Students want to attend high-quality, established schools. Schools will use fraud to attract students to their school or attempt to appear more established to qualify for government programs or association membership. Schools that claim to have specific affiliations, qualifications, assets, programs, staff, or history that are untrue are committing fraud. Schools have also used fraudulent statistics to show jobs or salaries upon graduation. A favorite trick is to name a language school as a “college.” The word college in Canada is not an official use name, and anyone can name any building, house, or barn as a college. Students should not choose a school simply because it has a college in the name. College in the name does not mean anything in Canada.
Another trick is using the same or almost identical name of a famous school in the USA, UK, Asia, or Europe. If the renowned school has not registered the name in Canada, anyone else can register the name without any affiliation with the original school. Students should not pick a school because it has a famous name in their country as it may have no affiliation at all and is designed to trick students. Schools will appoint international agents or representatives to promote and market the school to potential students, then not pay for the advertising or agency fees. Fraud schools will defraud agents by stating students did not register. Agents own some of the schools. When an independent agent presents the school with a potential student, that student will be contacted by the head office agency and re-registered in that agent’s name, thus defrauding the original hardworking agent.
FRAUD used by AGENTS
Students looking for foreign schools and teachers looking for overseas employment use agents to simplify travel and registration arrangements, usually in a foreign language. Agents have used several practices to deceive students, teachers, schools, and immigration officials. Agents committing fraud sell fake medical reports, fake police reports, fake bank deposit records, fake identities, and travel documents. These illegal practices include access to student visas, unlawful access to free medical services, and illicit jobs. There was a famous case in Toronto where fraud agents just sat in a coffee shop outside a language school. They approached Asian students and spoke in Korean or Japanese only. They asked students if they had signed up for the adjoining language school. They were also asked if the students had used an agent. If the students signed directly, they were offered that if they returned to the school and placed the fraudster’s name as an agent, they would get a 10 or 15% refund from the fraudster.
Agents have promised teachers overseas jobs that do not exist, facilities, accommodation, or teaching resources that do not exist, wages that are not paid, work visas that never appear, and a host of other problems.
One agent operated fake teachers’ “blocklist.” He placed a few known criminal schools and a few legitimate ones on the list. This agent was charging fees to the honest schools to be removed. A couple of agents were promising backpackers jobs as English conversation teachers. They told the backpackers that no visa or degree was required. They said the English school had a teacher with a work visa, degree, and plane expenses. The school usually paid the agent upfront for the plane ticket, recruiting fee, and costs. On the second or third day, the school would realize the “teacher” was not suitable and try to call the agent. The agent would call his friend in immigration, arrest the backpacker, and fine or close the school using an illegal worker. This scam would net the agent half a year’s regular office salary. With 5,000 small language schools – there were plenty of uninformed new victims. That is also why these agents use a different company name every six months.
FRAUD used by STUDENTS
The most prevalent fraud is using a student visa to enter Canada to work. These fraudulent students take away jobs from Canadian immigrant newcomers and jobs for Canadian students. If one looks at the reasons for Canadian student, youth, and newcomer unemployment in Canada, significant culprits are the employers who use illegal workers.
Students have hired imposters to take tests, paid exam proctors to complete exams, bought essays from “experts” to submit as their own, and bribed school officials to change their marks in the official records. The victims of this student fraud are honest, hardworking students who were denied admission into restricted programs because their marks were not as good as those of the fraud students admitted.
FRAUD used by TEACHERS
The most common frauds are fake degrees, diplomas, or fabricated resumes. Because the demand for qualified ESL teachers overseas is high and these schools have few or no resources to check credentials, many fakes go undetected. Estimates have shown that 30% of the teachers in Korea used fake degrees to get jobs, and over 60 % of the teachers in China have absolutely no qualifications or fake certificates. The most common “Teacher Fraud” is traveling to overseas countries on a visitor visa and then teaching illegally.
