There have been at least 150 reports of a scam in which some AU$35,000 have been handed over to scammers by Indian and Pakistani nationals after they received phone and email threats that their immigration papers were out of order and that they were going to be deported unless they paid fines and fees to fix the problems, according to SCAMwatch, a division of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

Migrants are being warned to be aware of calls from scammers claiming to be from the 'Department of Immigration' threatening them with deportation and demanding money.

The ACCC and the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) have been getting reports of scammers claiming to be government officials. The scammers call migrants and temporary visa holders and threaten them with deportation supposedly because of problems with their immigration paperwork or visa status.

“Scammers are demanding up-front fees of around $1,000 to resubmit forms. These scam phone calls appear to be targeting people from India and Pakistan. The ACCC has received 150 reports of this scam since February with more than $35,000 reported lost,” according to the ACCC statement.

“Scammers may try to pressure you by calling repeatedly and harassing you, even threatening to send the police to your house – but if you give your money to a scammer you will never see it again,” warns the ACCC.

The DIBP has confirmed that it does not ask for any payment of fines or penalties by telephone.

Be on guard, if you receive a phone call from someone threatening you with deportation and asking you to pay a fee, hang up and do not respond. If in doubt, don’t use any contact details provided by the caller - look up the government department or organisation yourself in the phone book or online and phone or email them.

ABCs 4-Corners investigation this week reported that education agents in China are blatantly cheating the enrolment system and putting at risk Australia’s education industry. The report reveals an industry in “a sorry state: corruption, widespread plagiarism, cheating and exploitation.”

Every University the ICAC (the Independent Commission Against Corruption) had spoken to has said they have had problems with their brokers at one time or other in regard to false documentation for the purposes of enrolment, according to the report.

THE IRONY IS THAT THE UNIVERSITIES SEEM TO HAVE NO QUALMS  about continuing to use these unregulated brokers who are colluding with students to falsify documents for entry into Australia. The risk then is that these unregulated brokers are going to put applicants through to the university with fake qualifications, or who they know have cheated on tests, or who are trying to undertake some sort of visa fraud.

The ABC used hidden cameras in their investigation of some of the biggest education brokers that recruit for Australian universities in Beijing and found some were willing to accept forged documents; and others were advising students on how to avoid the tough English language requirements.

Among the named agencies were EduGlobal and Shinyway – which recruits on behalf of many Australia’s most prestigious universities.

This is certainly a welcomed question aspiring migrants seeking to get over the language hurdle can ponder on nowadays given the acceptance of more than one English language test under the migration regulations.

Australia’s immigration department began accepting TOEFL scores (amongst others) for student visa purposes in late 2011, ending a 20 year monopoly enjoyed by the rival International English Language Testing System.

More recently, TOEFL together with several tests have been accepted by the department of immigration for various other visa subclasses. The sc457 visa is the latest visa subclass to allow these new tests and with lower requirements indicating that the government has finally taken a more practical and flexible approach to English-language requirements for migration purposes, after a long review of the issue which started with the labour government back in 2008.

TOEFL is now a sponsor of the Migration Alliance. Several prominent RMAs have commented on this news and shared interesting comments on what they thought of the rival tests – the blog comments are certainly worth a read.

TOEFL is run by the US-based non-profit organisation ETS. Helen Cook, ETS Australasia Associate Director, said that accepting the TOEFL iBT test for 457 visas will help Australian businesses remain globally competitive, given the need to attract skills necessary for economic growth and improved productivity.

The department of immigration has announced that from 18 April 2015, the minimum English language test scores for the Skilled – Recognised Graduate (subclass 476) and Temporary Graduate (subclass 485) visas will change.

This change means the ‘competent English’ requirement no longer applies to subclasses 476 and 485.

For applications lodged on or after 18 April for the sc485 and sc476, applicants must provide evidence of having achieved one of the following in a test taken in the three years immediately prior to lodging your visa application:

• an  overall score of at least 6, with nothing below 5 in each of the four test components (speaking, reading, listening and writing) in an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) test
• a score of at least 'B' in each of the four test components (speaking, reading, listening and writing) of an Occupational English Test (OET)
• a total score of at least 64, with nothing below 4 for listening, 4 for reading, 14 for writing and 14 for speaking, in a Test of English as a Foreign Language internet-based test (TOEFL iBT)
• an overall score of at least 50 with nothing below 36 in each of the four test components (listening, reading, writing and speaking) in a Pearson Test of English Academic
• an overall score of at least 169 with nothing below 154 in each of the four test components (listening, reading, writing and speaking) in a Cambridge English: Advanced (CAE) test taken on or after 1 January 2015.

Did you receive an OMARA email in about September 2013 setting out that GST is no longer payable on your registration fee? Few RMAs seem to recall this let alone realise the effective fee hike. Some may now have also potentially and wrongly claimed an input tax credit. 

Many RMAs are calling this change by OMARA a covert fee hike and going directly against calls made by the Migration Alliance to half the current registration fees so that they were closer to other professions like tax agents and medical professionals.

IN THE COURSE OF PREPARING YOUR LAST TAX RETURNS you may not have noticed the OMARA tax invoice for repeat registration application states: “GST is not payable on registration application fees”. Previous such invoices however show that GST applied to registration application fees. The difference of these statements is that you could be out of pocket by the GST amount (depending on the type of registration you have).

An MA member recently queried the OMARA’s chief executive Steve Ingram on the matter:

“If this situation has changed, I would like to know why I am still being charged the same amount as if the GST was included,” the RMA asked citing that the change would mean that RMAs are effectively left out of pocket by $145 from now on.

OMARA pretty much threw the book at the RMA in its response stating that the OMARA has the right under legislation to charge same fee irrespective of whether GST applies: