Dominos exploits International student workers and migrants

Have you ever eaten at Domino's before? I know I haven't and there is a good reason why as the people behind making the pizza are being underpaid or being scammed by the Head Office. In the last year alone there has been a few store openings in Melbourne.

Image from USAtoday

The scam explained

Dominos sells sponsorships for about $100,000-$150,000 and that will give them a visa (457 or 187 visa) to stay in Australia. Most of the stores are bought by foreigners who then bring their own people in.  But if the store closes because of no money then the migrant will be sent home. Many International students are being underpaid at many of their stores.

Many of these migrants develop anxiety problems because they could not pay the ludicrous price and all the other things. The pizzas there are cheap around $5-$20 per box where as in a standard restaurant it would be more like twenty.

After two years many of the owners quit or sell up shop. About 30% of stores earn under $21000 in a week.

Work conditions

Many of the workers are underpaid just like 7-11. Also many of these students work in unfavourable conditions such as wearing a hairnet over summer and wearing black in summer. These worker shifts are often changed by the manager to make them look good.

Our response to all this
We are saddened by all this and in the meantime don't plan to shop there unless they change their working conditions as well as pay people the right amount of money. Paying people cash in hand is a trend for most Asian places and some fast food places and its wrong.

On July 1 the Government is planning to scrap penalty rates and things will get worse. Homelessness will be on the rise as well as the cost of living will increase

Metro closes several key roads in the city

Metro closes several roads in the city for this upcoming project and we explain why and what the project is about.

Image courtesy of Metro Tunnel

Metro closes several key roads for motorists in the city but it will be worth it we promise. This will mean faster trains and more trains for the growing population. It was an election promise. The project costs $10.9 million to build over five years. Work has already begun around the RMIT city campus.

There will be five new underground stations in 2026 when the project is complete. These will be Arden, Domain,, Parkville, CBD North and south.

What will this mean for International students?
There will be a few new stations such as Parkville and Domain which might make getting to class a bit easier. It is about 9km of tunnel which means that some sections of the CBD will be closed. A part of St Kilda road is already closed but cyclists and joggers can still go through.

Many businesses on St Kilda Road are petitioning not to have the tunnel built on this road. But the Andrews government promises that it will be better as there will be more people wanting to get to South Yarra. They say that it will be better for the moving population.

Our reactions to Donald Trump

Our reactions to Donald Trump are mixed. Here is where we stand on him.

Donald Trump was recently elected as the US president and many people were unhappy about it. It was a close call as Hillary Clinton was just as popular.

Image courtesy of img.inhead.cz

Here we don't like Donald Trump. Nor do we hate him. He is just in between. But what he promises is more manufacturing jobs to be in the US due to their economic downfall. This can be bad for the Australian economy and might mean that jobs are lost. But it could be good for the US.

Getting rid of immigrants particularly illegal ones is great for countries like Australia. But we have mixed feelings about the US as it thrived on immigrants. There are too many illegal immigrants in Australia and too many fraudsters here and in the US.

As for sex we don't know much about it. But what we do know is that he can be too bossy and not many Australians like him for his bossiness.

Lets just wait and see what Donald Trump gets up to in 2017

Recent crimes ar Melbourne Uni worry International students

Many students are worried about their safety after a recent spate of crimes had been committed around Melbourne Uni. We reassure them that it is safe to study in Melbourne.

Last month a spate of crimes against International students has happened at Melbourne Uni. Whilst RMIT has no crimes happening students are still worried.

These crimes happened late at night when students are studying after hours. Here students are being pickpocketed or called names. Sometimes even bullying. Students don't know where to go for help.

The Age has reported that there were recent muggings in Melbourne. There was a home invasion in Ormond just recently. It was reported in Meld that there were 69 offenders, including 56 for robberies and 13 for assaults since January 1 this year.

Our concerns for the International student community
If the crimes increase against students, particularly Asians, students will tell their friends and go elsewhere. Many students are afraid to speak up because they think that they will lose their visa, but that is not the case.


What now?
The police have ramped up the security and are working with Melbourne University to help solve the problem. But there are ways in which students can not be the target of theft and assault. One of them is not to carry so many valuable items to uni such as a laptop and expensive phone. Most smartphones these days come with WI-FI capabilities which means that students should leave their laptop at home.

Studying late at night? Uni security do have free escort service for students to the train station etc. There are protective services officers at stations looking out for people. Also do let your roommates know if you are out late at night.

Students scammed online

Many Vietnamese students in Melbourne and Sydney have been scammed by a fake travel agency. We explain in more detail and tell you how to avoid this sort of scam.

An example of a fake ticket courtesy of Vietnam news

Vietnamese students are scammed online by a fake travel agency. Here they pay about $1000-$1500VN to go home but they never receive the ticket. This is for the lunar new year celebrations. They pay the money and then they receive a code which does not work on the real airline site or at the airport.

Now these students are sad and angry that they couldn't visit their parents.

They are trying to get their money back with the police stepping in. They tried to contact the woman who sold them the ticket to get their money back. In fact some of them went to her house to only find that the address did not exist.

This is the letter from the NSW police.

Letter from the police acknowledging the scam. Image courtesy of SBS Vietnamese

Moreover the woman was arrested and is facing charges for deception. She earnt about $360,000 AUD from the students

One student complained to our office about this fraud and could not pay their tuition fees or their living expenses after that. They work as a cleaner. They wanted to go home to see their parents for New Years but could not afford the flight home as it is really expensive. So they bought from the scam agency. And now they are waiting for their money back.

Lesson learnt: Be wary of scams. Always order the ticket from the real airline site or at the travel agency face to face. There are some good travel agencies out there such as Student Flights or STA and they have many cheap and legitimate deals for students.

Students are using exam impersonators to sit their exams for them

And are getting away with it.

These students according to the Feed are mainly from China. International students bring in about $6.6 billion in revenue each year for the universities and have to pay their fees upfront. Local students can have HECS.

Most of these students have very bad English in the first place and cannot get used to the Australian way of learning in such a short time. Students pay around $3500-$7000 per subject and depending on what they want. They then meet the impersonator at a café and pay half before the exam and the rest later. The impersonator then gets a copy of the uni student id with their face on it. For students from Asian countries this is really easy to do as the name is not gender specific.

Then the student appears outside the exam room along with the impersonator who pretends that they do not know each other. The impersonator goes inside the room and the invigilator checks the id and that the face matches it.

After the exam the student pays the rest. If the student fails they pay a lesser amount.

We did a bing search online and there were 26,200,000 results. The main concern for us is about the poor English and many universities (not including RMIT) have increased support services for International students.

What can universities do to stem the problem?
Universities should have some sort of a "myki system" where the invigilator has a tablet and they touch the student card on. Here the card beeps as well as give them the info that the student is correctly enrolled. If they are not enrolled then they should be kicked out of that exam and the actual student should be reported.

Most universities have better support systems for students in place now especially for English. University of Sydney has introduced a better way to manage the plagiarism such as having exams for every subject and a better plagiarism policy.

Myer does not pay its cleaners correctly.

There is a new and rising issue where workers are being exploited and that is at MYER. Students are being asked to work long hours with little pay. And they can't speak up about it. Students are being underpaid by $20 an hour.

MYER usually shuts doors around about 5pm-9pm depending on the store. And then the cleaners would work very hard cleaning and scrubbing the place so that its pristine.

The cleaning company is Spotless in which Myer uses. Workers are being asked to work on public holiday with no extra pay. There are 30 cleaners working across MYER's eleven stores in Melbourne. There has been some sham contracting going on with workers being asked to provide an ABN. This is a concern to United Voice

This is not the first time that MYER has been in the spotlight. Last time it was a few months ago. Workers want Myer to clean up their act.  Meanwhile many customers might no longer be shopping there and might choose other places that pay workers properly.

There is a petition going around so do sign it when you can.

Fake IELTS certificates have been issued to students

Students have been spending somewhere between $5000-$12000 for fake IELTS certificates to gain permanent residency in AUstralia. For PR you need a 7 or 8 IELTS score. This is illegal and there are verification systems at university. Some students have tried and tried to pass the hard test but they have failed over time. For most universities you need about 5.5-6.5 depending on the program.

According to an SBS report a small number of Vietnamese students have faked their IELTS to try and get PR in Australia.

This is an ad from Youtube

These services are being advertised on several websites including Facebook. Actually we did a search on this on Bing and it came back with 2620,000 results. We found that one website sells it for $700 and students would receive it from 7-14 days. This fraud has been uncovered in Australia with some former students being arrested in WA.

Universities such as Monash and Melbourne have these sort of verification systems in place. It is not worth the risk because you have to talk in English in Australia and thats when people know.

Students from Asian countries often struggle with English hence the fake IELTS. If DIAC find out that a student's certificate is fake then their visa can be cancelled for up to 10 years. Many migration agencies are concerned about this and we are too.

In short: Don't fake your IELTS, it is not worth the risk.

RMIT Undercover uncovers "problems within RMIT"

During the past few months we have followed this "undercover group" on Facebook and now we report about how they are telling International students go to another uni other than RMIT.

RMIT Undercover is an online Facebook group whose students are disgruntled with RMIT's management system and some of the lecturers within RMIT. They berate RMIT on poor service.

They also complain about having all the plagiarism ads on their Facebook page and then admitting students with poor English into their campus for the money. Similarly on RMIT's confessions page there are complaints about the group work standard. And Melbourne Uni was berated for the same thing on their page.

And our response is:
Whilst RMIT undercover tells students about their shocking experience in RMIT, RMIT is after all a business. We do complain about the horrible management system and fees but in some ways RMIT is improving such as having more microwaves on campus and having a RMIT Connect system. This system caters for everyone.

It sounds like RMIT Undercover is telling International students to go elsewhere. But the problem isn't just with RMIT, its also with other unis but to a lesser extent. Whilst we would like to see RMIT clean up their act its not going to happen straight away. For a start they could get rid of some of the imcompentent lecturers and staff. They could employ good ones and second of all they could mark all the students fairly.

RMIT Undercover is a Facebook group and you can check them out here

STUDENTS BEWARE: Students targeted online by a scam

Students are being targeted online by another scam and that is of fake education agents. The understanding from Meld is that these fake agents are university students. These agents target students via social sites such as WeChat, Facebook and other Asian sites giving students 10% discount.

The students are told that their money would be passed on to the Universities. But no such thing.

The students pay the money and then the money is not passed on to the universities. Instead it is kept by the scammers. In a Fairfax news report it said that 10 Monash uni students were targeted and more from other unis such as RMIT, Uni of Melbourne and other major universities in Melbourne and Sydney.

Students are in debt as they have found out that the money has not been passed to the university. Luke Zhang from Monash University has suffered such thing and is eating one meal a day just to survive. In the coming weeks we would see possibly more students coming to the Couch for free meals just to pay off the university fees. Many of them are already stressed about the money issue.

But help is at hand with the universities providing free counselling services for students as well as financial advice. And there is the free BBQ's and breakfasts from the student unions.

As for the scammers there is a full investigation going with one of them from Melbourne Uni already being punished by the uni
Students: Beware of scams like this

Got fined: You can fight it in court

International students have you got fined lately for trying to do the right thing? You are not the only one. The card costs $6 and you can't buy one on the tram. Then the machines on the tram don't always work.

But sometimes International students are bullied into paying the $75 on the spot fine and now there are lawyers to help fight your MYKI case in court. Lawyer Julian Burnside helped someone fight his case in corut and it was successful.

In court most people win as MYKI is an impossible system to get right. Many of the times the technology does not work or its slow in responding. I have seen one International student just last week at the tram stop outside the State Library being fined for not understanding the confusing MYKI system.

There were cases where I have been bullied into paying the $75 fine on a packed tram when I couldn't touch on. Glad I did not and I won my appeal like in 99% of cases going to court.

The message is to students who have done the right thing and have been penalised: don't pay the $75 fine. Instead opt to go to court and get help from your university's free legal service.

BEWARE: Private providers are still failing

This issue has been talked about for some time now and it has cropped in Meld Magazine's site as well as AFIS and CISA's newsfeeds. At the last conference there was some talk on it. Last year there was some talk on this issue. We examine it more closely as many students don't know about these loopholes.


Image courtesy of easyuni.com

There is another report online where 142 students had their visa cancelled for a dodgy provider's behaviour.

In the Ombudsman's report it was claimed that some of the providers did not apply good practice to their students. In the last year alone they investigated 488 of these providers (for poor compliance) and 142 of them had harsher penalties.

In these private colleges there are no such things as student's unions or student services. Students are left entirely on their own to study. International students need a lot of support and many of them fail courses for the first time.

Monitoring attendance was an issue for some of these colleges. International students who don't attend class a lot often fail the course.

Examples of good practice are
* meeting with the student one on one regularly throughout the semester
* telling the student when they are "at risk" at the right time, i.e when the current semester has just passed and they have failed more than 50% of their courses (subjects) in that particular semester.
* allowing students to appeal first before reporting them
* monitoring attendance properly. Students should be attending classes for 80% of the time.

Examples of bad practice are
* telling the DIBP of non compliance when all avenues have not been exhausted.
* Overcharging students

Our response
We are concerned for the wellbeing of students. Many students come to Melbourne to study and many of the colleges are chosen online in their country. They chose colleges in which they can afford and not ones that are actually good for them. Most students don't have a lot of money to study and university tuition is expensive for them.

If there was such an online for private providers this would be good. This should be a ranking system in which students can rate their colleges.

Is it ok to be queer?

As part of Bupa's best blog competition for 2015

Being gay, lesbian, trans is all ok in Australia. In that we like to do the same things as the normal straight people. The gay community is a very friendly one in Australia and its ok to join them even if you are not gay. In fact the gay community love to watch movies, have bbqs etc.

Coming out is also alright as we are all fairly open. In fact there is a queer space at your campus. Just ask the friendly student union staff.

But in some of the Asian countries it is not. Asian countries are a lot stricter. Many parents do not like their child to have sex before marriage or have same sex relationships. For most Asian countries it is taboo.

In Australia it is ok to have same sex relationships. But the Victorian government says no to same sex marriage. Hence all the protests.

In Australia is it illegal to discriminate against someone just because they are gay. According to the Human Rights commission all people are equal. In fact there is a University guide which we have recently covered

East Vs West Malaysia relations

We explain the East-West debate which took place last Sunday.

Malaysia has two sides: East and West.

The East became independent on September 16th 1963 and they celebrate their independence on this date

The east consists of Sarawak and Sebhan. Both are rural places and the parents send their kids to school in Kuala Lumpur. Public transport and flights too and from the place are a pain as no International flights go there. International flights go in and out of Kuala Lumpur.

Communications there is not too bad. The Sarawakians and Sebhans get their papers locally. Everything is too expensive and has to be imported from KL. The customs there are expensive for commercial goods.

The politicians in the east care only about the money and not about the people.

The West has everything, talents, KL and all.

So what can these two sides do to be united
First of all its the communication. If the country and everyone learns one language it is a lot easier. Also people should be proud to be a Malaysian.

The east needs to have better promotion about their culture. There is a lot of culture and heritage in the east as well as the West.

Working in the taxi industry- an issue for many International students

And what promises to be a bigger issue for students. As explained by Katherine.

Indian drivers protesting about these conditions. Image courtesy of youngworkersrights.net

Working in the taxi industry has been a big issue in the last few years. A number of students, particularly of Indian and Asian descent work late at night and by themselves. Hence they are prone to attacks by the social misfits and the drunks. Particularly this has been happening late on a Friday and Saturday night in some parts of the CBD and St Kilda. A lot of taxi drivers have been bashed and beaten.

One student who I can recall has had several nightmares after he was beaten by a passenger who refused to pay.

This is a low paying job for many students and will set to be so under the Government's new taxi reforms. This reform promises more taxis and hire cars. That means that it will more low pay and more competition for International students.

And more financial stress on students and their families.

International students are encouraged to voice their opinions. They can visit the Facebook page. There is a protest next Monday at 11am at Federation square.

Rally poster courtesy of Facebook.com

And for the locals? They should think about the International students and their issues when they go to the polls on the 7th of September.

Students have you story to tell? Leave us a message here.