF regional body APAC refused to process the complaint, and the IAF did exactly nothing. However, during that scandal, TNV falsely accused Oxebridge of &#8220;<em>extortion<\/em>,&#8221; but didn&#8217;t appear to understand the meaning of the word. Even the UAF had to step in and shut down that false claim and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/uaf-shuts-down-tnv-investigation-prematurely-but-clears-oxebridge-of-false-accusation-of-extortion\/\">defend Oxebridge<\/a>, which must have really pissed them off.<\/p>\n<p>The problem for Verma, however, is that this sort of defamation is a criminal offense in India. I&#8217;m already working on getting it reported and will be talking to some attorneys there. I&#8217;m not sure taking this much further is worth it, but at least we can see what the law enforcement officials in India think of all this.<\/p>\n<p>Now the complaint against QCC gets elevated to EAS, their accreditation body, so we will see how the Ethiopians process a complaint escalation. So far, they haven&#8217;t even answered an email, but it&#8217;s early days yet. I&#8217;m not particularly hopeful, however.<\/p>\n<p>The IAF could fix all of this if they just did what&#8217;s on the tin, but alas, we don&#8217;t live in a universe where they actually care about this stuff.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Apparently we want $1,000,000 from a guy who works above a third world yarn store.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32093,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,5],"tags":[1919,8697,8696,83,661,8693,8694,8698,8700,2505,8695,8705],"class_list":["post-32089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humor-2","category-opinion","tag-apac","tag-eas","tag-ethiopian-accreditation-service","tag-iaf","tag-india","tag-qcc","tag-quality-control-certifications","tag-ram-kala-verma","tag-thalamus-ai","tag-uaf","tag-uasl","tag-united-assessment-services-ltd","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32089"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32094,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32089\/revisions\/32094"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}