Maryam Shahi: registration cancelled by OMARA on 18 Dec 2018

What the Authority decided

On 18 December 2018, the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority (the Authority) decided to cancel the registration of migration agent Ms Maryam Shahi (MARN 9895630) for a period for five years. Following the Authority’s investigation into eight complaints, the Authority was satisfied that the Agent had breached clauses 2.1, 2.4, 2.8, 2.23, 5.5, 6.1, 6.1A, 6.3, 7.2, 9.1, 9.3 and 10.6 of the Code of Conduct. The Agent was found to have imposed excessive security bonds on no less than two of her clients, which were separate to, and unauthorised by the Department, failed to refund the full bond amounts to these clients, and transferred one client’s security bond of $50 000 from her clients’ account to an offshore bank account for unexplained reasons, without the client’s knowledge or permission.

The Agent was also found to have failed to render services to no less than six clients, for which she was paid, and to keep her clients fully informed of the progress of their matters, and have continued to engage new clients when she was unable to provide the same agreed services to existing clients. Further, in the case of one of these clients, the Authority was satisfied that the Agent deliberately misled her client about the services undertaken on his VETASSESS application, in order to conceal her conduct. The Agent’s conduct was found to have caused considerable financial loss to multiple clients, including her failure to repay an outstanding bond amount of $37 500 to one affected client.

The Agent failed to properly respond to complaints published to her under section 308(1) of the Act, and to demonstrate that she had maintained proper client records in relation to three complaints, and failed to respond properly to the publication of the remaining five complaints by the Authority, and attempts by the clients to terminate her services. Further, the Agent has demonstrated a failure to adopt the Authority’s previous recommendations regarding ongoing concerns with her communication practice, and has repeatedly failed to respond to the Authority and client attempts to contact her. In doing so, the Authority was satisfied that the Agent demonstrated a disregard for the migration regulatory scheme, and her client’s interests, posed a serious and ongoing risk to consumers, and was not a person of integrity, or otherwise not a fit and proper person to give immigration assistance.

An abridged version of the Authority’s decision can be accessed below. Personal details have been removed in the interests of protecting the privacy of the persons involved. On 14 January 2019, the Agent applied to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of the cancellation decision.

The decision summary above is reproduced from the Authority's published record of this decision, which also carries the decision document itself. Nothing has been added to it.

What a cancellation means if this was your agent

The registration is removed. The agent's name comes off the Register of Migration Agents and they may not give immigration assistance. A cancellation is usually accompanied by a period during which the person may not be registered again.

Nobody is acting on your matter right now. Treat this as urgent, and start with who the Department is writing to.

If this was your agent: the first week

1. Find out where your application actually is. If you have an ImmiAccount, log in. The clock does not stop because your representation did.
2. Check who the Department is writing to. A Form 956 makes an agent the authorised recipient, and correspondence sent to them is taken to have been given to you. A deadline sent to an inbox nobody reads is still a deadline.
3. Get your file. Your documents are yours and the Code requires them back — originals first. How to get your file back.
4. Work out what was paid and what was done. Ask for the itemised invoices and receipts the Code requires. Routes to recover money work better started early.
5. Complain, if there is something to complain about. A published decision does not close your own file. Where to complain, and what OMARA can and cannot do.
6. Only then, find someone else. A new agent needs the file and the dates. The first five steps are what make that first conversation useful instead of exploratory.

What this decision does not mean

It is a decision about one individual on one date. Only a person can be a registered migration agent — a company cannot — so it says nothing about anyone else at the same practice. Decisions of this kind are reviewable, and bars and suspensions expire. The register is where the current position lives.

Decision information sourced from the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority and used under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence. VisaBid is not affiliated with OMARA or the Department of Home Affairs.