Parents cheated of RM3.5 million

KUALA LUMPUR: After paying a total of RM3.5mil to get places for their children in what they thought was Manipal University, one of the best medical universities in India, 52 parents are now in a quandary. They believe they have been conned.

In an added twist, one of the two agents and a Commissioner of Oaths, who collected the money from the parents, also turned up at a press conference organised by MCA Public Services and Complaints Department head Datuk Michael Chong to protest their innocence.

Chong said both parties were the victims of a K. Jayabalan, a businessman, who claimed to have been the university's appointed agent. The Commissioner of Oaths, a friend of Jayabalan, helped him recruit students.

Chong said the parents, who read about the offer in local English and Tamil newspapers put in by the agents, were asked to bank in the tuition fees through the agents and the Commissioner of Oaths into a bank account registered under the Manipal Academy of Higher Education Medical Educational Advisory Consultants.

“Each one of them paid a fee ranging from RM50,000 to RM200,000 for a place at the university,'' he added.

It was only when one of the agents and the Commissioner of Oaths took 23 students, accompanied by some of the parents, to register at the university in September that they found out that it was all a scam.

“They found out that all the documents, including the admission letters, were forged, when they met the registrar of the university in India,” Chong said.

Source: The Star Online