Edmonton international student warns others after losing $11K to phone scammers

A Concordia University of Edmonton student who recently lost nearly $11,000 to phone scammers says universities should better educate international students about common scams in Canada. 

Parisa Ghanbari, a 27-year-old master's student who arrived in Edmonton from Iran this fall, received a phone call on Oct. 20 from a caller who said someone had been using her Amazon account to buy electronics and open bank accounts in different countries. 

Ghanbari doesn't buy products on Amazon, but when the caller said her name was on a list of criminals, she feared being deported.

The caller told her to act immediately to clear her name, and within a few minutes, she received a call from someone else, who identified himself as a government agent. She quickly looked up the caller online and found an official-looking website (that has since been deleted) with his name and phone number.

Over the phone, the scammer pressured her to make two cash withdrawals from her bank account and deposit the money — ostensibly to verify and protect it — into a bitcoin ATM at a downtown store. The caller urged her not to talk with anyone about the transactions because she could not trust them to keep her information safe.

"I know it doesn't make sense, but at that time, I was so scared that I could believe anything because, to be honest, I don't know how things work in this country," she told CBC News Wednesday.

After she made the deposits, the caller kept her on the phone for several minutes, assuring her that everything was OK and she would soon receive her money back.

A few hours later, after discussing the incident with her roommate, she realized she had been scammed out of $10,900, which was supposed to be for her second semester's tuition.

Ghanbari recognizes all the red flags in hindsight, and even during the interactions, she suspected something was wrong, crying in the store as she scanned QR codes — but she said fear kept her from speaking out. She was also worried the call had been related to a string of threatening text messages she had received recently.

Though she was familiar with some types of scams, like phishing links, she said she had never heard of scammers purporting to be government agents and had never seen a bitcoin ATM.

Ghanbari reported the scam to police, who said nothing could be done because she deposited the money and the scammers were outside the country.

She also reported the scam to Concordia. She said the school told her about possible scholarships, gave an extension for paying her tuition and sent out a scam warning email to students. She launched a crowdfunding campaign on GoFundMe and fears she might not be able to continue her degree.

As an international student unfamiliar with systems in Canada, Ghanbari said she felt targeted by scammers and she said universities should educate students about their tactics. 

"They should tell students about this — at least send an e-mail and tell students about all the ways they can be scammed," she said.