Applicants and students at UK institutions may be targeted scam run by individuals or a group.
It's important to be aware of the types of scams being run.
Examples of scams
You may be contacted by a person or organisation who is offering to pay for your Tier 4 Visa, Tuition Fee Deposit or Tuition Fees at a discounted rate, and in return will be asked to pay the fraudsters directly for this service. This could be advertised as either a one-off discount or an extremely generous exchange rate.
The payments these fraudsters make for fees will be made via compromised card details which are later recalled by the original card holder as a charge back, leaving the applicant or student with an outstanding amount as well as the loss of money paid to the scammers. You may be shown a receipt or asked to log into your portal as evidence of payment however once the payment is recalled this proof of payment is no longer valid.
Please always use a trusted source when making payment.
Imperial College London’s preferred payment methods can be found on our How to pay page.
If you have any questions about this scam, or suspect you may have been targeted, please contact our Accounts Receivable team at studentpay.queries@imperial.ac.uk.
Imperial College has been made aware of a new scam targeting our students. This involves a fraudulent invoice from an email address similar to ours (e.g. imperiai.ac.uk with a capital "i" instead of "l" at the end of "imperiai") being issued with different bank details to our own.
If possible, please pay by card or e-payment, or if you need to pay by bank transfer, always validate the details against our How to pay page first or contact studentpay.queries@imperial.ac.uk for confirmation.
Please visit our Visa and Immigrations Scam page for further examples of fraud that can impact all students.
