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Imagine leaving a different country with no knowledge of the place you are going to other than the location you are headed to and the school you are attending. Now imagine after four years of attending this instittution you have made friends who are like family to you, and you have grown to love the place you are at and have even been offered a job there. This is how Kim Nelson felt after graduating from Grand View and being offered a job from Meredith Corporation as an at-home graphic designer. This was until she found out she was being scammed and robbed for more than six thousand dollars. 

In order for an international applicant, who is not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident of the U.S., to be enrolled in a school system, they must first obtain a U.S. student visa. A student visa allows the applicant the opportunity to take classes and be a part-time citizen of the United States while they attend school. This process can only be approved after the applicant has applied and been accepted to a school that is a Student Exchange and Visitor Program approved school. There are three different types of visas that can be obtained: an F-1 Visa, an M-1 Visa and a J-1 Visa, which all fall under different categories and show specific reasons why that particular person is in the U.S. For international students, they must apply for an F-1 visa, which applies to all people who are looking to attend a high school, college/university or language program. 

“My parents really pushed me to handle a lot of the process on my own, and for a 17-year-old kid who had just gotten a scholarship to play golf in the United States and then also having to figure out this whole process on my own was pretty difficult and stressful,” Nelson said.

Nelson not only had to set up an online account but also an appointment at the U.S. embassy located in West Malaysia, which was a 2.5 hour flight from her home in east Malaysia. The process then took another two weeks for Nelson to find out that she had been granted the visa. 

After obtaining a student visa, most students are in the clear as long as they stay in school and are abiding by the rules of their visa, however, the next mountain they have to climb is finding a place to work after graduating. 

 Most international students are given a couple options after graduating to stay in the states if they choose to work. The first option is called Optional Practical Training (OPT), which is used for short-term stay, usually one to three years. This authorization is granted by the U.S. immigration authorities and allows students to work short term in their field of study as an extension of their already-granted student visa. This can also be given to a student for every new year they obtain another degree, which can broaden their career field while also getting more time to work in the states. However, this process is a long one and can take months to be approved and leaves students having to apply for jobs before even knowing if they have been granted their OPT. 

The other option students can be granted is an H-1B visa or a work sponsor visa. This allows the student to be sponsored by a company that allows them to work for up to six years in the U.S. This process is an even longer one; however, due to the waitlist that you are put on in order to obtain this type of permit. The U.S. only allows up to 50,000 work visas to be granted to foreign workers each year which makes the probability of being hired right out of college lower and highly unlikely. 

“I applied for my OPT in March of 2019 and didn’t get granted the approval until July,” Nelson said. “So I was applying for jobs while still waiting for my approval, which sucked because I had employers asking me when I could start and I couldn’t answer it because I had no idea if I would even still be in America in July.”

Along with all these other hoops and hurdles to overcome, international students also have to be aware of scam artists. Many international students are targeted for scams and can be tricked into giving away hundreds and even thousands of dollars. Scams can be in the form of fake immigration officers threatening deportation in return for cash or as Kim Nelson discovered, even the job listings that are shown on regular, everyday career websites such as Job Search or Indeed can be scams.

Nelson was scammed after being given a false check from the fake employers impersinating supervisors from Meredith Corporation who gave her the check in order to buy supplies for the job they were hiring her for. 

“The supervisors sent me a $6,000 check to buy a list of supplies that I would need for my job and told me that I would need to take money orders out in order to pay the vendors to deliver my supplies,” Nelson said. “When I went to get the money orders out, the workers at Hy-Vee told me that I was only allowed to take $1,900 worth of money orders. After talking with my fake supervisors, they told me to take out cash from my bank (Wells Fargo), send them pictures of the slip I was given and the money and to bank that money into their business bank (Bank of America) using the account name and routing number they had given me.”

What Nelson didn’t know was that this was a typical scam used to steal money out of your account. She did not realize that this was already a pre-planned operation and that she was intentionally led toward the money orders as a first option in order to get her to use the bank as a second option. Scammers use these fake checks along with believable stories that support the reason why they are giving you the money, in this case to buy supplies. They will ask the person to deposit a check usually for a few thousand dollars and usually for more than what you are owed, then wire some money back to that person. However, once the bank realizes the check is bad and it bounces, the scammer already has the money out of your account — leaving you to pay the bank back the money they stole. This is exactly what happened to Kim. 

Alex Piedras is the director of community outreach program and also the international student advisor at GV. His job is to not only advise these students through school but also to help guide them through their process of being in the state before, during and after they have graduated. He can also attest to the challenges that these students have to face and said he is heartbroken after hearing about Nelson’s story. 

“To be honest this is the first time one of these types of situations has happened to an international student here at Grand View,” Piedras said. “It hurts me to know that this happened to Kim and has helped to educate me because I never really thought to address these types of situations with these students. I am definitley making an effort to educate not only the students on these types of dangers but also myself. We have orientation every year and this will defintley be a subject I will address in this meeting and also something I will address again with students preparing to graduate.”

For now, Nelson continues her search for visa sponsorship and a chance to stay in the U.S. Recently, Nelson had an interview at KCCI for a photo reporter position, and she is waiting to hear back from them on whether or not she got the job. She is now on a work permit that gives her a year after graduation to get some type of training or experience, and her unemployment is up at the end of October.