Archi­ves

Secu­ri­ty note

Exami­na­ti­on of exper­ti­se — why? Just buy the 34a licence…

Examination of expertise - why? Just buy the 34a licence...

You don’t feel like taking the exam and pre­pa­ring for it, you’­ve alre­a­dy fai­led the Cham­ber of Indus­try and Commerce’s expert know­ledge exam seve­ral times or you just want to save time and money — all of the­se can be reasons why peo­p­le keep loo­king for “buy a 34a licence”. This artic­le explains why this is not a par­ti­cu­lar­ly good idea.

Can you actual­ly buy the “34a note”?

A short Goog­le search it shows: Yes, you can buy a pie­ce of paper that looks like it is an offi­ci­al docu­ment of a cham­ber of com­mer­ce and indus­try. But be careful! If you use such fake exami­na­ti­on cer­ti­fi­ca­tes, you are lia­ble to pro­se­cu­ti­on.
What you are allo­wed to do is hang such a pie­ce of fan­ta­sy paper in your own hall­way for amu­se­ment or use it as a ligh­ter for the next bar­be­cue par­ty. Howe­ver, if you use such a pie­ce of paper in legal tran­sac­tions, i.e. in the con­text of a job appli­ca­ti­on or to regis­ter your secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny, you com­mit for­gery accor­ding to Sec­tion 267 of the Cri­mi­nal Code:

(1) Any per­son who, for the pur­po­se of decei­ving in legal tran­sac­tions, pro­du­ces a fal­se docu­ment, fal­si­fies a genui­ne docu­ment or uses a fal­se or fal­si­fied docu­ment shall be lia­ble to a cus­to­di­al sen­tence not excee­ding five years or to a mone­ta­ry penal­ty.
(2) The attempt is punis­ha­ble.
(3) In par­ti­cu­lar­ly serious cases, the penal­ty shall be impri­son­ment for a term of six months to ten years. […]

The pro­vi­ders of such dubio­us ser­vices also know that offe­ring IHK exami­na­ti­on cer­ti­fi­ca­tes, school-lea­ving cer­ti­fi­ca­tes and other cer­ti­fi­ca­tes, inclu­ding doc­to­ra­tes, is legal­ly ques­tionable. They are main­ly inte­res­ted in making money quick­ly. The pro­vi­ders are usual­ly based abroad or are not available and thus avo­id legal dis­pu­tes. This is becau­se sel­lers may also be lia­ble to pro­se­cu­ti­on becau­se they use trade­marks and thus legal­ly pro­tec­ted iden­ti­fy­ing fea­tures (e.g. the logo) of the issuing orga­ni­sa­ti­ons. In addi­ti­on, some sel­lers even deli­bera­te­ly crea­te the impres­si­on that it is a legal­ly issued docu­ment and at the same time adver­ti­se that one may use the­se fake docu­ments in legal tran­sac­tions. Thus, the sel­lers often also pre­tend fal­se facts and thus part­ly also call, at least indi­rect­ly, to use the sold fake like a real docu­ment. As a buy­er, you can always be pro­se­cu­ted and make yours­elf lia­ble to pro­se­cu­ti­on if you actual­ly use such a fan­ta­sy docu­ment professionally.

Whe­re can I buy the cer­ti­fi­ca­te of competence?

The only legal way to obtain the “cer­ti­fi­ca­te of suc­cessful com­ple­ti­on of a spe­cia­list know­ledge exami­na­ti­on” (this is the cor­rect term) is to suc­cessful­ly com­ple­te the IHK spe­cia­list know­ledge exami­na­ti­on. You can find many free Tips for exam pre­pa­ra­ti­on, Test ques­ti­ons and a Help forum on this web­site. By the way, taking the real exam can even be che­a­per than some of the ille­gal fake cer­ti­fi­ca­te offers.
Hones­ty is the best poli­cy! Don’t get invol­ved in fake offers with fake pro­ofs! It’s not worth it, becau­se you will be expo­sed. And for the pri­ce you then pay, you could have pre­pared pro­per­ly for the exam and pas­sed it quite regularly.

What does a for­ged cer­ti­fi­ca­te of com­pe­tence cost?

Pri­ces start at just under 10 euros for a per­so­na­li­sed fake cer­ti­fi­ca­te for direct PDF download.

Fake certificate of competence for the 34a licence
Fake 34a cer­ti­fi­ca­te as PDF download
This “low-cost pro­vi­der” of fake pro­ofs empha­si­s­es that you are not allo­wed to use the purcha­sed docu­ments, but for his own secu­ri­ty he has nevert­hel­ess indi­ca­ted a com­pa­ny head­quar­ters in the USA. He knows why.

Pos­si­bly the tip of the ice­berg is a pro­vi­der offe­ring all kinds of exami­na­ti­on cer­ti­fi­ca­tes and degrees — inclu­ding various pro­fes­sio­nal qua­li­fi­ca­ti­ons, school-lea­ving cer­ti­fi­ca­tes, bachelor’s and master’s degrees from col­leges, uni­ver­si­ty diplo­mas and even doc­to­ra­tes. Such prin­ted papers are available for a “ridi­cu­lous pri­ce” of seve­ral hundred euros — appar­ent­ly a wort­hwhile busi­ness. He also pro­mo­tes the offer com­mer­ci­al­ly through an adver­ti­se­ment on Goog­le, which appears at the top of the results page for the rele­vant search terms — see illus­tra­ti­on below. This frau­du­lent trader even adver­ti­ses that it is a legal offer and “100% genui­ne and regis­tered docu­ments, which can be che­cked by the university/training com­pa­ny, or even by your employ­er”. com­ple­te bullshit!

34a note advertising on Google (fake proof)
Goog­le adver­ti­sing for an “ori­gi­nal proof
Let’s talk tur­key: If you buy a fake or make one yours­elf and print it out, you’ll be caught any­way — and then it will be real­ly unp­lea­sant and real­ly expen­si­ve. You will learn why this is ine­vi­ta­ble in the next sec­tion.

Why it’s real­ly stu­pid to pre­sent a for­ged 34a certificate.…

Just a few years ago, one would have con­side­red a fac­tu­alunThe only way that a know­led­geable secu­ri­ty employee could have been lucky is if the for­ged cer­ti­fi­ca­te had not been noti­ced during the appli­ca­ti­on pro­cess, during a cus­toms or poli­ce check or in the cour­se of an enquiry with the exami­ning Cham­ber of Indus­try and Com­mer­ce (IHK). But sin­ce 1 June 2019, the­re is the cen­tral guard regis­ter, whe­re all data con­ver­ge. Your employ­er must report you the­re befo­re you start employ­ment and wait for cle­arance. Only then will you recei­ve a guard ID as a secu­ri­ty guard and be allo­wed to start. In the cour­se of this check and data com­pa­ri­son, it quick­ly beco­mes appa­rent if you have sub­mit­ted a fal­se docu­ment. You bear the full con­se­quen­ces under cri­mi­nal and civil law!

Rather invest in the real thing Exami­na­ti­on of expert know­ledge at the IHK. Inform yours­elf free of char­ge here in the Infoportal. 

Big ticket, litt­le ticket — what is that sup­po­sed to be?

Big ticket, little ticket - what is that supposed to be?

The con­fu­si­on is great

Again and again one reads in job offers, job appli­ca­ti­ons or cour­se offers about the big or small “Secu­ri­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­te” — some­ti­mes just cal­led a lar­ge or small note.
Such terms are also fre­quent­ly used in forums, on social net­works or even on the pages of cour­se pro­vi­ders. But bewa­re: The­re is no such thing as a lar­ge or small secu­ri­ty pass!

 

What is meant by “secu­ri­ty certificate”?

Sec­tion 34a of the Trade, Com­mer­ce and Indus­try Regu­la­ti­on Act (Gewer­be­ord­nung) con­ta­ins important pro­vi­si­ons on what a per­son must ful­fil if he or she wants to “pro­fes­sio­nal­ly guard the lives or pro­per­ty of other peo­p­le”. The § 34a GewO is pri­ma­ri­ly aimed at Secu­ri­ty con­trac­tor and regu­la­tes what they must ful­fil in order to regis­ter a guar­ding trade. Howe­ver, it also regu­la­tes that the trades­man may only ent­rust the per­for­mance of guar­ding tasks to per­sons as Workers who, as guards, on the one hand, are per­mit­ted to requi­red Relia­bi­li­ty on the other hand, have cer­tain Mini­mum qua­li­fi­ca­ti­ons have to show. With regard to qua­li­fi­ca­ti­on, this omi­nous “cer­ti­fi­ca­te” often comes into play: by “lar­ge cer­ti­fi­ca­te” some mean the suc­cessful pas­sed exami­na­ti­on, i.e. pro­of of the pas­sed test per­for­mance at the Cham­ber of Indus­try and Com­mer­ce. The “small cer­ti­fi­ca­te” is some­ti­mes cal­led the Par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on in the brie­fing This is a cour­se in which you only have to com­ple­te 40 tea­ching units and recei­ve a cer­ti­fi­ca­te of atten­dance, the “cer­ti­fi­ca­te of atten­dance”. Pro­of of ins­truc­tion, is given. During the ins­truc­tion, no know­ledge is sys­te­ma­ti­cal­ly tes­ted, only a kind of short com­pre­hen­si­on test takes place. In the case of the exami­na­ti­on of pro­fes­sio­nal com­pe­tence, on the other hand, the­re is a 120-minu­te writ­ten test and a sub­se­quent oral exami­na­ti­on. The Exper­ti­se test is accor­din­gly clear hig­her-qua­li­ty than the ins­truc­tion and one is also allo­wed to take on spe­cial sur­veil­lan­ce acti­vi­ties, such as pat­rols in public traf­fic are­as or working as a shop detec­ti­ve. How the ins­truc­tion pro­ce­du­re and the exami­na­ti­on of com­pe­tence work, what is asked and who does not have to take part in it, if appli­ca­ble, is descri­bed (among other points) in the Sur­veil­lan­ce Ordi­nan­ce regulated.

 

Why are the wrong terms used for the expert know­ledge examination?

In my esti­ma­ti­on, this has various cau­ses. Some peo­p­le sim­ply do not know any bet­ter, some pro­no­un­ce Con­ve­ni­ence only brief­ly of the “appearance” and some per­sons (espe­ci­al­ly com­pa­nies) use inten­tio­nal­ly wrong terms. Sin­ce the actual­ly wrong terms are quite com­mon in cer­tain cir­cles (espe­ci­al­ly among the less qua­li­fied), many peo­p­le who want to prepa­re for the exami­na­ti­on of pro­fes­sio­nal com­pe­tence sim­ply search for the term “secu­ri­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­te”, for exam­p­le. Or else Com­pa­nies mis­lead pro­s­pec­ti­ve cus­to­mers into belie­ving they have more than they actual­ly have in them: In the past, the­re have always been trai­ning com­pa­nies that offe­red a “safe­ty spe­cia­list” qua­li­fi­ca­ti­on. That sounds like more! But what is actual­ly included is usual­ly “only” the pre­pa­ra­ti­on for the qua­li­fi­ca­ti­on. At a pri­ce of many hundreds or even more than a thousand euros. The spe­cia­list for pro­tec­tion and secu­ri­ty, on the other hand, is a real 3‑year voca­tio­nal trai­ning — the­re is a risk of con­fu­si­on! My tip: So pay clo­se atten­ti­on to the terms used and, if in doubt, ask what is spe­ci­fi­cal­ly meant by them. Drü­cken Sie sich selbst am bes­ten klar aus und ver­wen­den Sie die rich­ti­gen Begriff­lich­kei­ten. Sie zei­gen damit, dass Sie sich auskennen 🙂

 

Recent­ly, Jörg Zitz­mann also dealt with the issue of “large/ small appearan­ces” in his pod­cast for pro­tec­tion and secu­ri­ty in epi­so­de 328. As mana­ging direc­tor of the Aca­de­my for Secu­ri­ty, he regu­lar­ly recei­ves such enqui­ries and cla­ri­fies: https://www.podcast-fuer-schutz-und-sicherheit.de/podcast/328-grosser-oder-kleiner-securityschein/

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