CICImmigration.net

Dear All,

Please be very careful in dealing with Maple Leaf Consultants (http://www.mapleleafconsultants.com) from Lahore, Pakistan (although the website says that office is in Burnaby, BC). The company is run/owned by a man named Rizwan Wali who purports to be a certified Canadian Immigration Consultant. I had a bad experience with Rizwan Wali and his company regarding Canadian immigration. I visited him last year, in his Lahore office, for evaluation of my profile for Canadian immigration. He told me I didn’t fulfill minimum points requirement (67) and I should consider AEO (Arranged Employment Offer) scheme for moving to Canada. I asked him about charges and he told me that I would have to pay around $8,000 upfront and would have to pay $2,000 later once the job had been secured. It was a vast amount but thinking that Rizwan Wali was a professional consultant, I agreed. I paid him the requested sum and signed the agreement. Amount was paid to some Canadian based immigration firm Vick, McPhee & Liu (VML) (http://www.vicmac.com). It was mentioned in that agreement that usually job is secured between 2-3 weeks and 2-3 months. I deposited the amount in an account owned by Vick, McPhee & Liu, the company which was assigned the task of finding a job for me in Canada.

To make a long story short, months passed and nothing happened. I kept on getting assurances of Rizwan Wali and principals of VML that they were negotiating with a company for my employment and I would be able to get the job very soon.

I kept on waiting and months kept on passing. Rizwan Wali updated me very few times during those months but kept on assuring me that VML would eventually secure job for me. Eventually, after several months (almost nine) Vick, McPhee & Liu regretted and told me, via Rizwan Wali, that they were unable to secure employment for me in that particular company and would try some other company. Sensing that it was only a ploy (after witnessing their and Rizwan Wali’s unprofessional attitude during those 9 months), I requested them via Rizwan Wali to refund me my money.

VML, after five weeks of correspondence, agreed to refund the deposited sum minus $400 as “Administrative Charges”. I protested and told them that it wasn’t fair as 1) Promised services were never delivered 2) $400 Administrative Fees were NOT mentioned anywhere in the agreement. However, I was never refunded those $400. I contacted Rizwan Wali and Vick, McPhee & Liu several times for the refund of those $400 but all in vain. Both of these parties justified the deduction of those $400 while simultaneously acknowledging the fact that $400 Administrative Fees wasn’t mentioned in agreement at all.

I now believe that it was a well planned scam. Rizwan Wali and Richard McPhee (I think he is one of the partners in VML) and Eva Chow (paralegal in VML), never looked for any job for me, never contacted any company and instead only invested that sum for personal gains (perhaps this neatly explains that why they took such a long time in responding and refunding the amount even after expressing their inability to find a job for me).

I recently did some research and found out that getting money (esp in advance) from people in Canada for a job offer is not permissible. It is terrible that Rizwan Wali assured me that it was legal and a popular path adopted by potential Canadian migrants.

Please come up with your account if you have been conned by Rizwan Wali and/or Vick, McPhee & Liu or any other fraud consultant. We need to spread the word so that potential migrants don’t suffer due to such fraud consultants.