RRU Student Services and IT Security are reaching out to you to let you know about a recent incident that affected someone in our community, and to provide you with some guidance in case you find yourself in a similar situation.

Here’s what happened:

A recent RRU graduate received a phone call from someone who claimed to be a “Correctional Officer” from Abbotsford BC.  This person tried to convince our graduate that some of their documentation was “incomplete” and then started to pressure our graduate to resubmit documentation to him.  Next, our graduate received a phone call from someone pretending to be an RRU Associate Faculty member, who stated that the required documents had never been received by RRU and this was going to affect the graduate’s ability to attend convocation.   Both individuals were putting great pressure on our graduate to resubmit information to them.

Fortunately, in this case the individual involved reached out to the Student Services who were able to provide assistance.

Sadly, this is one of numerous scam phone calls being made by criminals who are trying to steal identities or blackmail international students.  They are counting on international students who are not familiar with Canadian processes and laws not wanting to get in trouble with our authorities.

What can you do?  Here are a few tips from the Canadian Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship website:

  • IRCC will NOT telephone you to collect money or to make payments.  If you receive such a call, hang up.
  • Do not provide credit card numbers or banking information over the phone
  • Be very, very careful about providing personal information over the phone.  The best plan is to:
    • Ask for the name and number of the agent;
    • Call the IRCC Call Centre to confirm the identity of the agent.  Their phone number is: 1-888-242-2100
  • Check out: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/protect-fraud/internet-email-telephone.html  for more information.

If you’re still not sure, please reach out to  Student Services at: studentservices@royalroads.ca

Finally, please be very careful about what you post on social media.  Cyber criminals will browse social media looking for people who are potentially vulnerable who have included too much personal information in their posts.  Make sure you have appropriate security controls set on all of your online accounts and that you don’t post any personal information.

We’ve included a poster from IRCC that has some additional tips about avoiding immigration fraud.