Is the industry losing the fight against counterfeit qualifications and ECS/JIB cards?

One of SparkyNinja's strengths is its online communities and team members who administrate and moderate them with an aim to maintain a respectable and reliable online resource for anyone who wishes to develop themselves online and also help others to raise the technical and competence standards within the electrical industry.

With these large networks of engaging members however, there is always a negative side to it. One that is becoming more and more of a concern is the number of fake online accounts that aim to sell counterfeit qualifications and ECS/JIB gold cards.

We install all the entry requirments for these communities and even apply entry questions to some - but after a little while they still get around this.

Through some good old detective work and a little extra effort we have identified common characteristics among these accounts and we are now refusing and banning over 80% upon application - with the moderators immediatley reporting and banning accounts on the first offence if they get in.

We have been in regular communication with the industries trade organisations on how best to use the information we collect and cases are reported.

Worringly though we are now seeing an outright misunderstanding within the industry as to the risk of these accounts and pages. There are numerous social media accounts from 'big players' in the industry blindly following these fake accounts without any real understanding on the harm to the industry they are causing.

It is worth noting that there has been successfull prosecutions from the production and sale of fake construction cards.

If you have any information which you would like to report, please send this to feedback@ecscard.org.uk.

To validate an ECS card please go to www.ecscard.org.uk/check
For more information about the ECS card scheme from the JIB please see www.ecscard.org.uk