Student loses thousands to cheque scam

A Concordia international student claims he's lost thousands of dollars in a well-documented scam.

According to CBC News, Abdul Ghaffar lost the money to a scam involving bogus cheques.

Ghaffar found a job on craigslist which called for general hone labour. The job responsibilities included cleaning a person's house while he was in the Philippines. Every week the employer sent him a cheque of which he was to deduct $300 for his salary and $200 for groceries. The remaining balance would be wired to the Phillippines.

Ghaffar found out last Wednesday that the bank had frozen the latest cheque because it had bounced. As a result they took the money out of his account and froze it.

Ghaffar's study permit doesn't allow him to work while in Canada so he looked for jobs that paid cash. The Pakistani native now faces an uphill battle to pay his tuition for next semester.

Flickr Photo by: menj