Bogus means fake, though presented as genuine. A false name, an invented qualification, a company that does not exist.
The word is informal but it is used in serious contexts, so bogus claims, a bogus caller and bogus qualifications are all standard in police warnings and journalism. It carries deliberate deception, which is what separates it from merely wrong. The origin is American and obscure, possibly from a machine for making counterfeit coins. Its close relatives are phoney, spurious and sham.
1adjectivebogusFalse, but presented as genuine.
“Police warned about bogus callers claiming to read meters.”
First attested as an underworld term for an apparatus for creating counterfeit coins, then the coins themselves. Later, the word was applied to anything of poor quality. The newest use to mean useless is probably from the slang of computer hackers. The origin is unknown, but there are at least two theories that try to trace its origin:
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA