In yet another case, Jasdeep Singh from Sydney has fallen victim to a visa scam case where he has lost money to the amount of $920.
In conversation with SBS Punjabi, Jasdeep explained how he got tricked in under a month after arriving in Australia. Jasdeep arrived in Australia on the 31st of July 2016 on a student visa. On the 17th of August, 2016, he received a call from VFS while travelling on a bus on his way to university. The caller told him there was a problem with his immigration papers; that he had filled in wrong arrival date on his immigration form on arrival into Australia.
Jasdeep was asked to get off the bus immediately and note down some details regarding his case as a matter of urgency. He was also asked not to talk to anyone or mention the call to anyone. He could not consult the matter with anyone either.
Jasdeep was told that he has two options- one given from the Indian government’s side and the other from Australian government side. The option from Indian government was that he must book a ticket back to India in the next two hours and get his case sorted there or the Australian government was offering to solve the case onshore. Jasdeep, took the second option. He was told three officers will come to his residence that evening with a new immigration form but he needed to transfer some money to India to the lawyers who were looking after his case. He was told the lawyer’s name is Balwinder Singh and according to jasdeep, the address he was sending the money to was similar to the address of the Indian High Commission in India. He was asked to put “Family Matter” as the reason for the transfer on the Western Union money transfer form.
Once the money was transferred and the caller got the confirmation, he asked Jasdeep to transfer another $920 to India saying that all this money was refundable. Jasdeep having newly arrived in Australia, did not have that much money on his and asked if he could have time to borrow from someone. The caller let him put the call on hold to contact his cousin to borrow money. Luckily, Jasdeep’s cousin alerted him regarding the scam and asked him to refuse the caller any more money and hang up.
Source: Supplied
Later on Jasdeep and his friends tried to contact VFS and got an email back warning them about such scams.
Source: Supplied
Jasdeep also reported his case to the police.
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