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Buy your second working holiday visa - the scam!
Migration Alliance has discovered a scam currently taking place in the working holiday visa scheme.
The scam details we have so far:
- For $800, "criminal entrepreneurs" on social media will find a regional company (aka a "farm"). This "farm" perhaps unbeknownst to the farm, will provide payslips to a working holiday visa holder in their first year.
- Real farms are used by the "criminal entrepreneurs" for the visa applicants 1263 forms "Working Holiday Visa Employment Verification Form". This form states where the working holiday visa holder completed the 88 days of regional work experience.
- "Criminal entrepreneurs" rotate the farm names, and use farms that are less popular so as not to draw attention to themselves. The farm legitimately does employ real workers and they do the right thing by those workers they actually know about.
- The criminal entrepreneurs steal copies of the farm work contracts, pay slips and PAYG summaries, and then replicate these documents for the visa applicants that are not going to the farm (the fakers).
- The "criminal entrepreneurs" create fake work contracts for and on behalf of the first year working holiday visa holder, who needs to pretend they have worked on a farm. We are highly suspicious that the farm is not conspiring with the criminal entrepreneurs and that they in fact may have no idea about these scams.
- The scammers say "don't even worry if you are working above board in Sydney or another city because if your visa is decided on the papers, immigration will not do any investigation into your bank statements"
- The "criminal entrepreneurs" lodge the visa applications for the working holiday makers, attaching all the fake documents that they need. Then they send them a HAP ID and they go to the doctor by themselves to do their health examinations. A whole host of gmail addresses are used to make these visa lodgements.
- The more sophisticated version of this scam ask the working holiday visa holder to buy a return flight ticket to the rural or regional area so this shows in the bank statement, but they never actually fly there
- The more sophisticated version of this scam provides the working holiday visa holder with instructions to hand-over their physical bank card to a criminal entrepreneur or representative in a major city. Their "wages" are put into the bank account of the working holiday maker as a cash deposit. This is so there is no trace of the source of the income. The bank card is then used by the criminal entrepreneur or their representative in the rural / regional area where the farm is located so that the working holiday maker can evidence that they were using the card in Coles, liquor stores, and other places in the regional area. This is just in case Home Affairs want to check that the working holiday maker was actually there. This service comes as part of an add-on at a cost of $200 which makes it a $1000 total fee for the deluxe-scam package.
- Given that the scammers are in control of the bank accounts and physical cards of the working holiday makers, they even put $5000 in the working holiday maker's bank account so that they can demonstrate they have sufficient funds for the second working holiday visa.
- The scammers advertise in community language sites and SNS services such as Facebook, KAKAOTalk, Line, WeChat, WhatsApp.
- A working holiday maker is told that they can even clear immigration just because they have an e-passport, by using e-gates. They are told that if they re-enter Australia after the visa is granted, the gates will always open for e-passport holders. They reassure the e-passport holder that they can sneak back into Australia for their second working holiday visa, and avoid having to lie to immigration just by using an an e-gate.
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