Dwight Watt - Newspaper Article #412 4/11/2018


Question: Is honorsociety.org (claims to be Honor Society) legitimate?

Answer:

You may have gotten emails from a group called The Honor Society (has url of honorsociety.org)or know students that have gotten these emails. This group does not appear to be an honorable honor society. When I researched them they do exist in Washington DC but beyond that not recognizable.

They sent me an email and told me I qualify to be a member and get their recognition. It just came the first week of April 2018. I completed my last degree in 1989. The announcement had no indication of what college had nominated me. Looking further into them I do not see any college that officially recognizes them as an honor society or organization at their college.

There are lots of honorable honor societies that recognize outstanding students for their overall grades in colleges or for work in various departments. If you are nominated for these you will be notified by your college along with possibly the group. Some are active organizations at the colleges performing service.

Quite often you do need to pay to belong to them but some are free. The advantages of these are that employers and other education institutions will recognize them as achievements on your part. My recommendation if you get a email from Honor Society (honorsociety.org) is to hit delete. However if you have information that I do not that this is a reputable group and recognized buy a college let me know and I will further research and publish an update. Reputable who’s who group will list people for free but charge for books and possibly certificates.

I put them in the same group as companies that email, phone or put a large popup on your screen and tell you that your computer has problems and to call them and they can fix it. Some will appear to be from Microsoft (a red screen popup that has appeared on my screen recently fits here) and are not connected to Microsoft. Before contacting any of them first do a little research: including searching the phone number on the Internet and asking computer people you know. If you call them they may be stealing credit card numbers or identities. Also if you give them access to your computer they will not help it but load it with spyware and viruses. They cannot know stuff is wrong with your computer to issue warnings or know how to call or email.

An exception to the above on warnings about problems is if you have a legitimate program on your machine that cleans or fixes it will tell you, however it will also tell you who they are and not expect you to call them. Couple of these are ccleaner and Avast that I use and see notices occasionally that I need to clean something.