Initial Warning - 20 years ago
I was warned about this by a guy who was a pharmaceutical sales recruiter. He said he ran into several people trying to pass themselves off as Aggies with some even acquiring an Aggie Ring.
I knew that guy from my time at A&M but his stories were always a little outlandish. So while I believed him, it was one of those things that sounded so ridiculous, it almost couldn't be true. We're talking about far more than putting an A&M sticker on your car or wearing an A&M t-shirt. We're talking about trying to pass yourself off as a graduate of Texas A&M which as most of us know takes a good bit of effort and can be checked fairly easily.
I have seen people who acquire an A&M Class Ring from a deceased parent, or family member but those folks will usually open up immediately to tell you about their loved one and how much they loved A&M. I recently met a guy wearing his father's Class of 1944 ring - amazing stories about his dad. That's not what we're talking about here.
First Encounter - 10 years ago
At a work conference, a friend introduced me to a guy who was about my age and was "an Aggie" and had been in the Army. I normally have long hair and I'm overweight so to the casual observer, I certainly don't look like I was in the Corps, or the Army or anything.
Anyway, this "Aggie" was wearing an Aggie Ring and I started asking him some questions about the Corps, A&M, etc. and he didn't seem to have any idea what I was talking about. I thought, maybe he was a non-reg and commissioned via OCS or something. But he really didn't seem to know anything about student life from the late 1980s, early 1990s.
Honestly, if you never had a beer at The Chicken or Dudley's or Harry's and never danced at The Texas Hall of Fame, or Graham Central Station, or at least hung out with Frat Daddies at The Tap, you did not attend Texas A&M during my era. (I'll spare us all from the memory of how good the Wrecking Crew was versus where we are today)
I backed off on my interrogation because a really good friend of mine presented this fellow as a really good friend of his and I didn't want to seem like a complete jerk but the fake Aggie's story didn't seem to add up.
Later, I used the Association's web site to look this guy up and could not find him at all. You can look up Lyle Lovett or Robert Earl Keen or any other Aggie but not this guy - because he was fake.
A year or two passes and one of this guy's friends posts a picture online of the fake Aggie from his commissioning into the Army. Turns out he did commission via Army ROTC - at Tarleton State. I knew that guy was fake, it just took a couple years to prove it.
This Week - LinkedIn Fakery
Fast forward to yesterday, I get a LinkedIn request from a guy who I share 30+ mutual connections with and LinkedIn lets me know that he and I both went to Texas A&M.
I'm thinking, cool, let's see who this guy is, do I know him, have anything in common so I click his profile. Well, he lists about 4 different colleges with the top one displayed in his profile as MIT. I look at his degree from MIT is and it says that he got a certificate in some course. I see a lot of Indian guys in the Bay Area do this and then list Stanford as the top school in their profile. So this guy is mis-representing himself to begin with so I look a little further.
Down the page, he claims to have a degree from Texas A&M in the mid-1990s. Also claims to have played Football and be a member of an honor fraternity.
There's no record of this guy in the Association's database.
Could he have used a different name? It's a unique surname and there's only one other male in the 1990s with that name. Not him.
Could he have attended a different school which is now called Texas A&M? Like how Texas A&I became Texas A&M - Kingsville. Maybe.
In summary, I just wanted to make you all aware that fraud and mis-representation of people's identities is alive and well. And there are people out there trying to pass themselves off as one of us so.... be aware.
I was warned about this by a guy who was a pharmaceutical sales recruiter. He said he ran into several people trying to pass themselves off as Aggies with some even acquiring an Aggie Ring.
I knew that guy from my time at A&M but his stories were always a little outlandish. So while I believed him, it was one of those things that sounded so ridiculous, it almost couldn't be true. We're talking about far more than putting an A&M sticker on your car or wearing an A&M t-shirt. We're talking about trying to pass yourself off as a graduate of Texas A&M which as most of us know takes a good bit of effort and can be checked fairly easily.
I have seen people who acquire an A&M Class Ring from a deceased parent, or family member but those folks will usually open up immediately to tell you about their loved one and how much they loved A&M. I recently met a guy wearing his father's Class of 1944 ring - amazing stories about his dad. That's not what we're talking about here.
First Encounter - 10 years ago
At a work conference, a friend introduced me to a guy who was about my age and was "an Aggie" and had been in the Army. I normally have long hair and I'm overweight so to the casual observer, I certainly don't look like I was in the Corps, or the Army or anything.
Anyway, this "Aggie" was wearing an Aggie Ring and I started asking him some questions about the Corps, A&M, etc. and he didn't seem to have any idea what I was talking about. I thought, maybe he was a non-reg and commissioned via OCS or something. But he really didn't seem to know anything about student life from the late 1980s, early 1990s.
Honestly, if you never had a beer at The Chicken or Dudley's or Harry's and never danced at The Texas Hall of Fame, or Graham Central Station, or at least hung out with Frat Daddies at The Tap, you did not attend Texas A&M during my era. (I'll spare us all from the memory of how good the Wrecking Crew was versus where we are today)
I backed off on my interrogation because a really good friend of mine presented this fellow as a really good friend of his and I didn't want to seem like a complete jerk but the fake Aggie's story didn't seem to add up.
Later, I used the Association's web site to look this guy up and could not find him at all. You can look up Lyle Lovett or Robert Earl Keen or any other Aggie but not this guy - because he was fake.
A year or two passes and one of this guy's friends posts a picture online of the fake Aggie from his commissioning into the Army. Turns out he did commission via Army ROTC - at Tarleton State. I knew that guy was fake, it just took a couple years to prove it.
This Week - LinkedIn Fakery
Fast forward to yesterday, I get a LinkedIn request from a guy who I share 30+ mutual connections with and LinkedIn lets me know that he and I both went to Texas A&M.
I'm thinking, cool, let's see who this guy is, do I know him, have anything in common so I click his profile. Well, he lists about 4 different colleges with the top one displayed in his profile as MIT. I look at his degree from MIT is and it says that he got a certificate in some course. I see a lot of Indian guys in the Bay Area do this and then list Stanford as the top school in their profile. So this guy is mis-representing himself to begin with so I look a little further.
Down the page, he claims to have a degree from Texas A&M in the mid-1990s. Also claims to have played Football and be a member of an honor fraternity.
There's no record of this guy in the Association's database.
Could he have used a different name? It's a unique surname and there's only one other male in the 1990s with that name. Not him.
Could he have attended a different school which is now called Texas A&M? Like how Texas A&I became Texas A&M - Kingsville. Maybe.
In summary, I just wanted to make you all aware that fraud and mis-representation of people's identities is alive and well. And there are people out there trying to pass themselves off as one of us so.... be aware.
