“And the tragedy is that I tried to do everything in a proper way. It’s not as if I didn’t complete my studies or performed poorly or tried to take a short cut by paying someone to sponsor me. But this man has completely spoilt our future,” said Amanjeet, referring to her migration agent.
She alleges that not only did he mislead her, but he also benefited financially by advising her to invest in a business, which his family member eventually took over.
Amandeep has lodged complaints against the migration agent with Office of Migration Agents Registration Authority (OMARA) and Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA), who are investigating it further.
Amanjeet’s story:
I came to Brisbane in 2009 after I got admission in Masters of Information Systems at Central Queensland University.
I finished that degree in 2012, but since I couldn’t score 6 bands each in IELTS, I was unable to apply for Temporary Residency in Australia (TR) .
I approached a migration agent in Brisbane to join another course and enrolled into Advanced Diploma of Management.
Soon, I was able to get band 6 in each of the streams tested in IELTS, and was able to apply for Temporary Residency (TR). Due to financial conditions and other circumstances, I couldn’t get a job and thereafter didn’t qualify for a permanent residency under the points system.
I went back to migration agent in 2015 and enrolled in another course for two years, the student visa for which was to expire in 2017.
I asked the agent for a safe pathway to permanent residency (PR) and he recommended RSMS (Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme, visa sub-class 187), since I had the required bands in IELTS.
I was very clear that I wasn’t going to ‘buy’ my residency here by paying someone to get a regional sponsorship. I didn’t really trust people who offered jobs in regional areas for a sum of money, as a possible pathway to PR. So I stayed clear of that.
The agent suggested opening a business in a regional area – meaning that starting up a business like a restaurant and working as a Manager would be deemed a suitable pathway to gain permanent residency.
The agent said he could guide me in opening a business, since he had a registered business in a regional area. But he said, because neither my husband nor I were permanent residents of Australia, the business would have to be registered in another name.
Believing this to be true, we accepted the agent’s fee of $5,000 to open our business in someone else’s name. We were advised to open a college for domestic students. He told us that he would guide us, but we would have manage it – rent the space, run the business, everything.
I trusted him, because I had been dealing with him for three years. I also knew that he ran a college, and thought that he really could help .
He found a suitable office for us in regional Queensland, and accompanied my husband there to sign the lease. He advised to pay a full year’s rent in advance and we gave around $8,500 at that time, which included a bond.
The agent spoke to the real estate agent on our behalf and I have all the proof relating to this.
We were asked to organise the office, furnish it with furniture and get it ready to open the college.
I did a lot of marketing for the college, tried to attract students – but to no avail. I used to go to the college regularly, for 2-3 days a week, but we had no admissions.
College set up by Aman and her husband in regional Queensland Source: Supplied
He managed the financial aspects, and we didn’t even have a password for operating the emails. I didn’t know which bank accounts were open and running. We were filing tax returns from September 2015 onwards, but he didn’t even submit our papers for residency until May 2016.
And I only found out at the end of the year that he had also set up another college in the same regional city for his family member, as well as for another student who studied in his Brisbane college.
I now realise he was playing a game with us – our RSMS application was being stalled (he didn’t even send the paperwork through for months).
All along I thought that I’m running a business in a genuine way, and this will pave the way for our permanent residency in Australia.
Then in March 2016, my visa expired and moved on to a bridging visa, suddenly I saw a huge change in the agent’s behaviour.
He asked us to expand the college, to offer CRICOS courses to international students as well – at which point I said look, we’ve already spent so much money on rent and marketing and other things, I won’t be able to afford a bigger office or anything.
Source: Supplied
Like always, he said he’ll look after it, that’s his headache, not ours.
The new building now required a rent of $3400 per month, over and above other expense of around $1700- $1800.
He asked us to look for another director if we couldn’t do as he said, also warning us that if there is a change of ownership in the company’s name (or the name of the directors), the immigration department won’t even consider our application for permanent residency and will dismiss it.
I said, why didn’t you tell me all this before we opened the business that these issues can crop up? We wouldn’t have gone down this route and filed for residency in this way. We were being guided by you entirely.
I think it was really stupid of me to trust someone like him. The main issue is that I didn’t know anything about running a college – I don’t know why I believed in him and did everything he asked.
All up, we would have spent a total of over $60,000 on all of this – and we did this, firmly believing that we were doing the ‘right thing’, that we weren’t illegally paying someone to falsely sponsor us. 
Then October 10, we received a nomination refusal for the company name – not a visa refusal, but a nomination refusal for the company, because there weren’t enough funds in the bank.
Source: Supplied
When we met the agent on the next day, he said we could appeal this decision and in the meantime, try to run the college better.
My husband suggested that he should just transfer the business in our name but the agent refused.
That’s when we understood that he had been playing a game all along. The big problem for us was that we didn’t even have a visa to stay further - my daughter had been going to school here, but we just didn’t know what to do.
His parting words were, that we’ll settle everything when you’re back in India.
The very next day, on October 12, the agent transferred the ownership of the college to a family member's name – without our knowledge.
On October 14 we went to a solicitor to check out our options, and he recommended to speak to the owner of the college. It is then that I found out that the ownership had been transferred.
Given this situation, other migration agents we approached, advised us not to file an appeal at AAT. In fact, it was suggested that we should withdraw our visa application and go back to India – that way, we would have 28 days to leave the country and won’t have a visa refusal against our name.
So we did that – and the immigration department gave us until December 4, 2017 to leave the country.
I’m totally shattered. This man has completely spoilt our future.
If he was genuinely trying to help us, why did he transfer the business to his sister’s name, a day after the company nomination was rejected?
I don’t have the money to sue him and recover my losses. And in fact he has told me he has a lot of evidence against me and he can get me into trouble. I don’t know what that evidence is, but he’s threatened me.
Based on my experience, I want to tell your listeners this – don’t trust anyone, regardless of how many years you’ve known them, and even if they call you ‘brother’, ‘sister’ or ‘family’ member. Breaking trust and betraying someone is the worst thing anyone can do.
And if you go to a migration agent, please ensure you do everything by the book – study hard, and oly apply for residency if you qualify through the points system. Otherwise, go back to your country – please don’t be duped by people who can take advantage of your situation.
I had thought, I’d never pay people to falsely sponsor me, but you can see from my story, how I lost money and my future.
When we pay people to sponsor us, we know there is a risk that this person may or may not deliver. But in our case, we thought we were doing everything in a genuine way. And the agent says he didn’t take money from us – well, he misguided us. He made us invest in a college that is now owned by his family member- so he is the only one who profited from it."
Please Note: this interview was recorded with Amanjeet, when her husband and daughter had already left for India, and she herself was about to return - within the deadline given by DIBP.
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