Wesley, 23 years old, has been working as a driver to save the money to come to Australia and now all is lost - but he will come anyway, with the help pf Brazilians in Brisbane. It will just take longer.
Here the transcript of the interview, originally in Portuguese.
Brazilian students in Brisbane and Brazil, and one Portuguese man, together with hundreds of other Latin American students have been tricked in an alleged scam by the exchange agency Your Future in Australia.
Brasileiro que perdeu dinheiro com a Tu Futuro en Australia Source: Cortesia
The agency that brings Latin American students to the country is involved in a large, scandalous scam, which has been most discussed on social media.
Apparently, the owners of the agency, a couple, have disappeared from the country, having abandoned the agency at some point between Christmas and the beginning of January.
It is believed that hundreds of Latin Americans, including about 20 Brazilians and one Portuguese man married to a Brazilian woman, may have lost the money they paid the agency to obtain their Australian visas, health insurance, accommodation and enrolment in the schools.
Beatriz: Wesley Alvez Bezera is 23-year-old, from Sao Paulo. He is one of those affected by what happened with the exchange agency Tu Futuro en Australia. Please, Wesley, tell us your story.
Wesley: Well, my story is a bit sad, as you know. I planned to do a trip, an exchange, to Australia, and I organised it with an agency from Brazil, but to do it here from Brazil it was a bit expensive and I was looking for other options. I had been watching many videos by Tiago Deoti on YouTube. He started working for this agency that operates from Australia and we started to email each other. We also spoke on Skype. That’s where we organised some information. This is in, I think, around May of 2016.
We finalised my exchange plan and arranged the payments to the agency. I made them as I could – 4 payments to them. In November and December, when I was making the final payments, Tiago had already left the agency because there had been some problems and he didn’t sgree, you know, it was getting complicated. He is a good person and he didn’t want to be involved with the politics that the agency was forcing on him . So I made my last payment at the end of December and I tried to get in touch with the agency in January, after the break. On 6 January I tried to get in touch with the agency by email as the employee who had replaced Deoti had told me that I should be able to contact the owner directly, that is Stella, in early January. I sent her an email asking about my CoE (confirmation of enrolment) and I didn’t get a reply. I got in touch with Tiago again and he told me that they had fled, that he had been to the owner’s house – the owners being Julio and Stella – and they weren’t there anymore. They had literally vanished. He said that they had even blocked him on whatsapp and blocked his emails. As soon as the owner realised that I was still in Brazil, he ended up blocking me too and not writing back to my messages. So then we were left with this situation , me and many other people from Brazil and Latin America too.
Beatriz: Wesley, how much money did you pay to the exchange agency?
Wesley: Approximately $5,000 dollars.
Beatriz: Was this money also to pay for the school?
Wesley: That’s right, it was to pay for the school and the insurance. They didn’t pay any money to the school, they kept this money and they left.
Beatriz: What did you feel, Wesley?
Wesley: I was really angry. Its so hard for us to be able to do this. Me personally, I was saving for few years to get this money together to make this, it’s my dream, and then this malicious person ruins everything. But I think that they will be caught and we will somehow be reimbursed for this loss.
Beatriz: And if you are not reimbursed?
Wesley: Yes, well, then unfortunately we are going to have to swallow this loss.
Beatriz: Do you continue with your plan to come to Australia?
Wesley: Yes yes. I still have the plans, I’m not going to give up. Do you want to know why? It's not to be bad people like them who will make me give up this dream of going to Australia.
Beatriz: Where were you going to study in Brisbane?
Wesley: At Riverton, in the city of Brisbane.
Beatriz: And what do you do in Sao Paulo?
Wesley: I am working as a private driver, but I graduated from environmental studies. I am a driver now to be able to save this money more quickly, to get there as quickly as possible. But now after this problem that happened, I will have to plan a little bit more. But even so, everything will work out.
Beatriz: And are you in touch with other people who were clients with Tu Futuro en Australia?
Wesley: We have a Whatsapp group where we share a lot of information, even Tiago is in this group. And I would like to highlight Tiago’s efforts. He really helped us a lot when he didn’t need to. He could have just dropped us. He didn’t have any connection with the agency, he only worked there, he wasn’t the owner of the agency. He could have dropped us and moved on with his life. But in terms of helping us, he’s been a great support.
Beatriz: Wesley Alves Bezerra, from Sao Paulo, thank you for speaking with us today, we will be in touch as this unfolds.
Wesley: Thank you, bye bye.
Ouça aqui a entrevista com Weslei.
