A growing tuition scam in Canada is leaving victims with tens of thousands of dollars in fraudulent charges while exposing gaps in how banks, police, and institutions respond. In one Vancouver case, a woman was left facing more than $37,000 in unauthorized charges after scammers used her credit and debit cards to make tuition payments to a private university.

A new tuition scam emerging in Canada is leaving victims with major financial losses and raising concerns about how difficult it can be to recover stolen funds, even when the money can be traced to a specific institution.

The scheme typically targets international students by offering discounted tuition in exchange for an upfront payment. Fraudsters allegedly collect the student’s money, keep it, and then use stolen credit or debit cards to make tuition payments to a college or university. The student believes their tuition has been paid until the transaction is later flagged as fraudulent.

In one Vancouver case, Mira Burgess discovered that more than $37,000 in unauthorized transactions had been charged to her accounts. The payments appeared to have gone to University Canada West, a private university located only a short distance from her home. Burgess said she had never attended the school and initially believed that once the destination of the funds was identified, recovering the money would be straightforward. Instead, she says she spent months being redirected between her bank, the school, and police without a resolution.

According to the report, the scam began after Burgess received a phone call that appeared to come from TD Bank’s fraud department. The number had allegedly been spoofed. The caller told her there were fraudulent charges on her card and directed her to open her banking app. Burgess later learned that instead of reversing the transactions, she had unknowingly approved them.

When she contacted TD, Burgess says she was initially told the bank would try to stop the charges, but the transactions had already been processed. She later learned the payments were linked to the university, yet TD reportedly declined to request a chargeback, taking the position that she had helped facilitate the fraud. University Canada West, meanwhile, said it could not return the money without a chargeback request from the bank. Burgess also said police offered little assistance, telling her the case would be difficult to investigate.

Consumer protection lawyer Anique Dublin said victims in situations like this are often left with few practical options beyond hiring legal counsel. She argued that banks should be cautious about placing responsibility on customers when they have already acknowledged that the customer was deceived through a scam.

The problem does not appear to be isolated. Similar tuition fraud cases have been reported in Regina, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa, and Nanaimo. In Regina, police warned that victims had collectively lost more than $125,000. Another victim in British Columbia said fraudsters placed nearly $22,000 in charges on his cards through payments connected to the University of Calgary and Fleming College.

The case has also renewed calls for stronger consumer protections. NDP MP Don Davies recently pushed for changes to the Bank Act that would make banks liable for fraud losses except in cases where customers were proven to be grossly negligent. Similar protections already exist in the United Kingdom. Those proposed amendments, however, were voted down by Liberal and Conservative members of the finance committee.

After media inquiries were made, TD Bank told Burgess it would reverse the charges as a one-time goodwill gesture. Burgess said she was relieved to no longer face the debt, but wanted to speak publicly so that others would be aware of the scam and better prepared to recognize it.

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Originally published on Canadian Fraud News.