Scam Alert: Fake Immigration Officials Claim Student Visa Problems and Demand Visa Security Deposits

Recently, scammers in the community have invented a new script called the "visa security deposit," targeting international students and their parents. We recommend that all international students and their families get a heads-up in advance.

The script goes like this: a child is studying abroad, and the parents suddenly receive contact from the "immigration office" or the university's "international student office," saying that the visa is under review or that a visa/status extension needs to be processed, and asking the parents to prepare proof of funds. Then that money is supposed to be wired overseas, on the grounds that the parents' RMB deposit certificate from back home won't work—it needs to be money "in the student's own name." (After this step, the same script or a different one can be used to get the child to transfer the money they received. Some international students genuinely can't tell whether it's the real immigration office or a fake one. If the student is sharp enough not to take the bait, the scammers can just target the parents alone, and there's still a chance the parents will send money to the "immigration office" or some agent/lawyer.)

If the parents happen to be unable to reach the student at that moment—for example, the student isn't answering their parents' calls or has blocked them, or is simply out hiking with no signal—the scammers can also casually claim that the student has been detained by ICE, is about to be deported for an expired visa/violating visa terms, blah blah blah. At that point the parents are even more frightened and even more desperate to send money.

This script has different variants, and there have already been many cases of parents of young UK international students falling for it—the parents only realize after transferring the money that their child knew nothing about it. Cases targeting US international students have also appeared; just today I saw a parent of a UIUC student post about such a case, where the first step of the script didn't even ask for money, just a bank statement.

Fellow international students on the forum, when you have time, give your parents a heads-up: tell them that US immigration services have absolutely terrible customer service, that ICE will never proactively contact students' parents, and certainly won't proactively ask for money. Moreover, paying ICE is extremely cumbersome—you have to pay through some strange system, and even if they wanted to pay, they couldn't. Anyone who says you can pay the immigration office is a scammer.