With the pandemic wreaking havoc on economies across the world and affecting the jobs and livelihoods of many, the number of those who would be exploring the possibility of migrating to Canada would increase multifold. So would be the fraudsters, who would act as immigration consultants and cheat gullible people of their money by promising that they would help them to move to Canada.
It was only recently a New Delhi-based service provider was penalized for falsely claiming that they have a representation in the ICCRC. So, if you are planning to immigrate to Canada, you need to make sure that your immigration consultant is genuine and is registered with the ICCRC.
What is ICCRC?
The Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council(ICCRC) is a national regulatory body which operates with the purpose of serving and protecting the public by overseeing regulated immigration and international student advising professionals. According to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act as well as the Citizenship Act of Canada, anyone who provides immigration or citizenship advice for a fee or any other consideration must be a member of ICCRC. The licensed immigration consultants are known as Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultants (RCICs).
How to check if an immigration consultant is genuine
ICCRC registration
One of the most effective ways to find out whether an immigration consultant is genuine or not is to check whether they have registered with the ICCRC. You may enter the RCIC’s name, registration number or the company name into the ICCRC website and find out whether they have an immigration professional page on it.
Not having a company email
Is your immigration consultant sending you mails from a mail id of a common email domain, like consultancy@gmail.com or consultancy@yahoo.com instead of something like xyz@canapprove.com, you need to suspect about the authenticity of the company.
Payment requests via a chat app
A genuine agency would never ask you for a payment through a chat app like the WhatsApp. The request for payment will be done through an official email id and you will also receive an acknowledgement and proof for your payment.
Take a closer look at the website
Fraud immigration consultants would most probably have a fake website. The domain name of the site would completely different from the actual company name. Furthermore, the domain would not be secure, indicated by a padlock icon in the URL bar.
Besides the website would not have any contact information or information about the credentials of the company or the representative. Further, the website would not be regularly updated and the content would be having a lot of spelling and grammatical errors. Sometimes, the website would also be a copy of some other website. So, when you check on an immigration consultancy, you must take a closer look at their website.
Too good to be true deals
You need to be cautious if the consultant is offering you too good to be true deals like guaranteed entry to Canada, a high-paying job and faster processing. The decision on allowing entry for a foreigner to Canada purely rests on immigration officials. So you need to be cautious before falling for these false promises.
Placing your trust on a fraud immigration consultant can cost you money, peace of mind, your career and even your future prospects of migrating to Canada. So, do a good research on the immigration consultant before choosing them. Being a registered Canada immigration consultancy service provider with more than 23 years of history in helping our clients to fulfil their immigration and overseas education dreams, CanApprove can be the right choice for you. To know more about our services and your options for Canada immigration, please connect with CanApprove now.