Irish family defrauded by immigration 'consultant'
Last Updated: Wednesday, December 9, 2009 | 7:05 PM CT
An Irish woman who wants to move with her family to Saskatchewan says she paid an immigration company thousands of dollars for help she never got.
Lurleen Byrne and her family paid a British company nearly $8,000, but the company disappeared soon after — and so did their money.
In a telephone call from her home in Ireland, Byrne told CBC News the family decided to move to Canada when her husband, Paul, lost his job last year. She saw an ad in her local paper from a U.K. company offering to help Irish people get work in Canada — for a price.
The Byrnes paid the firm, and then sent it personal information, including birth certificates and resumés. Soon after, Byrne said, she realized something was wrong.
"A week after I paid the money the company disappeared off the radar," she said. "I managed to track them down, they were under a different company name. … No new advert in the paper advising people they changed names or contact details, just basically a totally new company."
Byrne said the company changed names four more times in the last year.
'A week after I paid the money the company disappeared off the radar.'
— Lurleen ByrneThe company was supposed to send her husband's resumé to nearly 150 Canadian employers, Byrne said, but that didn't happen. The only service provided, she said, was a rewrite of the resumé, which changed it from Irish "style" to what the firm called Canadian "style."
A British Columbia woman who was working for the company said it was poorly managed.
"With the economic downturn there wasn't enough clients to sustain them, so they weren't able to keep running," Heather Imrie said. "They just basically left clients in the lurch. A liquidator came in and shut them down."
The Byrnes' situation is especially sad because people hoping to emigrate to Canada don't need to pay immigration consultants anything, according to Rupen Pandya, assistant deputy minister for immigration services for Saskatchewan.
Free information available
"One of the most important things to keep in mind is that our program is free," Pandya said. "You don't have to hire anyone to apply to the federal immigration program or the provincial nominee program."
All the information and forms needed to apply are on the government websites, Pandya said. And he stressed that people who do want to hire someone to help should keep one important factor in mind: The government will only work with lawyers in good standing or members of the Canadian Association of Immigration Consultants.
The government website includes a video that specifically warns people about the potential for fraud: "Ads in publications around the world offer jobs and settlement in Canada — for fees reaching into thousands of dollars."
Lurleen Byrne wishes she had seen the video eight months ago.
cbc.ca |
