There was a famous case in Toronto where fraud agents just sat in a coffee shop outside a language school. They approached Asian students and spoke in Korean or Japanese only. They asked students if they had signed up for the ajoining language school. They were also asked if the students had used an agent. If the students had signed directly they were made an offer that if they went back to the school and placed the fraudsters name as agent they would get a 10 or 15% refund from the fraudsters.
Agents have promised teachers overseas jobs that do not exist. Agents have promised facilities or accommodation or teaching resources that do not exist. Wages that are not paid, work visas that never appear and host of other problems.
One agent operated a fake teachers "blacklist". He placed a few known criminal schools then a few of the legitimate schools on the list. This agent was charging fees to the honest schools to be removed.
There were a couple of agents that were promising backpackers jobs as English conversation teachers. They told the backpackers that no visa or degree was required. They told the English school that they had a teacher with a work visa, degree and plane expenses. The school usually paid the agent upfront for the plane ticket, recruiting fee and expenses. On the second or third day the school would realize the "teacher" was not suitable and try to call the agent. The agent would call his friend in immigration who would arrest the backpacker and fine or close the school for using an illegal worker. This scam would net the agent half a years regular office salary. With 5,000 small language schools - there were plenty of uninformed new victims. That is also why these agents they use a different name or company name every six months.
FRAUD used by STUDENTS
The most prevalent fraud is to use the student visa as an entry into Canada to work. These fraud students take away jobs from Canadian immigrant newcomers and jobs for Canadian students. If one really looked at the reasons for Canadian student, youth and newcomer unemployment in Canada - significant culprits are the employers who use illegal workers.
Students have hired imposters to take tests for them, paid exam proctors to complete exams, bought essays from "experts" to submit as their own and bribed school officials to change their marks in the official records. The victims of this student fraud are all the honest hardworking students that were denied admission into restricted programs because their marks were not as good as the fraud students who were admitted.