Peel police fear there may be many victims to an alleged scam targeting students working towards a higher education.
A Brampton man has been arrested, accused of launching a phony website where students would register to complete online credits in order to apply for university or college. The 28-year-old now faces fraud charges.
The name used was that of a legitimate private school "The Canadian Higher Learning Academy."
Students would pay to enroll, complete the course they registered for, and the suspect would then allegedly mail phony report cards to post-secondary application centres.
"The university and post-secondary institutions were doing fact-checking on the report cards and when they would report to the actual Canadian Higher Learning Academy, it would have no records of the students," explains Josh Colle.
Investigators don't know how far this reaches and if there are victims across the country. "One of the concerns that we have is that they're waiting for enrollment confirmation and it may not happen because they actually don't have the credits to get into these post-secondary institutions."
Sgt. Colle says the fake website has been taken down.
The actual Canadian Higher Learning Academy has posted a warning on its website "ATTENTION ALL STUDENTS: DO NOT register for our courses through any third party. Contact us at info@chlacademy.ca and only make payments online through our website. If you can not pay online and wish to pay through a certified cheque, please confirm with info@chlacademy.ca first, or call us at (905) 843-2210. Thank you."