Former customers file complaints, lawsuits against Iranian-Canadian currency exchange
CBC
Customers of a Lower Mainland foreign currency exchange have filed lawsuits and complaints claiming they are owed tens of thousands of dollars by the business that specializes in transfers between Canada and Iran.
Coquitlam RCMP say they are investigating allegations made by clients of VanEx Currency Exchange.
Eight people have filed small claims lawsuits against the business in recent months, and clients who claim they are owed much larger amounts of money put their concerns to the head of the company in a meeting last week.
VanEx president Pouria Emadi told CBC News the company is cooperating with RCMP and said plans are underway to pay back all outstanding amounts by July — pointing to a dispute between the company’s founders and unrest in Iran as factors contributing to “operational challenges.”
But customer Sharereh Momeni says the situation has left her feeling helpless — worried she has lost the $7,600 she earned working for three months at a campground in Clearwater, B.C., to pay back money she borrowed in Tehran so she could come to Canada in the first place.
“I was so sad,” said Momeni, who sued VanEx in small claims court in December.
“I lived and worked too hard to save money and just pay back my loan to my hometown. And I trust this company, and the company is legally registered in Canada. And now I face a problem. I go to the police station, I go to the bank, I go everywhere and they don’t answer me.”
VanEx has not responded to Momeni's claim.
The current dispute follows a bitter B.C. Supreme Court battle between the two men who started VanEx in 2019 to facilitate money transfers between Iran and Canada — a process complicated by U.S. sanctions prohibiting Iran from directly accessing western financial messaging services.
Unhappy customers say they have also reached out to the province's financial services watchdog, which told CBC News the complaints would be subject to a law enacted in 2023 specifically to regulate B.C.’s money services industry — if it was in force.
Instead, more than two years after B.C.’s then-minister of finance heralded legislation appointing an overseer to “monitor the local industry and keep bad actors out,” the government says it’s still working on the details of the regulatory framework.
According to court documents, VanEx grew from just one employee to 14 over five years, earning revenues of more than $1.7 million in 2023.
But by 2024, Emadi claimed in an application to the court that differences between himself and his co-founder had left the company “deadlocked, paralyzed and unable to function.”
He ultimately obtained a court order for a so-called “shotgun” sale — a mechanism designed to force one partner to sell to another at a fair price.
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