Ex-Berkeley business professor settles with students over alleged scam course

A U.S. magistrate judge has approved a class action settlement with students who claimed they were scammed through an online course by a now-former UC Berkeley professor.

In 2016 and 2017 Jose M. Plehn-Dujowich ran a website he called the "Global Financial Data Project." He signed up about 240 students, some of whom paid more than $2,400 in fees. They were promised a certificate from UC Berkeley and a letter of recommendation from Plehn-Dujowich, then a professor with Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

However, the program was not affiliated with Berkeley, and students received little to no instruction, according to a lawsuit filed by Harmeet K. Dhillon of Dhillon Law Group Inc. in San Francisco. The professor and his partner in the project, BizQualify LLC, agreed to the settlement last year in Hu v. Plehn-Dujowich, 3:18-cv-01791-EDL (N.D. Cal., filed March 22, 2018).

Under the terms of the agreement, U.S. Magistrate Judge Alex G. Tse signed on Monday, the defendants will place $695,000 in a settlement account. Of this, $375,000 is to be split among 132 class claimants, another $20,000 is for incentive awards to class representatives and $300,000 is for attorney fees.

"This settlement, approved after nearly three years of litigation, ensures that these vulnerable students will receive a full refund of the fees they were fraudulently induced to pay for a fake program at one of our leading California universities," said Dhillon in an email. "We were honored to be able to obtain such a complete and timely recovery for these students, many of whom do not speak English as their first language."

-- Malcolm Maclachlan