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 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

Fake websites and how to spot one

Image courtesy of hoax-slayer.com

Students do you have any idea how to spot a fake site? In Melbourne thousands of International students are targeted because they do not know which is fake and which not.

Many times International students have been scammed a lot of money due to not knowing about the dangers and how to spot a fake site

So here is how to spot the fake ones:
1)No refund- a sign saying that is illegal according to the CAV.
2) No SSL certificate (or lock). Most genuine sites would have this sort of protection to protect people and their data.
3) Misspelled words and poor images- if a retail shop in Melbourne doesn't not have these things on their site and in their shop chances are this is a fake site.
4) Broken links- if a site has broken links then chances are that this site probably carries some sort of virus.
5) Heavily discounted items- ask yourself why do they want to get rid of this stock? Chances are that it is counterfeit.


What to do about this
* Never give out your bank account details
* Update your antivirus software
* Do your research about a particular place or site before buying. Always trust your instincts

Visa crime linked to Australia post

Image courtesy of Meld Magazine and Wikipedia Commons

We talk about another visa and migration scam and you can read about this here.

In a recent Fairfax Media report Australia post is linked to visa crime in the name of one of its contractors Mr Singh. Mr Singh is a billionaire contractor, known to drive Ferrari. But he is also known for one visa scam: employing students for money. Mr Singh has employed thousands of International students and has promised them a visa for work or for study.

But no such thing has happened. Heaps of students study at St Stephen's one of his schools and they work in Australia post retail outlets in Bundoora, Narre Warren and in outer suburbs. Many of the victims of the scam are Indian students.

The students fees at the college is $10000 but they received not much training. Instead they were asked to work full time for him at the postal places.

On the morning of the 5th of April the Federal police raided his home and arrested him. They also arrested two others and they confiscated the ferraris. The government cancelled his contracts.

Our response
Its great to see that this sort of thing is being investigated and stopped, but what about other things like illegal colleges all over Melbourne? We would like to see more closures of these as they are fake colleges. Students there are plenty of real colleges such as RMIT and Melbourne and Monash

In 2012 the workers union wrote to the Government asking for their intervention in this and to make sure that workers are paid fairly.